Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Migrants, Memorials, Metropolitan Meanderings

The Victoria old-timers took off in a jet airplane and spent a fortnight in southern Ontario, half the time in Toronto. This country mouse was entirely willing to believe the report I received that Toronto is now North America's fourth-largest city. Navigating a late-afternoon route out of Pearson airport, westward along the 401 is a nightmare Jan and I have previously experienced but the trial never seems to get easier. I have no idea how people manage to do it twice daily while retaining some facsimile of sanity.

On arrival day we made a beeline for more tranquil territory. Sort of. Point Pelee is a jewel in Canada's national park system not because of soaring mountains, vast prairie vistas, or raging unspoilt rivers, but because of its life-and-death significance to migrating birds. Every year around this time warblers, sparrows and flycatchers fly northward across Lake Erie and land exhausted on the closest bit of land that meets their eye – Point Pelee.  They arrive in their hundreds or thousands daily, tired out and easy to see. Where hordes of birds congregate, something else does too: hordes of people carrying binoculars, spotting scopes, long-lens cameras, or all of the above. Happily, in contrast to the 401, they are not hurtling along at 110 kph.

We spent two full days and bits of two more in the bird mecca. Prepared for warm May-type weather, we regretted not having brought goose-down parkas. The thermometer dipped close to zero, winds howled. Ten years ago on our first Pelee pilgrimage we found about 140 species over the same time period. We fell 45 short  this time but grumbled only a little: there was still plenty to divert two Victoria-based birders who have no chance of seeing eighteen different warblers in their own bailiwick.

En route to Pelee we indulged another trip priority, dipsy-doodling our way into this village or that town we'd never seek out if not for the fact it has a war memorial I particularly want to see. It is one of my many pieces of good fortune that Janice indulges this odd madness, even manages to be mildly entertained by the diversions that inevitably arise as the quest is pursued.

The lure of memorials in a half-dozen towns at the east end of the Niagara Peninsula drew us in that direction. We paused en route to see the Canadian Warplane Museum at Hamilton and actually got to see – and hear – a WWII Lancaster bomber in flight. We ventured into Niagara Falls and joined yet more throngs of people gawking at nature's offerings. We ate fish 'n chips at the bar of a Fort Erie pub and watched the Toronto Maple Leafs collapse in the third period of Game Seven against Boston.

After driving 1,500 km we returned the car in Toronto and happily got about for a week on shank's mare or subway. I was euphoric. We watched ball games at Christie Pits and the place we used to call the Skydome. We welcomed Steve and Elizabeth from Winnipeg, rode a quadricycle on the Toronto Islands, prowled the Kensington Market and the St. Lawrence one too. Steve and I visited the Hockey Hall of Fame and queued up to photograph each other standing alongside the Stanley Cup. We saw lots of nephew Michael, swilled beer and ate hotdogs and Cheetos with Mike's family and his friendly neighbours.

But it wasn't just baseball and hotdogs. Oh no. We endured screaming kids at the MacMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, taxed old knees at the Royal Ontario Museum and even joined the blue-bloods at the opera. Jan was over the moon about the Canada Opera Company's production of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Once inside the 401/427 Toronto is a surprisingly easy place to find relaxation. There is abundant architecture, public art and historic places to contemplate. And abundant diversions too. The town that many Canadians pretend to hate is just fine in my books – just as long as you stay away from the 401.