March 25th, Cascadia Every traveler needs a rest. I don't mean the type you get in a hotel room or one of those road-side truck stops, where darkness and tired eyes puts consciousness to a close. What I needed, before embarking again through the inner depths of Cascadia , was a conscious replenishment. Before leaving Grand Forks, British Columbia, I took a seat alongside the southeast-flowing Kettle River, dimmed my eyes, and took in the waves of beaming sunlight, in all of

March 24th, From Crows to Kootenay At the end of a walk up the crackling stairs upon retiring to my bedroom in Longview Alberta last night, a middle-aged man with a cowboy hat nodded his head at me from the room that presumably was his office. {The lone hallway} The Twin Cities Hotel is not your average rest-stop for the evening. This establishment was founded in 1938, amidst the height of an oil boom in the region. Moreover, it was founded by three players of the National H

March 23rd, Calgary, ‘Berta Strong the Free There is one fact that nearly every Canadian citizen and business-person knows about Alberta, either from travelling through essentially any region of the province, or reading about it in a headline, brochure, or economic textbook. This is, of course, the fact that there is a high concentration of carbon-based energy, such as coal, natural gas, and oil underneath the Albertan ground. Typically, it is the latter that receives the mo

March 22nd, The Old West The Old West lives on in small-town Saskatchewan. At least, on the surface. Taking a walk around Maple Creek’s main street before the church-bell rang on Sunday morning, there was nobody to ask about the history of the downtown, before I went ahead to snag a photo. I wondered whether the features of the frontier - rectangular wooden structures, low to the ground sidewalks, other intangibles - were a remnant of how it was built originally, or had been

March 21st, Buffalo The man at the Gas Station stared former Prime Minister Mackenzie King up and down and straight in the eye. “Do you often get fake bank notes”, I asked him, wondering why he was so skeptical of my $50 dollar bill. “All the time”, he said. “I have to check every one”. After filling up my tank, and being cleared of any suspicions of currency fraud, I rushed out of the city, eager to visit a friend to the west. Leading up to its provincial ascendency alongs

March 20th, Regina I woke up on the top floor of an A-frame house in the (technical) city of Melville, Saskatchewan (with a population of only 5,000!). My friend, Kincaid Bierwagen, showed me around, took me out for a drink at their only bar, and was kind enough to lend his home for the night. In a sense, it is a simple town; the streets are laid out as a near perfect symmetrical grid against the south-side rail line, no doubt planned as such by the Railway in conjunction wi

March 19th, Portage La Prairie I left Winnipeg far too late in the morning for any sort of sight seeing, due to a combination of miscommunication, and several rounds of competitive Euchre the night before (my partner was not pleased with me, even though he was polite enough to hold back outward frustration). It was warm. I thought about what this cooling Spring weather would have meant in an earlier time, for those warm-blooded fur traders starting a trip from the Winnipeg f

March 18th, The Paris of the Prairies Steinbach, Manitoba: the legacy of Russian Mennonite farmers migrating to the Prairies during the age of Nicholas II; a former hub of Canadian auto manufacturing prior to de-industrialization; and for one night, the home of this reporter. Dirt roads surround the town, as a 5 minute drive in any direction from the centre leads to farmland. The downtown, too, reflects the agrarian core of Steinbach, as, even beside those all too ubiquitous

March 17th, The Ecotone My last jotting ended with a questionable analogy, so, to repair my relationship with the Gods of pedanticism who cast down upon those who abuse the name of literary devices, I must provide you, dear reader, with a better one. Heading north at the junction of Highway 11 and 71 (finally leaving the former in my tracks), up past the farmland that surrounds the town of Emo, through the twists and turns on the eastern shores of the famous Lake of the Wood

March 16th, Highway 11 Persistent hugs and handshakes aside, I swiftly departed from Atikokan around 1pm. It was not that I didn't think twice as I drove by the last town sign before reaching the highway, but that my trip was a matter of inward necessity , and therefore was not worth the time of reflection and doubt. The man of action understands that the world has natural constraints, and, when making any decision that inevitably discriminates against certain possibilities,

Atikokan Ontario Tomorrow is the day I leave my professional cocoon, and, with scarce second thought over the modern benefits so omnipotently provided, venture west into the wider world, with but a notebook and laptop to remind me of what I have left behind. The westward road trip begins in an atypical place, far off from those Toronto towers driving people to travel to see true greenery, in a town that even the moderately curious Ontario MPP may have trouble recognizing. I

Since the last issue of the Progress , global oil prices have increased dramatically. On Wednesday March 4th, the price of Western Canadian Select (WCS) – the name of the crude oil product from Alberta – was around $63 USD. As of Monday the 9th, it is $82. This staggering week, of course, is the result of active warfare between Iran, Israel, and their respective allies, causing great danger to shipping companies operating in the region, and great risk to their insurers. Throu

(This article was originally written on May 21st, 2021) We often think of the separation of Church and State as a one way agreement: The separation of Church , from state . This separation of influence and power between the religious body of the church and the political body of the state is enforced and guaranteed in many countries around the world, including Canada and the United States of America. But there is a similar, yet important (and philosophically interesting) debat