Remind me again how it is that Ontario produces such great wines?
By Jessica Allen - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - 0 Comments
Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty
Last week, I spent American Thanksgiving with friends in Washington D.C. They’re enthusiastic wine drinkers and the last time they visited this side of the border they couldn’t contain their excitement over a variety of Niagara wines they’d enjoyed. So, I brought along a couple to share.
They did not disappoint. But I did: when they asked me how it’s possible that cold Ontario could produce such standouts, I babbled on about Southern Ontario being on the same latitude as Northern California, so, you know, there’s that. Eyebrows were raised, and we all returned to our glasses of baco noir.
When award-winning wine writer Natalie Maclean published the winners of the Southern Ontario Sommelier Association’s awards for the best Ontario wines on her website recently, I reasoned that she’d be much better suited than I am to articulate how places such as Niagara, the North Shore of Lake Erie and Prince Edward County provide perfect terroirs for particular varietals.
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New sanctions threatens the future of longboarding in B.C.
By Richard Warnica - Thursday, March 29, 2012 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments
The sport doesn’t sit well with everyone who lives in Vancouver’s North Shore
Rayne Longboards
Vancouver’s North Shore is the closest thing Canada has to Orange County, Calif. Split from the downtown by the Burrard Inlet and bordered on three sides by mountains and water, the suburbs it contains are worlds unto themselves. At once wealthy, WASPy and uptight, they are also conversely laid back and sporty. It’s the kind of place where you might get called “bro” by a banker’s son on a mountain bike, or yelled at by a cast member from the Real Housewives of Vancouver (one of whom owns four houses in a gated community on the shore).
Along with Laguna Beach in Orange County, and Adelaide, Australia, the North Shore is also a global centre for the burgeoning sport of longboarding. And that doesn’t sit well with everyone who lives there. An increasingly heated dispute between longboarders and their foes boiled over in the district of North Vancouver in recent months, exposing the central tension in North Shore life. The culture there is essentially conservative, but it’s also touched by a freewheeling love of outdoor sport. And, as the longboarding battle has shown, the two aspects of shore life don’t always coexist well.
Longboards look like oversized skateboards. But with broader bases and bigger wheels, they’re easier to ride and better for longer trips. Les Robertson, the marketing and sponsorship manager at Rayne Longboards in North Vancouver, breaks down users into three groups: transporters, who treat their boards almost like bicycles; sliders, who do tricks; and downhill racers.
