Nov 29 2022 - A Christmas Volcano

 

Hawaii's Mauna Loa has erupted for the first time in 40 years.  It is the world's largest active volcano.  Can you imagine a volcano advisory?  We have a high winds advisory today.  Not exactly the same sense of urgency, is there? I should no longer be surprised when that's not the top story on google.  The top story is Christmas.  So the headlines (that I assume are paid) are this:   How'd you like to spend Christmas on a South Pacific Island ... If you ever do spend Christmas on that South Pacific Island named Christmas Island.  Make sure Santa knows where to land his canoe of presents for you, as there are two Christmas Islands.  We know the famous one  James Cook's arrival on Christmas Eve in 1777 likely clinched the name.  It makes me think of how Emerald Lake got its name - it was emerald green.  Poor Christmas Island has been troubled with invades/colonists ever since then.  What was the reason Britain carried out nuclear tests on Christmas Island in the 1950s?  In between it seems to have been annexed, invaded, and then transferred to Australia.  Then it was inundated by asylum seekers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Not a place to visit for Christmas, to my mind, ever.  Forget the millions of crabs in the national park.   These events are in the mix of the Christmas-related towns and cities in the U.S. There are lots of towns in the U.S. with Christmas names.  Outside the U.S. there are a few - Natal, Brazil, Int-Niklaas, Belgium, Bethlehem, Wales.  But really the naming of Christmas-themed places seems to be the U.S. North Pole, New York  Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Santa Claus, Indiana North Pole, Alaska Donner Lake, California Christmas Cove, Maine Christmas Valley, Oregon Christmas, Florida I asked this question.  What does Europe have in relation to Christmas with no Christmas-named towns? Europe has the magical and adorable towns that look like Christmas villages and they go all out for Christmas.  They have Christmas Markets in heritage town squares.  These places are "enchanting".   Looking at the pictures is enough proof.   We have great horticulture in the Golden Horseshoe.  Here's a mosaic culture gingerbread house in a Christmas display.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 16 2022 - Quaint and Cute

 

Is quaint and picturesque the same?  There certainly are lots of picturesque villages in the world.  Which country does one want to go to for cute villages?   And then there's Shanghai China's "One City, Nine Towns".   The One City Nine Towns concept was an economic development plan introduced by the Shanghai Planning Commission in 2001. Each town was planned to be built in the style of a different Western city, incorporating European and North American architectural styles as a method of attracting investors and residents.  They were China, Germany, Ecology, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Spain.  Canada's town plan was abandoned,  others are ghost towns with lots of architecture but no people anywhere.  Thames Town (U.K.) was built and is part of the Garden City. Thames Town reportedly cost £500 million and sits 19 miles outside of Shanghai. But despite being completed in 2006, its mock-Tudor buildings, cobbled streets and English pub remain desolate and many tourists liken it to The Truman Show.  It is now used primarily by middle-class newlyweds, who choose it as the backdrop for their English-themed wedding snaps. On entering the town you could be mistaken for thinking you had strolled into a quaint southern counties settlement.  Except that there are no people in any of the pictures.  Bronze statues of James Bond and Winston Churchill are two of the tourist attractions, while hundreds of homes are designed to imitate Victorian, Georgian and Tudor architecture.    Looking for something that you'd only find in a town?  Here's the tourist ride in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

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June 28 2021 - Ghost Towns Ahead

 

It turns out Ontario has lots of ghost towns.  The Wikipedia list is extensive, organized alphabetically.  Most of these abandoned towns relate to railways and mining.  Lots are located in the north part of the province. When our family had the cottage near Parry Sound,  we visited Depot Harbour nearby to see the railway ruins.  When it was a thriving town, it had over 100 houses, grain elevators, docks, a railway station, a hotel and shops.  It was the reconstruction of the Welland Canal in 1932 and other events such as the Great Depression that led to the closure of the facilities. There was a fire in 1945 that set off explosives being stored there and the facilities were destroyed.  Then the Anishinaabe reclaimed the expropriated lands in 1987 and a fish farm is there now.   I thought I would find something nearby in Niagara.  Here it is - more a ghost site than a ghost town.  It is the Screaming Tunnel in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  I don't know anything about this.  The tunnel was created in the early 1900s as a drainage passage to keep railway tracks from being lost beneath flood waters.  Local farmers used it as a convenient path to avoid the oncoming trains overhead.   The tunnel, 125 feet long, is located off of Garner Road and is rumoured to lead to a farmhouse that burned down in the early 1900s. According to legend, a young girl trying to escape the blaze ran out of her house and into the tunnel where she was screaming as a train passed overhead. She died in the tunnel. If a person enters the tunnel and lights a match, and the match is blown out, you are supposed to be able to hear the girl scream.  This tunnel leads to the Bruce Trail, so is probably visited a fair amount.   And there's another Niagara tunnel - the Blue Ghost Tunnel - in St. Catharines. it is located on Seaway Haulage Road in Thorold.  It runs under the original Welland Canada for over 500 feet.  It is not as accessible or as safe, and is part of the Welland Canal property. Who would guess that Ontario has so many ghost towns and that there are "ghost" sites nearby in Niagara.

I found this pretty floral heart, created by Odile, in the archives.

Snow in Cambridge - UK vs ON

Marshall McLuhan brought alive the expression "the Global Village."  He went to Cambridge to earn his Doctorate.  He had both a BA and an MA at the time, but Cambridge required him to enrol as an undergraduate with one year's credit towards a three-year bachelor's degree.  He went on to get his Doctorate. Yesterday, in Cambridge England, they had a heavy snowfall and all the schools are closed today.  It seems more likely that there would be snow in Cambridge Ontario.  The global village has made these places with duplicate names readily available.  How confusing can things be?  Today there's a snow alert for Cambridge ON, with an expectation of heavy snowfall.  Perhaps schools in Cambridge, ON will be closed tomorrow. If we are searching for Spanish place names, there are many occurrences around the world.  Our top place name is San Jose.  There are 1,716 localities that share this name.  See all the countries in the Wikipedia entry HERE. Here are the rest of the top ten: sSan Antonio- 1, 691 Santa Maria- 1,246 Santa Rosa- 1,212 San Pedro- 1,191 San Juan- 1,166 San Francisco- 1,017 San Miguel- 989 San Isidro- 892 La Esperanza- 852 The top city names in the U.S.A. are: 1. Washington - 88 2. Springfield - 41 3. Franklin - 35 4. Greenville - 30 Canada's top name is Long Lake (204 places) with Mount Pleasant (16 places) second.  Today we're riding the rails in Strasburg, PA. There's a Strasburg, ON without the steam.