Category: Toronto

The Don Valley Art Club (65th Yr) Spring Art Show and Sale of New, Unique, Original Artworks April 24 to May 5, 2013 Come and Celebrate our 65th Anniversary, bring your friends and support your neighbourhood artists!!! Opening Reception Sunday April 28, 2013 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Show Dates and Hours April 24 to May 5, 2013 Noon to 4:00 p.m. (Closed Monday and Tuesday) The Papermill Gallery Todmorden Mills Heritage Site 67 Pottery Road Toronto, ON M4K 2B9 For further information Visit our website: www.donvalleyartclub.com FREE ADMISSION FREE PARKING Call Todmorden Mills Heritage Site: 416-396-2819 The art show […]

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Toronto is one of the many North American cities experiencing a sort of Renaissance in quality beer, especially from local producers. A few suggestions of places to go to find it: Harbord House, Harbord Street (north side) between Brunswick and Major Streets. This is one of my favourite pubs. It occupies a two-story house on Harbord that was formerly occupied by a very mediocre frat pub called Rowers. The new occupants are a very different story — a genuinely good pub where you can get good food and beer for very reasonable prices. Their beer list is not ultra-long — […]

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It’s surprising what changes 5 years can bring for a former Torontonian.  The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, affectionately called the ROM, has expanded and offers many hours of learning.  I recently paid a visit to the ROM with my 10 year old daughter and 4 year old son.  We arrived mid morning on a hot, sticky July day and discovered for those of you who haven’t been to the ROM in a while that the main entrance is on Bloor St. around the corner from its old entrance on Queen’s Park. Currently the ROM has a special exhibition “Ultimate […]

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The Toronto Zoo is huge.  I remember its hugeness from the time when I visited in 1974, shortly after it opened.  I was a kid and felt overwhelmed by the place.  It was a time when zoos were changing from cages to enclosures.  All the animals from the old Riverdale Zoo were in the iron bar cages you see in old movies.  I remember a poor tiger pacing back and forth. In July 2012, I brought my kids to the Toronto Zoo and they were faced with the same massive size and a new treat:  really hot weather.  My kids […]

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Hamilton is all too frequently missed on the drive from Toronto to Niagara Falls or vice versa. While it once was a city with serious air pollution, a virtually inaccessible waterfront and lots of heavy industry, it now has clean air, a beautiful park on Hamilton harbour in Burlington Bay and the steel mills are not the massive polluters that they once were. So leave the Queen Elizabeth Highway and have a visit. There is much to see. Here are a few recommendations. The Royal Botanical Gardens Hamilton’s great glory are the Royal Botanical Gardens. Hamilton should really be called […]

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Toronto is Canada’s largest city so it can feel crowded, especially when you add in the thousands of tourists who visit every day! Finding a place that you can get away from it all may seem like a challenge, but if you catch a ferry and head out to the Toronto Islands the relaxing atmosphere of this family friendly place feels like a different world! What and Where are the Toronto Islands? The Toronto Islands is a small chain of islands just a little way off the shore of downtown Toronto. Covering an area of about 570 acres between them, […]

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There’s a place in Toronto that’s now quite inconspicuous and easy to miss from the street, yet it’s where the city of Toronto began in the year 1793. This place is Fort York and it’s situated just west of downtown Toronto, beneath the elevated Gardiner Expressway, in a location that was once, believe it or not, the lakefront! Today several hundred metres separate Fort York from Lake Ontario thanks to land reclamation, and that’s why this important historic site seems to be in such an odd location! History of Fort York The famous Lieutenant Governor, John Graves Simcoe, gave the […]

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Beer was first introduced to Canada by seventeenth century European settlers, and until Prohibition reared its tea-totalling head, Canadian citizens enjoyed delicious frothy brew with meals and at celebrations, and exported it for other nations to savour. Despite a number of laws that forbade citizens from drinking, the government did allow several exceptions, with wineries being exempted from closure, and with a number of distilleries and breweries remaining open to support the export market. A few of these survived until Prohibition ended, and during the late twentieth century, a number of new breweries began producing quality beers of all kinds. […]

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From Amherstburg (near Windsor) to Vaughan, Ontario is home to a growing number of wineries. Whether you plan to simply pop in to pick up a few bottles to add to your home collection, or if you love nothing more than enjoying a few leisurely glasses of wine on a sun-drenched afternoon, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy visiting Ontario’s wineries. Here are a few favourites – some large, and some small. Colio Estate Wines Home of the famous Girls’ Night Out wines and many other fantastic selections, Colio Estate Wines was established in 1980. Today, the winery boasts more than 2.4 million […]

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Sailing on the Great Lakes has been a tradition for well over a century. Whether you long to enjoy a tall ship cruise, complete with the sound of crisp sails snapping in the wind, or if you prefer to ride aboard a historic paddle steamer or a modern motor yacht, you can do just that. Let’s spend a few minutes enjoying a closer look at some of Toronto‘s best Great Lakes cruises. Tall Ship Cruises Straight off the pages of history, the tall ship Kajama is one of Toronto Harbour’s most prized vessels. 165 feet long, and equipped with triple […]

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