Tag: Canada

Royal Canadian Mint Releases Superman 75th Anniversary Coin Sets

Brad Moon1

The Royal Canadian Mint has been knocking out the collectible goodies. The Mint has released glow-in-the-dark dinosaur coins, Bald Eagles (stepping on someone else’s turf there), hologram coins, full color depictions of the Northern Lights and even a snowflake embedded with a crystal. In perhaps its greatest pop culture effort to date, the Mint recently released a set of seven Superman coins, in celebration of the Man of Steel’s 75th Anniversary.

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A tent is more affordable than a house.

You’ve Being Doing It All Wrong: Spending Too Much on Raising Children

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My wife and I didn’t exactly jump into parenthood, waiting for nearly a decade after being married before deciding the time was right to have our first child. That long into a career, a child wasn’t a budgetary killer. One we started, we quickly realized what we’d been missing and decided we would add a second and stop — two being the optimal number that would allow us keep our existing lifestyle relatively intact. Well, two ended up being twins and that was when we started feeling the pinch. A new report released by the Fraser Institute here in Canada (a public policy think tank) says raising a kid shouldn’t cost $10,000 or more per year as has been commonly suggested, you should be able to pull it off for between $3,000 and $4,500. Clearly, we’ve been doing it all wrong.

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Beech Bark Disease at Killbear Provincial Park

Camping at Killbear: Witnessing the Ugly Results of an Invasive Species in Action

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I’m in the midst of my family’s annual summer camping trips. We’re in Arrowhead Provincial Park near Huntsville, Ontario (Canada) at the moment, having spent our first week with friends and their families in Killbear Provincial Park (near Parry Sound Ontario). We’ve been meeting together en masse in Killbear for years, always staying in the same group of sites. But this time something was very different. As we pulled into the park, we began to notice campsites that had been thinned out. As we approached our usual areas, the thinning had progressed to near clear cutting on some sites. What used to be a healthy canopy of mature trees, was reduced in some spots to dozens of stumps, rotting logs, sand and undergrowth beneath blazing sun. What had happened? Beech Bark Disease had taken hold resulting in the loss of thousands of Beech trees.

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Port of Montreal

72 Hours in Montreal, Part One: Old Montreal and Amphibus Tour

Brad Moon

We’re a bit of distance away (we live in London, Ontario) but have passed through or close to Montreal on a number of occasions; we felt it was finally time for a stop in Canada’s second-largest city. Established in 1642, the Francophone city has a wealth of history to explore, as well as some family-friendly attractions. The first part of my account covers the time we spent in Old Montreal and the Amphibus Tour.

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