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Scott Paul
Scott Paul

Scott Paul

traveled in 7 countries Read more🇨🇦Lethbridge
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  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    The Band Played On

    July 6, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    On our first full day in Nova Scotia, music found us— a noon hour concert at the Tidal Bore in Truro, and later in Antigonish an outdoor ceilidh whose fiddle and short pipe reels, jigs, and airs had my Scottish toes a tapping.

    The ceilidh was hosted at a repurposed wooden train station that has been converted into a museum. During one set of Scottish reels we heard the not so distant blare of a train horn and soon a locomotive and rails cars were rumbling by not more than 20 yards from the audience. The band played on … at least for a wee bit.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Chocolate

    July 3, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Many years ago, Coleen and I visited the Hershey chocolate factory in Pennsylvania. It was fun enough and at the end of the tour we each got a chocolate. So, I had no great expectations for the Ganong Chocolatier and Chocolate Museum in Saint Stephen, New Brunswick. But OMG was the chocolate and the tour first rate. We had a wonderful guide and fun tour set in the old factory. And they gave us five (5) scrumptious chocolate samples. The new factory is located at 1 Chocolate Drive.

    Ganong was founded in 1873. It has remained a family owned and run company for all that time. One of the Ganong presidents was reputed to have kept his trim figure despite being the in-house quality control tester of 3 pounds of chocolate a day. Now that’s a job I could lean into.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    I Want to Ride …

    July 2, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    … my bicycle. I want ride it where I like. (Queen) It was a good day to cycle even with threatening Atlantic skies and an even more ominous rainfall warning. But nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. The travel gods favoured us today with nary a drop of rain over the course of three separate rides.

    Some lovely paths near our campground in Edmunston (St Jacques) and again later at Grand Falls where we crossed a wooden bridge with four men setting up in the middle for that evening’s fireworks. A fiery conclusion to the weekend’s Potato Festival. None of them professed to know anything about fireworks.

    So, if you see news of a historic wooden bridge in New Brunswick burning to a crisp, then know that I predicted it. We cycled away from the novice arsonists as fast as our two wheels would take us.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    History to Celebrate

    July 1, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    While Canada was celebrating its 156th birthday yesterday, the town of Rivière de Loup was marking its 350th anniversary. We stumbled upon it when we asked at the tourist information centre where the Canada Day festivities were. Given the town’s big milestone — did I mention 350 years — the two had been joined.

    Our first stop was at Manoir Fraser for a picnic on the grounds of one of the town’s founders, donning historic garb, and touring the manor. Then a Scottish bagpipe performance. So, so much history here.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    The Maple Leaf

    July 1, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    I love our leaf. Seriously, is there a better flag in the world? We marked our Canada Day celebrations in two provinces, Quebec and New Brunswick.

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    In-Spired

    June 30, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    The churches in small-town Quebec are incredible. Their spires, towering over the forests as we approach. How the local communities support these edifices is beyond me.

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Stay on the Sidewalk

    June 28, 2023 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 19 °C

    … and no one gets detained by trigger-happy American border guards. The Haskell Free Library & Opera House straddles the Canadian-USA border. A black line runs through the building marking which side of the border you are on.

    To access the library as a Canadian, you technically cross into American soil without having to report to customs so long as … and this is very important … you stay on the sidewalk and go immediately to the Haskell. In the opera house, one sits in the audience on the American side, watching the actors perform on the Canadian side. A wonderful quirky place and the Vermont tour guide with her feline feet was happy to take us back stage ( Canada) and the opera balcony (USA).

    Borders are often the stuff of challenging questions, production of identification and secondary searches. Not so in Stanstead, Quebec … so long as you stay on the sidewalk.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Love, Love, Loving It

    June 27, 2023 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 21 °C

    Charming country lanes, covered bridges, farm-fresh strawberries, smelly French cheese, modern art instalments, new-to-me signs, high school French attempts, Colonial architecture, patient locals … the Eastern Townships … love, love, loving them.Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Inked

    June 26, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Lazy post …

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Ann

    June 25, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    When the Paul family moved to Rainier in the summer of 1974, we only knew a few families. Little did I know that our neighbours up the road — a widow and her two children would become such fast friends.

    Ann Nyenhuis and her family left a war ravaged Europe to make Canada their home. She brought a zest for life, beautiful smile, and resiliency to each day that I look back now and find remarkable.

    While living in Edmonton, Ann’s husband died and a young woman now had two children to raise on her own. She moved to Rainier where her brother Casey farmed and set about raising her daughter Anneke and son Dick. No surprise that they exemplified their mother— each of them sharing an enthusiasm for life, and bringing positivity to the world.

    Ann was a good friend to my mother, a community minded person and was always up for some new adventure. She lived life fully.

    Sad news came to us on the road. Ann died last week and I miss her — here so many provinces away. Her funeral is today. The downside of travel is not being there to pay my respects. I am so fortunate that our lives intersected and knowing that Ann lives on through her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Thinking of you Ann today … and the legacy, the gifts you have left our world.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Ottawa

    June 24, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    A good chunk of my first novel, The Sunbeam Room, was set in Ottawa. So it was joy today to visit the house that my protagonist Sarah lived in, walk up Elgin Street and scout out potential cafes where she and Digger, her half-brother from Alberta, first met, and traverse Wellington Street, the site of the Ottawa occupation.

    We have been fortunate to be hosted by my writing partner Laura Cohen. We’ve laughed, drank French wine, and so enjoyed her company. A good day.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Distant Relatives

    June 23, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    What’s that old saw? When people are doing their family tree, there’s a whole lot of pruning going on. But in this case I truly am related to the inventor of basketball — James Naismith — who is celebrated here in his hometown of Almonte.

    My great, great grandfather Allan Paul emigrated to Canada from Scotland pre-Confederation. He took a fancy to a Jean Naismith from Almonte and the Paul line continued.

    What would have been a wee little town back in the day now boasts grand brick churches, a bustling little downtown, and a baker named Bob. These small towns are a joy to explore.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler
    1

    Reading on the Road

    June 21, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    Our mission to go to an independent bookseller in each province continued yesterday in Sudbury with Bay’s Used Books. We dutifully donned our Analog Books t-shirts and took pictures in front of their wonderful two-story murals.

    We entered a warren of bookshelves, nooks, and crannies, with the written word surrounding us. Coleen got a map to guide her though this literary labyrinth. I eventually found her in Canadiana with the help of security cam footage and an employee.

    Unlike the resident cat Hugo at Analog Books, Bay’s Used Books’ feline mascot is an orange plushy named Crookshanks. Delightful hour or so surrounded by books. We are starting to acquire our own library in the van where space is at a premium.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Small Towns

    June 20, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Small towns … oh how I love them. Whether it’s Carberry, Maple Creek, or Thessalon, there is a peaceful and nostalgic feel to them. Yesterday, in Thessalon, we were able to locate the sister of a Lethbridge acquaintance by asking three random strangers, the last one who knew our friend. So Isobel, we found your sister’s place but she was not at home.

    As I looked down Main Street and saw some of the boarded up windows, rusting signs and crumbling brickwork. I am trying to imagine these towns in their heyday, when new Buick cars rambled down the streets, men tipping their hats to the ladies. After a Sunday service, the priest welcoming the parishioners on the front steps of a century old Church.

    There’s still a sliver of that hometown, down to earth sensibility of the place, but it is vanishing as well, which is sad.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Ruffled Feathers

    June 19, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    … so I may have exaggerated a bit in my last cliffhanger post. It was less a growl from a bear and more like a squawk from a pissed off momma grouse. This was the third encounter with the northern Ontario ruffed grouse that got our hearts a racin’. Puffed out neck and tail feathers, chasing us back up the trail, the grouse showed Coleen and I that she was “large and in charge”.
    Having been chased around our van in the foothills of the Rockies a couple of seasons ago, I gave this momma grouse the respect and distance she wanted.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Forest Sounds

    June 16, 2023 in Canada ⋅ 🌙 10 °C

    Heard today on our 6-hour hike to the White River Suspension Bridge in Pukaskwa National Park … The murmur of a distant waterfall, the click clacking of our pole tips on centuries-old rock, the twittering of birds, the whisper of wind in the tree canopy, the cracking of birchbark sheaves underfoot, the growling behind me, the little yelp of hysteria jumping out of my throat … (to be continued)Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler
    3

    Of Rocks and Bears

    June 16, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    While driving to a waterfall today we saw a momma black bear and her three cubs on the side of the forest-lined road. They scampered off into the bush and climbed up a tree faster than a jack rabbit on a first date. Yet to see a moose except posted on highway signs as a “Night Danger”, and all manner of sculptures, T-shirts and the like.
    For rock enthusiasts, and I count myself in that group, Pebble Beach at Marathon is heaven. For centuries, Lake Superior has tumbled these stones into smooth, roundish rocks — hardly pebbles at all. So many rocks … that will have to wait for our return trip home.
    We rewarded our rock restraint with a San Pellegrino float. Sooo good.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Explore

    June 15, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    … we continue to explore Northern Ontario, taking side trips off the TransCanada today to visit the jaw-dropping Ouimet Canyon, flip a loonie at the Nipigon Bridge (the loon won .. so southern route it is), and crossing the 49th parallel on a river hike.
    On a sad note, a small town grocery store’s ice cream refrigeration unit malfunctioned, leaving empty freezer shelves and our dairy hopes dashed. We were crushed … if only ever so briefly.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    I Gave at the Office

    June 14, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    The mosquitoes in northern Ontario are not buying this line. They come in swarms on the trail, and, when we are in the parked van, eagerly await an open door, their evil little faces looking inside for their next meal. It’s apparently a worse than average year for the buggers. Blood spatter experts would have a field day examining the interior of our van. The massacre goes both ways.Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    You Wear Fun Well

    June 13, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    … said the store clerk after asking Coleen and I if we were retired. This trip has awakened our travel kraken. Each day a voyage of discovery, something new around the curve, a serendipitous conversation that sends us off the beaten path. Life is good and fun is fashionable.Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Whiteshell Provincial Park

    June 11, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    We enjoyed some much needed nature therapy in our two-day stay at Whiteshell.

    Biplane dragonflies led us down glittering forest paths. A butterfly and hummingbird amused us at a lake lookout. A deer in the early morning, grazing behind our van. The paths are so different from our mountain hikes, but beautiful.

    All trails incorporate a piece of the Canadian shield as we walk along an exposed spine or scrabble up a rock face with a rope assist. It is tiger lily season right now and they are in their glory. In addition to other flowers captured digitally by Coleen who is also in her glory!    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler
    The LeafCanadian Museum of Human Rights

    Discovery

    June 9, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Our day began in discovery and enlightenment before ending in disillusionment.

    The morning would see us at the Canadian Indigenous Residential School Museum in Portage la Prairies, the exhibits housed in a former residential school. No one available to take us on a tour but the displays were nevertheless haunting. A scar on our national identity.

    In Winnipeg, The Leaf is a conservatory on steroids, gorgeous architecture housing all manner of exotic plants, and the surrounding gardens also impressive.

    It took a bit of a doing to get down to the Forks where the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is situated in downtown Winnipeg. Again, outside and inside, the architecture is stunning. As we toured the museum over the course of about 3 hours (think Holocaust, residential schools, Japanese-Canadian internment, etc), thieves were stealing Coleen’s new bike off our rack (jimmy-ing the lock and slashing the tire hold downs) but leaving my 35+ year cycle untouched. The next day we trawled the Internet ocean searching for a used bike … and Kijiji came through. A few steps down from Coleen’s Kona, but hopefully less attractive to the discerning felon crowd.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler
    1

    Day of Rest

    June 7, 2023 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 30 °C

    After 8 days of touring and 1,800 kilometres of travel, we took a sojourn in Spruce Woods Provincial Park to read, rest and reflect. Lazy day cycling part of the TransCanada Trail and chilling out with books.

    News of the wildfires and smoke in eastern Canada makes me think our pace is a good one and we shouldn’t leave the clear skies and clean air of Manitoba too soon.

    We’ve shared our sandy campsite with two energetic squirrels and one far too inquisitive raccoon I shooed off with a shout the other night.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler
    1

    Beating the Heat

    June 6, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Finnegan’s form of air conditioning is rolling the van windows down as the Prairie heat wave has followed us from Saskatchewan into Manitoba. So we are trying all manner of ways to keep cool — Haagen Daz floats, soaked t-shirt for me, dress for Coleen, Fringe Festival fans, and plenty of water.

    Kai, the splash-down boy, assured me that he had jumped off the Souris swinging bridge a dozen times. He tempted fate by jumping a 13th time and asked me to text a picture of his shenanigans to his mother. She promptly texted back …

    “Damn boy, thirteen shall be fun.”

    Well, to each their own way of cooling off, regardless of age.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    Clipping Along

    June 5, 2023 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Our days begin early, literally up with the dawn. Last night we boon docked at the Moose Jaw Walmart with about 5 other stingy campers. It worked out far better than I expected. Actually slept!

    During our last full day in Saskatchewan we allowed the province of small towns to reveal itself … a giant red paper clip in Kipling with a larger than life backstory, and a scaled down Eiffel Tower in Montmartre.

    We’ve landed in Moose Mountain park for the night, delightfully different than our Walmart sojourn.

    Reflecting on the last week, Saskatchewan’s roads are not so flat if you venture off the TransCanada, the small towns have been well worth the stop, and it is far greener than I imagined.

    Now onto the next province where Manitoba adventures await.    Read more

  • Scott PaulCanada Road Trip 2023Traveler

    The Giant and the Mobster

    June 4, 2023 in Canada ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

    “Go to Willowbunch, birthplace of Canada’s tallest man,” the camper told Coleen.

    And so yesterday, we were the first, early-morning tourists knocking on the convent door that has swapped out black-robed nuns for prairie relics in this tiny town. A whole room was dedicated to the story of Edouard Beaupre who grew to the fantastical height of 8’ 3 inches. Died at the age of 23, touring as part of the Ringling Brothers freak show. A shortened life for a tall man.

    Down the road, Moose Jaw delighted us with secret downtown tunnels, Al Capone’s Prohibition era connection to the city’s whiskey trade, and dozens of murals in the historic city centre. Gorgeous old brick and stone buildings with dates going back over a century carved into lintels. And of course, an independent bookseller. What’s there not to love?    Read more

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