Maple Lake Ontario

‘The hockey gold medal has come home, where it belongs’

Ξ March 1st, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Photography, United States, canada, events, news, winter |

Sidney Crosby wins gold for Canada. (Photo credit: Doug Mills/New York Times)

The depth and breadth of hockey’s place in Canadian culture can be hard to fathom beyond the borders. But it now might be heard, echoing from the north, thanks to a 3-2 overtime victory over the United States in the final event of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

To hear Canadians tell it, the hockey gold medal has come home, where it belongs.

Canada did not win as many medals as it had hoped at these Olympics, which closed on Sunday night, but it won more golds (14) than any country in history. The last, an emphatic exclamation point on the 2010 Vancouver Games, will be collectively cherished more than any other.

This, after all, is a country whose $5 bill has a scene of children playing hockey on a pond, with a quotation from the short story “The Hockey Sweater,” by Roch Carrier:

“The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places — the school, the church and the skating rink — but our real life was on the skating rink.”

Hockey, the Canadian poet Richard Harrison once said, “is the national id.”

Continue reading this article at the The New York Times.

Roberto Luongo w/ victory flag (Photo credit :NYTimes/Stalknecht)

Team Canada Olympic hockey team wins gold/ Photo credit: Doug Mills, NY Times

It is really hard not to gloat.

The men I live with were rather smug about Canada’s loss to the U.S. earlier in the competition. They felt quite sure that the US had a lock on the gold.

There was never a doubt in my mind that Canada would take home the hockey gold. The world’s record 14 gold medals  for Canada is the fudgey chocolate icing on my Nanaimo bar.

Ontario Cup Races at the Haliburton Nordic Ski Club February 27-28, 2010

Ξ February 23rd, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Haliburton, Haliburton Highlands, NON paid Post, Ontario, Photography, Trails, canada, cottage country, events, family, fun activity, winter |

Photo: http://www.xcottawa.ca/articles.php?id=356

Each winter a series of races take place in locations throughout Ontario that collectively form the Ontario Cup series.

Each district of Cross Country Ontario hosts a race at one of it’s member club sites.

Races typically run on weekends with Saturday races being of the ‘Classic’ style and Sunday races being of the ‘Free’ or ‘Skate’ style.

There are age categories for the participants in each race that may include midget-aged boys and girls, juvenile aged boys and girls, junior aged boys and girls, junior aged men and women, and senior men and women.

Points are awarded based on finish results of each race. These points are used to as selection criteria for high performance team selections and awards.

This winter, Southern Ontario District is proud to support two Ontario Cup races. On January 16 & 17, Arrowhead Nordic and the community of Huntsville will be hosted the Ontario Winter Games. Ontario Cup #2 took place that weekend.

On the weekend of February 27 & 28, Haliburton Nordic Ski Club will host Ontario Cup #5. Both events promise to be a great showcasing of Nordic skiing in southern Ontario. Take the opportunity to go and watch, participate, or volunteer to help out.

Glebe Park Haliburton
Contact: County Visitor Info Centre
Tel: 705-286-1777 or 1-800-461-7677,
Email: tourism@county.haliburton.on.ca

This is a non-sponsored post in support of the Haliburton Highlands.

Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir Win Ice Dance Olympic GOLD

Ξ February 23rd, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Ontario, Photography, canada, events, winter |

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir win freedance Olympic Gold for Canada 2.22.10

VANCOUVER — Theirs has long been an almost uncanny alchemy — great parts platonic love and respect — and on Monday the mix was potent enough to transform a beautiful 14-year partnership and endless personal sacrifices into an Olympic gold medal.

It wasn’t so much magic on a grand scale, because implying sleight of hand or smoke and mirrors would not do justice to the intricate, romantic free dance program that sent Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir flying to the top of the podium at Pacific Coliseum. Quite simply, their heartfelt performance and technical mastery over ice dancing’s ever more difficult elements — the lifts and spins and twizzles — set the bar too high even for their young friends and training mates, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who settled into silver, a rather distant six points behind.

“What a night, what a week for us,” said Moir. “We knew it was in us, but to get out there on the Olympic ice and perform, and execute like that; it’s a feeling that I’ve never had.”

“It was just about skating together and skating from our hearts and enjoying the moment for us and skating for the two of us,” said Virtue. “We’re so proud to be Canadian and do it for the nation. This is absolutely Canada’s medal.”

Continue reading this story: SOURCE

Scott Weir & Tessa Virtue win Olympic Gold for Canada - 2.22.2010

Moguls Skier Alexandre Bilodeau Snags 1st Canadian Gold At 2010 Vancouver Olympics

Ξ February 15th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Photography, events, family, health/happiness, winter |

Canada's Alexandre Bilodeau competes during men's freestyle skiing moguls qualifying on Cypress Mountain at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, February 14, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Mike Blake

Family Day unofficially was extended across the country Monday as millions of proud Canadians continue to come together to celebrate the athletic achievement of moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau.

The country remains abuzz after the 22-year-old captured an Olympic gold medal on Sunday night in Vancouver, the first by a Canuck in a Games hosted by Canada in 34 years.

“Bravo Alex Bravo!” speedskater Charles Hamelin, a medal favourite at these Games, said of his Canadian teammate on Twitter. “He is my hero, I am so happy for him! I’m eager to congratulate him in person!”

That could happen Monday as Bilodeau will receive his gold medal at a ceremony in downtown Vancouver.

Also “pumped” for Bilodeau is Brian McKeever, a visually impaired cross-country skier who soon will make history himself as the first Paralympian to compete at a Winter Olympics.

“What a performance to give us the first gold on home soil,” the 30-year-old native of Canmore, Alta., tweeted. “Now maybe the media will focus on something else.”

Proud Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was among the crowd of 60,000-plus at Friday’s opening ceremony under the roof at BC Place Stadium, phoned Bilodeau after his victory and said: “Canadian families across the country are proud of you, Alex.”

A medal contender, Bilodeau nailed his last run, blazing through the slushy moguls to a 23.17-second finish and a score of 26.75 to best defending Olympic champion Dale Begg-Smith, a Vancouver native who now competes for Australia.

SOURCE: National Post

Congrats to Canada’s Alexandre Bilodeau on breaking the 34-year Olympic gold-on-home-soil (snow?) drought.

Despite all the noise from the usual suspects about who should have won (ironically, the Australians are saying that the gold should’ve gone to a former Canadian, now Aussie competitor) this a morale boost for all Canadian competitors. The pressure is off all of them in that Alex Bilodeau has “broken the curse.”

And though some are spouting the old, tired complaint that since Alex is a native of Quebec (which last time I googled, was a province in CANADA! Has there ever been a time when both Quebec and the rest of the provinces existed that they did not feud about what constitutes the “real” Canada?!), Canada has not truly won the gold yet, Alexandre Bilodeau will go down in history as the winner of the of Olympic gold medal on Sunday night in Vancouver. Bravo to Alex and to the Canadians who are not nit-picking his victory–just reveling in his wondrous win and the pride felt seeing the gold bestowed upon this phenomenal Canadian athlete.

Miss Canada to Attend The Haliburton Highlands Dogsled Derby – February 14, 2010

Ξ February 12th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Algonquin Township, Haliburton Highlands, Food and/or Drink, Haliburton, Haliburton Highlands, Maple Lake Ontario, NON paid Post, Ontario, Photography, Trails, canada, cottage country, entertainment, events, fun activity, health/happiness, winter |

Miss Canada International 2010 - Canadian Ambassador to the Teddy Bears of Hope Campaign

(February 12, 2010, Haliburton, ON) The County of Haliburton is excited to announce that Bridget Nickerson, Miss Canada International 2010 will be in the Haliburton Highlands this Family Day Weekend!

A native of Nova Scotia, Miss Nickerson is currently touring across Canada. Miss Canada is strong supporter of giving back to her community and as such, she is the Canadian Ambassador to the Teddy Bears of Hope Campaign.

The Teddy Bears of Hope bring smiles and hope to children all over the globe who are lonely, underprivileged and caught in a web of poverty and despair.

Miss Canada International will attend the Haliburton Highlands Dog Sled Derby at the Pinestone Resort & Conference Centre on Sunday, February 14 where she will be available for media interviews and photos between 10 am and noon. She will also attend the Blue Line Charity Auction at McKeck’s on Sunday from 4 to 6pm. On Monday, she will enjoy some of the great winter activities the Haliburton Highlands has to offer before continuing her journey across Canada.

Thanks to the County of Haliburton, Department of Economic Development, Tourism & Marketing!

This is a  non-paid post in support of the County of Haliburton and the Haliburton Highlands.

Haliburton Highlands Dog Sled Derby $10,000 Purse! FREE for Spectators!

Ξ February 10th, 2010 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Haliburton Highlands, NON paid Post, Ontario, Photography, Trails, canada, cottage country, events, family, nature, winter |

Haliburton Highlands Dog Sled Derby – February 13th & 14th, 2010

$10,000 Purse, minimum guaranteed!!!

The 2010 Haliburton Highlands Dog Sled Derby will be held at the Pinestone Resort & Conference Centre on Saturday, February 13 and Sunday, February 14, 2010. The race trail will be very much like  last years with the 8 dog teams running a 6 mile course.

There are both Purebred & Alaskan Classes, Kid & Mutt and a Youth Race.

This race is IFSS & ISDRA Sanctioned, part of OFSS Triple Crown Race Series.

Spectator Info

If you have never watched a dogsled race it is definitely a sight to behold. With the dogs lunging, howling and barking to get the races started, flying out of the start gate at speeds reaching up to 30km/hr and racing for the richest purse in Ontario, there is lots of action going on.

This year the races will take place at the Delta Pinestone Resort, located 5 minutes south of the village of Haliburton on County Road #21 (formerly #121). Races will be going on all day Saturday and Sunday with teams going out at 2 minute intervals, so you don’t need to worry about missing them! It is anticipated that over 70 teams from across Ontario, Quebec and the Northern United States will take part. The most popular race every year is the Kid & Mutt race but just as fun (and also unique) to watch is the Skijoring class, with mushers on cross country skis, being pulled by 1 or 2 dogs. The large 8 dog race class also offers lots of excitement.

The races are free for spectators to attend, and there are several vantage points for watching the action, both at the start/finish and out on the trail. Programs will be available at the races.

Note: If you have a pet dog please leave him or her at home as  your pet can distract the race dogs. Thanks!

For more information contact:
Tanya McCready & Hank DeBruin,  Winterdance Dogsled Tours
Box 631,  Haliburton,  Ontario,  Canada  K0M 1S0
Phone:  (705) 457-5281
email: info@winterdance.com

Race Schedule (tentative)

All events will take place at the Pinestone Resort, 5 km south of Haliburton on Hwy #21.

Friday February 12th, 2010

7:00 pm Registration (outside Highlanders – Pinestone Resort)

8:00 pm Welcome & Bib Draw (Highlanders Bar)

Saturday February 13th, 2010

7:30 am Late Registration (Kinmount Room – Pinestone Resort)

8:00 am Drivers Meeting (Kinmount Room – Pinestone Resort)

9:00 am 4 dog race start

10:45 am Skijoring

12:00 am Kid & Mutt

12:30 pm 6 dog race followed immediately by Recreational race

2:00 pm Youth Race

3:00 pm 8 Dog Race

Sunday February 14th, 2010 7:30 am

Drivers Meeting (Kinmount Room – Pinestone Resort) 8:30 am

4 dog race start 10:15 am

Skijor Race 11:45 pm

6 dog race followed immediately by Recreational race  1:15 pm

Youth Race 2:30 pm

8 dog race start 4:00 pm

Award Ceremony & Volunteer & Sponsor Party (Pinestone Resort)

This is an unpaid post done as a community service for the Haliburton Highlands area.

McLuhan’s Wake Documentary – February 4, 2010 – FREE Documentary!

Ξ February 2nd, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Haliburton Highlands, NON paid Post, Ontario, canada, cottage country, events, film, fun activity |

Marshall McLuhan

When: February 4, 2010
6:30pm (1.5 hours)

No Admission Fee!

NEW documentary released in 2007.

Directed by Kevin McMahon. Performance artist Laurie Anderson narrates this documentary filmed to explore the life and career of Marshall McLuhan while exploring just how the famed educator, philosopher, and scholar’s innovative 20th Century ideas hold up in the years after the millennial turnover.

Minden Hills Cultural Centre
Contact: Laurie Carmount
Tel: 705-286-3763
Email:

gallery@mindenhills.cawww.mindenculturalcentre.ca

Read on for a good sample of “McLuhanisms” for a bit of insight into a man whose ideas were far, far ahead of his time and whose sense of humour helped him make his message more accessible to the masses.

IF IT WORKS, IT’S OBSOLETE

-Marshall McLuhanisms-

The story of modern America begins With the discovery of the white man by
The Indians.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity.

Whereas convictions depend on speed-ups, justice requires delay.

The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most
frivolous possible activities—like making money.

With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is
“sent.”

Money is the poor man’s credit card.

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
the future.

Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is
managed by men with Newtonian goals.

Invention is the mother of necessities.

You mean my whole fallacy’s wrong?

Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.

The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.

Why is it so easy to acquire the solutions of past problems and so difficult to solve current ones?

The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.

The road is our major architectural form.

Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.

Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.

News, far more than art, is artifact.

When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.

Tomorrow is our permanent address.

All advertising advertises advertising.

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.

This information is top security. When you have read it, destroy yourself.

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.

One of the nicest things about being big is the luxury of thinking little.

Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.

The missing link created far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.

When a thing is current, it creates currency.

Food for the mind is like food for the body: the inputs are never the same as the outputs.

Men on frontiers, whether of time or space, abandon their previous identities. Neighborhood gives identity. Frontiers snatch it away.

The future of the book is the blurb. (Just as the future of news was the sound bite.–Cyn)

The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.

A road is a flattened-out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.

At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images.

“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.”

—Copyright © 1986, McLuhan Associates, Ltd.

Haliburton! Celebrate Robbie Burns Night Sat. Jan 23 2010

Ξ January 21st, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Food and/or Drink, Haliburton Highlands, NON paid Post, Ontario, canada, cottage country, entertainment, events, fun activity |

Robbie Burns - national poet of Scotland

Whether you’re Scottish or not, it’s always fun to celebrate Robbie Burns Day on January 25th. The day is to celebrate the life and death of Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland who wrote such ditties as Auld Lang Syne and Comin’ Thro’ the Rye, the poem which is said to have inspired J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. He is also known for drinking a lot and womanizing even more, and by the time he died at the ripe old age of 37 in 1796, he had fathered nine children.

While there are no formal rules that dictate how you should celebrate Robbie Burns day, the three staples include whisky, poetry, and everyone’s favourite dish — haggis. Haggis is made by combining a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs with onions, oatmeal, and mutton fat, stuffing it into a sheep’s stomach, and boiling it in stock. The presentation of the dish at the Burns suppers is a dramatic one at that, and often includes a Highland piper leading a parade of chefs with the haggis, and the recital of Burns’ poem Address to the Haggis. The haggis is then slashed open with a sword and a splash of whisky is poured over top. Yum!

Burns suppers can take place any time around the poet’s birthday on January 25th. If you want to bring out your inner Scot be sure to attend Robbie Burns Night!

Haggis

Robbie Burns Night

Sat. Jan 23 2010
7pm start $12.00 entry — buffet and show

Come out and enjoy a wonderful evening of Highland Dancing preformed by the Mansfield School of Dance and the magnificent sounds of the Haliburton Highlanders Pipes and Drums.

Burns Suppers have been part of Scottish culture for about 200 years as a means of commemorating our best loved bard. And when Burns immortalized haggis in verse he created a central link that is maintained to this day. The ritual was started by close friends of Burns a few years after his death in 1796 as a tribute to his memory. The basic format for the evening has remained unchanged since that time and begins when the chairman invites the company to receive the haggis.

Haliburton Legion
Contact: Visitor Info Centre: 705-286-1777 or 1-800-461-7677
Email: tourism@county.haliburton.on.ca

This post is non-paid, in support of the Haliburton Highlands community.

Happy Yule – Shadows Stretch Longest, Daylight Hours Shortest of The Year

Ξ December 21st, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ events, weather, winter |

While the weather may be getting colder and the nights longer, winter doesn’t officially begin in the Northern Hemisphere until around December 21st. Known as the Winter solstice, this is when for locations north of the equator the Sun is the lowest in the southern sky making it the shortest day of the year.

Skywatchers will notice that throughout the fall season, the Sun’s midday position in the sky slowly sinks closer to the horizon, making for ever longer shadows. Meanwhile, the Sun appears to move toward the south day by day, rising farther from the east and setting farther from the west as we approach the winter solstice. During winter the Earth’s northern axis is slightly tilted away from the Sun and so the Northern Hemisphere receives less sunlight.

On the first day of winter the Sun rises as far south of due east as it gets for the year and for the next few days the Sun appears to rise at the same place on the horizon. This moment in the year is when the shadows stretch their longest, and we get the fewest daylight hours. After the solstice the Sun’s pathway across the sky appears to head back in the opposite direction until it reaches its northern limit during the summer solstice in June.

The exact date and time of the winter solstice, while always occurring within a day or two of December 21, changes from year to year because of the difference between a calendar year of 365 days, and the solar year of 365.26 days – the exact time it takes for the Earth to make one trip around the Sun.

Andrew Fazekas

Found at Weather Network

Join in a Global Moment of Hope with The Gaia Center

Ξ December 10th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Haliburton, Haliburton Highlands, NON paid Post, Ontario, canada, cottage country, events, health/happiness, winter |

The Scary Sacred Dark – Vigil of light for Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change

On Sunday, December 13, at 10:30 am please consider being part of a global “moment of hope.”
This event is part of the weekly Gaia Gatherings at the Blue Sky Studio with the theme this weekend The Scary Sacred Dark. Despite it’s light-hearted-sounding name, The Scary Sacred Dark is being offered in support of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change.

What happens at this “vigil of light’?
First off, you will hear a story about the “scary and sacred dark,” then candles will be lit to symbolize sending light to where it is needed both in the world and in our lives. This also is a gesture in joining with those around the globe who have made a commitment to help restore our climate.
Closing out this Sunday’s Gaia gathering will entail going outdoors and ringing bells 350 times. Bells have historically been used especially in spiritual communities to signal imminent danger and to call out to the people of the community.
“350″ is indicative of 350 carbon parts per million which is the upper limit our atmosphere can tolerate.
When measured 200 years ago the earth’s atmosphere’s carbon parts per million was 275. It is now 390!
It is imperative that we push back that number to at least 350.
Be heard. Bring Dinner bells, Christmas bells, Cow bells, Jingle Bells and join in supporting a return to a more healthful planet.

Where: Blue Sky Studio at Haliburton Chiropractic Clinic, 18 Dysart Street
Visit Website for more info:
Contact: Gaia Centre Tel: 754-2427
Email: info@gaiacentre.org

This is a non-paid post in support of informing the Community of events of interest in and around the Haliburton Highlands.