Chef Michael Smith is mountainous, tall, with a shock of hair that helps him seem even larger. Standing next to Country 93.3’s Ben McCully, who readily admitted his short-comings, Smith is towering. He was in Fort McMurray for the second annual fundraiser for the Family Crisis Society, raising money for a new women’s shelter, desperately
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Several thousand people ignored the clouds and imagined the sun as Keyano College hosted its 11th annual Summer Solstice Picnic in the Park on Friday. A cultural melting pot, the free community event has grown into a reflection of the rich diversity of our region. In a short couple of hours, conversations were enjoyed with
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My family is getting ready for a garage sale on Saturday morning. Stuff is coming out of the woodwork and finding its way on to the rapidly growing pile in the garage, ready to entice early morning collectors and shoppers. We are surrounded by stuff, some that we are eager to pass along, some that
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The largest water bomber in the world is sitting in Gregoire Lake – the Hawaii Mars, one of two Coulson Flying Tankers that can carry a stunning payload of over 27,000 litres of water. Normally, it’s stationed at Sproat Lake, just west of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. I know the spot well because I
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It was a great way to start my 44th year as a human being – at the confluence of the Snye and the Clearwater. The water was glass, save for the faint lines drawn by the feet of the early morning insects, making contact with the mirror-like surface. I nestled up next to a familiar
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When I’m running a fever my nocturnal mind gets stuck on one thing and becomes an endless loop, circling back and forth over the same territory. The other night, as I descended into the pit of inclement hell, I became trapped in the Twittersphere. I would wake up, stumble to the kitchen for a glass
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There was a sense of excitement as you weaved back and forth down the road leading from Thickwood Boulevard, down Real Martin Drive to the Fort McMurray Golf Club. Beautiful signs highlighting some of the record number of 73 sponsors were beautifully pitched off on the right side of the road providing a warm welcome
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Ben has been going through a toy gun phase in recent months, spending all of his allowance money on plastic weaponry from the Dollar Store. He asked me to make him a wooden AK-47 on his birthday, which turned out not too bad. As Dad watched Ben run around the house with his cache of
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In just a couple of days we’ve had our first tastes of New York, of discovering Broadway in all its glory, of tasting great food, of riding the rails of the legendary subway, of sampling neighborhoods that we had only previously read about in books and seen in movies. New York is a fabled city,
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Mulberry Street had been closed to traffic, slicing through the heart of Little Italy in lower Manhattan. Games of chance were peppered with vendors of different sorts and a constant stream of people. In the middle of the celebration was a statue of St. Anthony, patron saint of miracles, with dollar bills attached to the
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