The fog

I'm chatting with a collegue who's lived his life entirely in Newfoundland:

"Well when I was young, when you were datin' a girl, your parents always wanted to know the last name. And once you told them her last name they wanted to know how she spelled it out. And that made all the difference. If you were dating a girl with the name spelled Brown it mean she was a catholic. And if it was spelled Browne with an "e" she was protestant. And you couldn't cross that line. Most towns were split like that. You had a main road. Down one side the catholics and their schools and churches. And the Protestants had their sides. Towns were carved up.

A day later, I hail a taxi:

"This is your first time in Newfoundland, eh?" says the cab driver. He's steering the car on Portugal Cove Road, towords the harbour, towords downtown. The sky is grey, the air is cold. Fog hangs just above the spinly spruce trees lining the road on a bed of dark brown rock. Rock everywhere.

"Yep, first time."
"Where you's from?"
"Toronto."
"Oh, toronto. It's a good place here. We don't have crime. No drive by shootings, no problems with gangs. You can leave your kids in the park and you dont have to watch them cuz you don't have to worry that no one's watching them if you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean."
"We don't have racial problems here. Most of it's 99% white here. So none of that. Most people are from England or Ireland. Just catholics and protestants. And everyone gets along. My family been here since for hundreds of years. Fishing. My great great great grandfather was a book keeper for the fishermen see."
"Ah."
"And right over there, that's the Confederation Building where Danny Williams spends most of his time anyway..." the cab make brief stops at the intersections into town. No freeway to downtown here. Just roads.
"Ok."

"And we don't have smog here in Newfoundland. The air is nice and clean so you's can breathe it in and not worry it's gonna kill you."
"But you have fog."
"That we do." he says, "That we do."

The Fog and the rock

View from signal hill, St. John's Newfoundland & Labrador. While the rest of the country enjoys the spring - the warm weather has been trapped in someone's net somewhere far far offshore.

I almost died for this photo

The sun was about to set over PEI... I leave Highway 1 and turn onto the side roads to capture some landscapes at dusk. This province has beautiful vistas of red earth, white clapboard farm houses and the sea in every direction. However, the roads are terrible. Off the main highways, I find myself on a cracked stretch of pavement that passes along an old dead farmhouse and barn. I see it in the picture above from the distance; I want it. But the pavement ends and the mud starts. At first, the car moved unsteadily, grunting and gliding over the soft ground. I picked up speed so I would have enough momentum to mush through the thick patches. But the car slowed and slowed, the wheels became less responsive. I saw the fields were underwater ahead. I should probably turn back, said my better judgment. I pressed on.

Ten meters further, the car stops. The wheels spun uselessly. Flecks of red mud freckle the side of my green Ford Focus. I press the pedal to the metal. I smell something burning. I slam the car into reverse, then into forward gear. The engine is humming and grunting. Wheels sink in deeper. Oh fuck fuck FUCK. I'm in the middle of a muddy potato field in my Toronto clothes in an otherwise spotless car filled with thousands of dollars of video equipment. There is not a branch in sight to help pry me out. Just a farmhouse in the distance. The sun is setting. I try again. The car revs and revs, screeching in pain. The car moves slowly back, then halts again. I move forward a few inches and back again, advancing like soldiers in the mud of Dieppe - millimeters at a time.

I consider getting out and flagging help from that farmhouse way in the distance; though, I was certain I could get eaten by dogs (a few had chased my car earlier). Thank god this is a rental. Thank god I'm on an island. I can't get too lost. My body will be easy to find.

The car is now moving toward the side of the road, it wants to get into the thicker mud. I change course. Every inch that I make backwards my heart quickens. Half an hour has passed. The engine is hot. The gas is running out. Finally, I turn the car slightly. The tires grab at the grass. The smoke abides. Now I am going fast fast fast in reverse, I don’t stop till I hit the pavement again. I put the music back on and scan my camera to make sure the photo was worth all that.

The Big Red

The sun was about to set over Prince Edward Island, smelting the clouds on the horizon. With the snow gone and the spring wafting in from the south, the great red mud has begun to thicken and settle. The farmers move their John Deere tractors to flip and toss the thick muck to make ready for the potatoes. You can smell the sea, just over those hills.

View from the top of the world...

...in Moncton.

Taking the Subway in Moncton

It's 11 p.m. when I step onto Main Street.

"Hey man, where can I get something to eat?" I ask.

I'm speaking to a man on a bike with no brakes, so he drags his feet to stop. He's got no teeth, he's drunk and has an eyebrow ring.

"Oh Subway's open"
"Thanks."

I walk. Under the railway bridge.

I come upon a small gathering of street Hippies. Two are kneeling a playing bongos. A girl with blond dreads strums on a stick-covered guitar and sings a song I don't know. Another girl in a big wool sweater is dancing with a Subway soda cup in her hand. A black guy in a turban is watching.

"Know where I can get a meal at this hour?"
"Subway's open."

I keep walking. I leave the sound of the hippies on guitar, only to find a bar where a man is on guitar. He's playing hotel california by The Eagles. Their kitchen is open. I take a seat by the window. It's now 12 midnight. Outside, across the screet I see Subway Sandwiches.

Audition Video

Here's a small video I cut while I waited for my plane to leave the edmonton airport; it features some of the people trying out for Dragons' Den.

The red mile, Calgary

"Get to the net, fuck!"
"Shoot it, fuck!"
"Where's the goddam defence, fuck!"
"It hit the post, fuck."
"That was total interference, that ref sucks, fuck."

I'm standing in a massive movie theatre that has been recently converted into a bar dedicated entirely to The Calgary Flames. Image a cinema where the seats have been replaced with tables, chairs and flat scren TVs and projection screens blanket every wall. LED panels run animations of flames. From the cieling hang Calgary Flames logos. There are 1,200 people around me in red jerseys shoulding every time the puck crosses the blue line of the Red Wings Zone. During commercial breaks the MC gives away Flames jerseys. Outside, there are three cop vans waiting to pick up rioters.

I'm wearing a blue shirt, standing there watching the crowd watch the game. I have never seen a bar so big dedicated to one team playing one sport.

"You're not a leafs fan are you?"
"Don't tell anyone."
"Oh, I'm from Ontario. Your secret is the safe with me."

I am tired of staying in Hotels

Edmonton in the news

Will fizz create a buzz among Dragons' Den producers?

Elizabeth Withey
The Edmonton Journal

Thursday, April 19, 2007

EDMONTON - Bob Hillyer hopes a glass of bubbly will douse the dragons' fiery breath.
The electrical engineer from Spruce Grove pitched his carbonation device at CBC Edmonton headquarters Wednesday during auditions for the second season of Dragons' Den, a show-and-tell program for aspiring Canadian entrepreneurs who need the capital to back their ideas or inventions. Business-savvy "dragons" listen to their pitches and decide whether or not they're willing to invest. The new season starts in October.

Hillyer, 31, is confident The Soda Shaker has gas. He came up with the idea in France when he got a hankering for root beer, but couldn't find it in stores. He remembered -- from science class in junior high -- that vinegar and baking soda make carbon dioxide.

The Soda Shaker is little more than a tube connecting two pop bottles. One bottle contains vinegar and baking soda, along with a perforated plastic tube to control the chemical reaction, and the other bottle holds the beverage. Shaking forces CO2 gas from the first bottle into the second and voila! a fizzy drink.

Hillyer says his creation will carbonate any liquid -- from fruit juice and tea to pre-set Jell-O.
"It looks like Jell-O, but when you put it in your mouth, the sparkle bursts on your tongue," he says. "And you can't buy that in the stores."

The invention is available in a couple of Edmonton shops for less than $10, but Hillyer wants The Soda Shaker to reach the carbonation-craving masses. It's cheap, educational for kids and best of all, easy, he says.

"Anyone can invent something complicated," Hillyer said. "The real challenge in inventing is to make it really simple and foolproof."

The engineer hopes success on Dragons' Den will give him the ticket to "break free of the shackles of employment" and work full time as an inventor.

It's those big dreams that make Dragons' Den so compelling, producer Mike Armitage says, adding that Alberta's capital city is a hotbed of good ideas. Last year, one in five Edmontonians who auditioned made it onto the show.

"There's a lot more than oil in Edmonton," Armitage said Wednesday.

Indeed. There is carbonated oil.

I am a weather maker

From Halifax, under heavy wind and rain, arrive in Ottawa where there was a major winter storm, then into Edmonton where days of sunshine turned into heavy downpours, then to Calgary where 20-degree weather changed to a snowfall warning as I boared my very delayed plane. Now all the cities I have left are enjoying sunshine! Calgary is expecting 10 centimetres of snow. Watch out Toronto, I am back on Sunday. Don't put away those winter coats.

It's the East Coast Way

I run to the closest bar near the hotel on Argyle Street. Since I am alone, I sit at the bar and drink a few beers and eat a mediocre scallop dish with too much cream sauce. Despite the weater, the place is packed. There's a band. Large groups of people sitting around tables. And this is a Monday night. Within an hour I am sitting at a table talking to some nice folks, one of whom happens to be the 3-time National Campion Oyster Shucker. Go figure.

I am also enjoying a wonderful bitter beer brewed locally by The Propellar Brewing Company. On the back I read the caption below a faded photo of an old man:

JOHN PATCH (1781-1861) From Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, John Patch developed the first marine screw propeller. But others made money from his inventive genius and Patch died in poverty.

"That's the East Coast Way," laughed my bartender.

Lost Baggage

I have four bags at the airport, two of them very fragile. I check them into the special packages counter and board the plane. As we are pulling back from the gate there is a loud thud and the plane stops moving. Everyone looks out the window. The flight attendants have just started into the safety procedure video and stare ahead without blinking, even though everyone is wondering if we've crashed into something.

The video finishes, the pilot comes on over the intercom and explains the towing machine broke and the plane needs to be inspected. There will be slight delay. He also announces that we are carrying the remains of of a dead Canadian soldier who was recently killed in Afghanistan. We are repatriating him to his home in Halifax. Somewhere below me, under the deck, is a dead man. It would also explain why there are troops in uniform sitting in first class.

"We're very proud of his bravery..." said the pilot.

We land in Halifax. A massive storm has overtaken the airport with gusts of wind and rain lashing the side of the plane. The fog hangs low over the soaked trees and countryside. I wait for my bagge to arrive but it never does. I watch the same bags make endless loops on the belt until I am told my bags are somewhere between Halifax and Toronto. I am wondering if there are more bags missing. And I can't spot the soldiers that were on board anywhere. I hope they haven't lost their cargo.

Facebook, schmasebook

So I now have a Facebook account. It's my latest social networking addiction. First there was Friendster, then MySpace, and now Face book. It's always fun at first to collect names of people from your past like baseball cards. You can read about their favourite movies and hobbies and if they are single. But after a while you realize that you didn't talk to most of these people for a reason. But getting a new friend added to your list is like a hit, a small tiny thrill.

Back on the road!

 

I'll be on the road for the next while doing auditions for the second season of Dragons' Den. From Halifax to Edmonton and everywhere in between. You can come visit me if you're in one of these cities www.cbc.ca/dragonsden

Art in the Hammer

 

We had rare acess to a car on Saturday. We chose to go to Hamilton, better known as The Hammer. For those unfamiliar with Hamilton, it's known for it's steel mills that spew smoke of all colours into its skyline. At the far end of Lake Ontario, it's often known as the armpit of the province. Of Canada even. But over the years, I've heard rumours of a thriving art scene that has been nurtured by the vacant buildings, cheap rent and relative closeness to Toronto. Unfortunately, we found none of it. Most galleries were closed. Shops were boarded up. Seemed like everyone had a black eye and a dangling earring. As for art we didn't see it on gallery walls - instead it was the town itself.