Showing posts with label canadian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canadian. Show all posts

01 July 2012

Canadian Icon - Lake Louise


No. 0163 - 01 July 2012 - 10:47:25


No. 0164 - 01 July 2012 - 10:50:25

Where else to be on a national holiday but one of the top tourist destinations. I was just passing through but inspired, with my free park pass, paper flag and lapel pin courtesy of the feds at Banff National Park gate that morning, to make a stop with thousands of others. By the time I left they were parking down the side of the mountain for their classic photo-op.

Happy 145th huzzah, Canada!

21 June 2012

Golden Morning

No. 0119 - 21 June 2012 - 05:34

I took this image with an iPod Touch and using an app that makes up for the questionable quality of the camera in the device. Five minutes after taking this, on my way out of town, I was forced to turn back due to a mudslide that had only just happened on the Trans Canada Highway. Re-directed to Calgary through Radium Hot Springs added one hour plus to my travel time but resulted in an easier drive.

01 July 2011

Windows By Canada

No. 6561 - 18 Mar 2011 - 20:09:18

08 June 2011

Canuck Fever

No. 3701 - 08 Jun 2011 - 16:31:54

GAME FOUR - CHOKE!


26 May 2011

La Forche At The Forks


No. 1930 - 25 May 2011 :- 18:32:39 * No. 1917 - 17:04:46


No. 1919 - 25 May 2011 : 17:04:58 * No. 1921 - 25 May 2011 - 17:05:39

Almost bilingual city of the Canadian West.

03 May 2011

Tough Guys


No. 6662 - 12 Jul 2008 - 06:41:05 * No. 9286 - 02 May 2011 - 09:02:08

One man's crime is another man's profit.

The tough guy on the left is probably a member of a drug cartel and is apparently free to do business as long as he stays within the boundaries of Vancouver's "downtowneastside". As well as selling drugs he will be involved in the abuse and drug addicting of very young girls who have landed in this hell zone often due to family abuse and lack of education. Many refer to these female persons as "prostitutes" or "hookers" but really they are sex slaves and no more than children with stuffed animals hanging off their bags. They do not actually work for money but for the drugs that anesthetize their misery. When they are arrested and thrown in jail their male clients go free while their cartel bosses wait for them on the street. They will be beaten when they return without drugs or cash and then this pattern will repeat. Reviled by everyone and unable to escape their penury, most will die young and desperate within a short period of time from the bad dates, dirty drugs and impossible living conditions on the street.

Meanwhile the tough guy on the right is focused on property crime. He will tell you we need more prisons - built by corporate interests for profit. He will ignore studies suggesting a comprehensive national daycare program would help raise up hungry and unsupervised children whose parents, many single, make up the working poor because he disapproves on moral grounds.
At least girls can look forward to careers with the drug trafficking, money-laundering, sex-enslaving cartels which also give boys opportunities in drug dealing and pimping.
Both the federal and civic police forces can be witnessed standing by and watching because in many cases as one cop told me, off the record,
"if our political bosses tell us to sit on our hands, we sit on our hands".




No. 6677 - 19 May 2010 - 18:18:59

I lived over the intersection of Main and Hastings Streets for three and a half years and documented plenty of the above scenario. Eventually I was forced to walk away due to the stress and frustration of living amongst the most stricken citizens in our country. I am lucky - the young women in these pictures are not.

"Tough on Crime" is a bill of goods and yesterday a slim majority of Canadians bought into it at the polls. Today I am a Canadian who feels neither strong nor free.

02 May 2011

22 April 2011

13 March 2011

Portage And Main


No. 6405 - 13 Mar 2010 - 16:46:31



Reputedly the windiest urban corner in Canada
and a fine place to fly flags.

25 February 2011

Red Tape

No. 5654 - 20 Feb 2011 - 16:07:06

Proud sponsor since 1867.

21 February 2011

Red River Resistance

No. 3599 - 12 Jan 2011 - 16:17:35

One century's rebel is another century's hero. Today is Riel Day
and a general holiday in Manitoba.

12 February 2011

Red-letter Days

No. 5943 - 12 Feb 2010 - 12:48:25
A shaky start.

No. 6207 - 14 Feb 2010 - 12:39:55
The Valentine's Day march for the missing women of the downtown.


No. 7368 - 17 Feb 2010 - 14:09:01 * No. 7382 - 17 Feb 2010 - 14:13:25
The warmest winter in recorded history
and uncommonly sunny and bright
due to a two week long, high pressure ridge.

No. 8364 - 19 Feb 2010 - 20:25:33
Round robin at the bonspiel.


No. 9023 - 24 Feb 2010 - 17:19:53 * No. 9043 - 24 Feb 2010 - 17:33:30
Yahoos at the hockey.

No. 0856 - 28 Feb 2010 - 14:51:36
We win. Huzzah!

09 February 2011

Red Flag

No. 4113 - 20 Jan 2011 - 08:01:12

25 February 2010

Patriotism Patriarchy and Patronage Tra La La

No. 9564 - 25 Feb 2010 - 18:06

Gastown, Vancouver

These images were taken from the TV in the lobby of the YWCA on Hornby Street. Having just completed membership paperwork I was lured into the excitement of gold medal entertainment and settled down with a few others to watch the rest of the Canada/ USA women's final round game. It ended with U.S. tears and CDN pride (sometimes the roles are reversed), CDN male hockey players watching pensively from the rafters and wanting a piece of that, a roaring sea of red and these three men perhaps visiting not a women's match but a winning match. The event was barely over when IOC President, Jacques Rogge, announced that the women's teams had best correct, what he referred to as, lopsidedness within the league. (These inequities exist throughout the pantheon of international sport and are easily forgiven in male leagues). C'est la classe dirigeant que les règles.

Women's sport is marginalized because women's sport is marginalized: funding and access is often negligible or difficult to obtain. Softball and ski jumping are gone and now a public threat to ice hockey is made.

You are playing a racket, on the ladies, gentlemen. I do not have any particular interest in hockey but it is easy to see and enjoy the sheer finesse, speed, and high calibre of these two teams at play. Women look good playing the sport . Let them share their skills with eager, young teams internationally: fund with ingenuity and collaboration. Canadian women continue to out-medal the men at these games and their success deserves an appropriate amount of respect and financial acknowledgement. Remember whose game you came to observe and glory in for photo-ops and feel-good glad handing.

The same goes for the boys in the rafters. I wish you well but, no matter the outcome of your tournament, please stand up for the ladies of your sport and what all around me say is our sport. Be like men and make public your subdued admiration for the women.

"For this relief, much thanks."*




*Something Shakespeare used as a closing line by Simon Loekle, WBAI Radio, NYC

24 February 2010

Hockey Hoopla

No. 9043 - 24 Feb 2010 - 17:33

No. 9023 - 24 Feb 2010 - 17:19

Gastown, Vancouver

During a stop-over at Goldie's for the best hand-crafted pizza on pizza row (500-600 block West Pender Street) a few goals were scored in the Canada/Russia grudge match. The people of Vancouver get excited about very little but the triple threat of hockey gold at home, as well as anything ice rinks or ski slopes is irresistible to a red-shirted Canadian. Twizzle anyone?