Not too long after I wrote my Roadstories post about Soulpepper Theatre’s excellent production of Eric Peterson and John Grey’s “Billy Bishop Goes to War” describing the exploits of Canada’s famous First World War air ace, I learned that Canada also could boast of an air ace who was less well-known, but even more decorated than Bishop.
A Sopwith Camel from the 1914-1916 period
On September 22, 2011, in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the grandsons of William George Barker presided at the erection of a monument to this famous World War One flying ace. The monument describes him as “The most decorated war hero in the history of Canada, the British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations”. He had received a total of twelve First World War awards, including the Victoria Cross, among other English awards, as well as two medals from Italy and one from France. Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, David Onley and RCAF Lieutenant-General Andre Deschamps were present at the ceremony, which featured a fly-over of two vintage World War I aircraft, including a Sopwith Snipe, a favorite plane of Barker’s.
Photograph of Lieutenant Colonel William George Barker VC in interim RAF uniform which dates the photo to the period April 1918 to August 1919.
Major Barker was born on November 3, 1894 in a log farmhouse in Dauphin, Manitoba. This was still pioneer country at that time, and a sister later described Barker as an adventurous boy, given to taking risks and a great shot with a rifle who loved to ride out into the open country, often without waiting for the permission of his parents. He was in his final year of high school at Dauphin Collegiate when the First World War broke out. He volunteered as a trooper with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles and was sent to England and then to the trenches in France. He fought at Ypres, but, like Bishop and other flying aces, he seems to have tired of life in the trenches and volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps. By May, 1917, he was back in Europe as a flyer and an officer, and by August, 1917, he was wounded in an air fight and sent back to England to recover. A story is told that during this period, he disobeyed orders by conducting a display of low-level flying over Piccadilly Circus. It sounds like the type of thing that the population of war-time London would have loved more than his officers might have!
On his return to Europe, he was sent to Italy where he shot down many enemy planes. On one of his missions he and a fellow flyer destroyed a German airfield, and for this he apparently was reprimanded for exceeding orders and awarded a medal at the same time for the same expedition! On one of his missions he was severely wounded, and for the remainder of his life he suffered pain from shrapnel in his leg and had little use of his left arm because the elbow had been destroyed. When he was recovering in London from these injuries, he met Billy Bishop.
Sopwith Snipe flown by William George Barker
After the war Barker and Bishop worked together and formed several companies under names such as Bishop-Barker Aeroplanes Limited. Although these companies weren’t always successful, they were part of the early development of commercial flying services in Canada. Barker later married Billy Bishop’s cousin, Jean Kilbourn Smith.
In 1918, Barker flew at the Canadian National Exhibition, beginning an annual tradition that still draws large crowds to this day. He joined the newly-formed Canadian Air Force in 1922, became an officer and an active promoter of flying and what it could do for Canada. In 1927 Conn Smythe, who had also been a flyer in World War I, named Barker the first President of the newly-named Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
Barker also apparently continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Today we call this PTSD, and it is taken seriously as something that afflicts many war veterans and regarded as an illness that should be treated. After the First World War, it was called “shell-shock”, and the mode of the era seemed to be that a veteran should suck it up and get on with life. There was also perhaps less recognition in that era that a Manitoba farm boy could have risen to the heights of shooting down fifty enemy aircraft: flying was considered more of a “gentleman’s game”. This may explain why there was no headstone or mention of the number of enemy planes he had shot down.
He may also have had less fame than Bishop because he did not live as long. On March 12, 1930 Barker was demonstrating a new aircraft over the Ottawa River. A complex circular maneuver he was performing went out of control and he crashed onto the ice of the river and was killed. His death certainly did not pass unnoticed in his own time. At his funeral in Toronto there was an honor guard of 2,000 soldiers, including six Victoria Cross recipients. The U.S. Army sent an honor guard. 50,000 spectators lined the route to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where his remains were interred in the crypt of his wife’s family, the Smiths. And there he remained until a September morning over eighty years later when a monument and a flyover would recognize his daring and courage from a long-ago war.
When I bought my poppy last week, I thought of Major Barker and wished his spirit continued joyous, daring flight.
Leslie Windsor
Tags: pilot, William George Barker, World War One
Trending on Twitter #canadianactionmovies
I’m not a big Twitter user, but my partner Judy is always on there doing something or other. If you are so inclined, you can follow her using the tab on the right side of this page. Below, you’ll find a list of the most recent (tongue-in-cheek) Canadian ‘action movies’. #CanadianActionMovies was a trend onTwitter for the better part of 48 hours this week. Who knew such a thriving ‘home-grown’ movie industry was lurking behind-the-desks of Canada’s tweeters.
Conan the Calgarian – The Icewine Cometh – Never Ending Sorry – The Toques of Hazzard – Lord of the Rinks – The Manitoban Candidate – The Bacon Ultimatum – Slightly Annoyed Max – The Bourne Polite Request – Full Down-filled Jacket – Frostbite Hand Luke – Dude, Where’s my Chesterfield? – Don’t Fear the Beaver – Pearson: The Man, The Prize, The Airport – Politefellas – The DaVinci Postal Code – Glengarry Glenn Gould – Live Free or Hurry Hard – The Chronicles Of Sarnia – The Magnificent Group of Seven – The Hunt for Warm October – Black Goose Down – Harold and Kumar go to Whitehorse – Mutiny on the Mountie – Beaver Dam Busters – A Mansbridge Too Far – Big Trouble In Little Regina – The Codfather – The Eh Team – Hockey Diaries – Legal Weapon
If you are confused by any of these Canadian cultural references, post a question in the comments and we will do our best to enlighten you. Until then, keep your stick on the ice.
Tags: bacon, beaver, Canada, canadianactionmovies, Mansbridge, moose, movies, toque, twitter
In Canada, it’s darker at this time of year. There are fewer waking hours and dusk and darkness are often inhabited by unexplained events and ghostly phenomena. We are not a superstitious people, not susceptable to assumptions of supernatural causation. But facts are facts, and we are a curious bunch. So every year at about this time we venture out, often by candlelight, in search of the truth that awaits us in the cold darkness…
The Haunted Stirling Mansion, home of Fright Night
European settlement in Nova Scotia dates back to the seventeenth century. In Canadian time, that’s a lot of history. @AuthenticCoast and @travelbyterry have been tweeting me about an interesting Nova Scotia haunt. The DesBarres Manor Inn was built in 1837 in the seaside village of Guysborough on Nova Scotia’s eastern shore for Supreme Court Justice, W.F. DesBarres. Justice Debarres was the grandson of J.W.F. Desbarres, a military man and mapmaker who accompanied Major-General James Wolfe at the great battle on the Plains of Abraham. It is rumoured that Wolfe gave DesBarres his pocket watch at the moment of his death, and that it hung in the Manor for many years. Spooky!
Surrounding the Plains of Abraham is Québec City. As night falls, Ghost Tours of Québec guide visitors through the cobble stone streets and ancient buildings of the old city, regaling them with tales of murders, executions, mysterious sightings, tragedies and hauntings.
Mon Dieu! Tours are in English and French.
In Ontario (known before confederation as Upper Canada), Fort George is regarded by many as the most haunted place in Canada. It was headquarters for the British military in Niagara during the War of 1812, and the scene of much blood, death and suffering. Many soldiers and civilians alike are still buried on the grounds of the fort. Some people say that distant cries can still be heard there.
If you dare to set foot in the fort on a weekend in October, check out the Friends of Fort George Halloween ghost tour. This two-hour guided candlelit walking tour is conducted by Ghost Tours of Niagara.
In the Canadian Badlands of southeastern Alberta, ghost tours and other paranormal events are wafting through the mist. The Haunted Atlas Coal Mine has BIG BOO and LITTLE BOO tours into the darkest corners of the abandoned coal mine. The Medalta Ghost Hunt is a nocturnal tour through a 100 year old pottery factory led by the Medicine Hat Paranormal Investigation team. And in the normally peaceful village of Stirling, Alberta, the Haunted Stirling Mansion is one of the best-produced haunted houses I have seen anywhere in Canada.
- Lost in the Haunted Stirling Mansion
On Twitter, the Stanley Park Hallowe’en Ghost Train is known as @Ghost_TrainYVR. This year’s theme is Circus of Disaster. @Ghost_TrainYVR has been tweeting little teasers about this year’s event. Example: “The 1st circus in Ancient Rome was called the ‘Circus Maximus’ & more than 200-thousand people came to watch the show” Here’s a review of this year’s ghost train from the Georgia Straight, a popular Vancouver area media outlet.
If you know of a ghost tour or spooky Canadian factoid, please share it with us in the comments below.
Tags: Alberta, Atlas Coal Mine, Canada, Canadian Badlands, DesBarres, Desbarres Manor Inn, Fort George, ghost tours, ghost train.Ontario, halloween, hallowe’en, Haunted Stirling Mansion, Medalta, Medicine Hat, Niagara, Nova Scotia, Old Town, Quebec City, Stanley Park, Vancouver
It’s the first game of the new hockey season this Thursday (Oct. 6, 2011) and my beloved Habs (Montreal Canadiens) are in town to face their rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. A perfect time to talk about a new hockey hang out.
“Dave’s Organic Burger” at Shakey’s in Toronto
Shakey’s is west of Runnymede Avenue on the south side of Bloor, in Toronto’s Bloor West Village, a ‘hood’ with deep European roots. More bistro than sports bar, what drew my attention to Shakey’s is its Toronto Maple Leafs history, decent food, bounty of flat-screen TVs, and its owners’ family connection to Toronto’s hospitality industry. All a good fit for a Roadstories post about people, places and things.
Shakey was Mike Walton’s nickname. Walton played centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs when the team won its last Stanley Cup (way back in 1967). When Walton retired from hockey he opened Shakey’s Original Bar & Grill, one of the first bars in the village, which for many years, ran dry.
- The famous Silver Dollar Room, Toronto, Canada
Rob Lundy owns present-day Shakey’s with his brother Chris, Shakey’s chef. Their maternal grandfather once owned one of Toronto’s most famous clubs, the Silver Dollar. He also turned the Stardust Hotel and Lounge into the original Drake Hotel back in 1949.
The Lundy brothers have not forgotten Shakey’s hockey roots. Lots of Leaf memorabilia here. Black and white photos of early Leaf glory days hang on the walls. There’s the 1967 Maple Leaf Stanley Cup winners parading down Yonge Street and Walton squaring off with Gordie Howe at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Even a couple of Habs photos hang by the entrance, a nod to Hab fans in Toronto, I guess.
Then there’s the food. The Lundy brothers have created a place that attracts its fair share of sports fans but not exclusively. Last week, more women than men were having lunch when I was there and when I went back for pictures, a dad and his two daughters and a young couple with an infant were among those ordering dinner. Chris, who trained at Vancouver’s Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and worked at Toronto’s Crush Wine Bar, the former Lemon Meringue and Montreal’s Garçon and Club 357c , told me his biggest challenge was getting to know his customer base. Initially, he wanted a finer dining menu but he quickly realized that his best plan was still offer pub fare. The big difference is that just about everything here is now made from scratch or sourced from the village, including what you see on the kids’ menu. We tried Dave’s Organic Burger washed down with a Mill Street draft. Made with Rowe Farms organic ground beef, It came highly recommended and didn’t disapppoint. Other big sellers include Chris’s homemade fried chicken, fish and chips, nachos, and his soups which are mostly vegan. Fish for the fish and chips comes from a local Bloor West Village supplier and outside of the Polish pickles supplied by a Polish shop on Bloor West, most condiments, including the mayonnaise, are made in-house.
- TSN billboard in downtown Toronto
Thursday’s game will be televised. The puck drops at 7pm. The beer is sure to be flowing and the burgers flying off the grill at Shakey’s.
Got a favourite place in your part of the country to watch Canada’s national game? We’d love to hear from you. Go Habs Go!
Tags: bar, Bloor St. West, Bloor West Village, burger, fish and chips, Habs, hamburger, hockey, hockey memorabilia, Leafs, local, Mike Walton, Montreal Canadians, Montreal Canadiens, photos, Shakey’s, Silver Dollar, Stanley Cup, the Drake Hotel, The Silver Dollar Room, Toronto, Toronto Maple Leafs
Every fall, millions of birds, butterflies and dragonflies from across North America head south for winter. Along the north shore of Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada, these include birds of prey. Nineteen species of hawks, falcons, eagles and vultures have been recorded migrating past here. One of the best places to view them in fall is at Port Burwell Provincial Park, two hours southwest of Toronto and an hour south of London, Ontario.
Fall mornings are best – just after dawn until mid-morning and especially after a cold front has rolled through. That’s when park visitors gather on the beach or in the beach parking lots to watch the migration. Some days, the birds pass by at tree-top level. Other days, they are high in the sky. On a good day and with a pair of binoculars, you’ll see birds everywhere.
The bulk of Broad-winged Hawks pass through in mid September but the month of October produces the highest number of species on any given day. Sightings of ten or more species of hawks a day are not unusual. Peregrine Falcons peak in early October, Turkey Vultures in mid-month and Red-shouldered Hawks in late October. The massive Red-tailed Hawk migration occurs later, in early November, when thousands fly over daily. Bald Eagles can be seen any time during the fall migration period from August to December. In December, heavy snowfalls in the north bring the last of the migrants through, including Northern Harriers.
Turkey vultures scouring the ground for fresh carcasses – a close look at two of the carrion (meat)-eating raptors. Turkey vultures are often identified by their conspicuous red heads, bare of any feathers. Researchers believe their bald heads help keep them clean as they dig through their meals – photo courtesy of Ontario Parks
A free brochure called Marvels of Migration is available from the Port Burwell Provincial Park office at the park entrance. It describes the different species and lists their silhouettes to help you identify them in flight.
Milder fall temperatures in southwestern Ontario attract campers to provincial parks along the Lake Erie and Lake Huron shorelines. One of the best group campsites in Ontario’s provincial park system is found at Port Burwell Provincial Park. Staff call #402 “the site with the million dollar view”. To reserve a group camp site, contact the park directly. You don’t have to camp to enjoy the fall migration though. Park day passes are available too.
Tags: eagle, falcon, hawk, migration, Port Burwell Provincial Park, Turkey Vultures
The United Nations (UN) has declared 2011-2012 the International Year of the Bat, so with Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to do this post.
Bats are the world’s most misunderstood creatures. For centuries, they’ve been associated with black magic, witchcraft and vampire folklore. But bats are in real trouble right now and desperately need our help to survive.
In North America, White-nose Syndrome (WNS) has devastated bat populations. In other parts of the world, bat habitats are disappearing. The United Nations and bat conservation groups around the world are anxious to get the word out that we need bats for a healthy world. Bats pollinate plants and disperse seed and they help control pests, with some eating half their weight in insects every night.
To understand bats better, the UN has set up a Year of the Bat website.
Just ten minutes on YearoftheBat.org and its links and I discovered all kinds of interesting facts and figures about bats. The world’s only flying mammals represent 1200 species of bat. That’s one-fifth of all mammal species on the planet. The smallest is the Bumblebee bat, weighing in at less than a penny. The largest is the Giant Flying Fox with a wingspan of up to six feet. The Little Brown which is native to many parts of Canada and the US, eats up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in an hour. The Little Brown is the bat that has been most severely affected by WNS.
Here are a couple of other things I learned from YearoftheBat.org:
Golden Crowned Fruit Bat – a type of Flying Fox mega bat
Bats often sing to attract a mate or they do a fancy wing display.
Bats live long lives – sometimes twenty years or more and they only have one pup a year. Pups are suckled by their mothers until they are old enough to fly.
I found out how to remove a bat safely and humanely from a home: http://www.batcon.org/index.php/bats-a-people/removing-a-bat.html And, I found instructions on how to build a bat house. http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house.html These houses really do work. My mother had bats roosting between the frame and siding of her home and a bat house that we posted on a nearby cedar tree eliminated the problem.
In Canada, many Ontario Parks have bat awareness as part of their natural heritage education programming. At Rock Point Provincial Park on Lake Erie, bats are a part of the park’s summer activities. At The Pinery, a provincial park on Lake Huron, the park’s Halloween weekend always includes a Build your own Bat House session hosted by Friends of the Pinery park volunteers. This year, the Halloween weekend takes place October 22-23, 2011. Reservations are required.
Tags: bats, halloween, International Year of the Bat, Rock Point Provincial Park, white-nose syndrome
On a recent trip to Long Point Provincial Park we spotted what we thought was a huge, beautiful butterfly. Upon showing her this picture, the park naturalist informed us that it was not, in fact, a butterfly, but a moth. None other than the Cecropia moth, the largest in North America!
Cecropia Moth photographed at Long Point Provincial Park
The scientific name is Hyalophora cecropia and it’s a member of the Saturniidae family of giant silk moths. Females with a wingspan of 160 mm (over six inches) have been documented. It is found all the way from B.C. to the Canadian maritime provinces.
Long Point Provincial Park, near Port Rowan, Ontario, Canada is part of the Lake Erie beaches. It’s a stunning place to visit if you like sand-dune camping and deserted beaches. It is also world-renowned for migrating birds in the spring and fall (many of which probably feed on the Cecropia moth). Bird-watchers have spotted 383 different species of birds on Long Point itself, which is recognized as a biosphere reserve by the United Nations.
The beaches at Long Point Provincial Park on Lake Erie
Tags: beaches, biosphere, bird-watchers, butterfly, Canada, Cecropia Moth, giant silk moths, Hyalophora cecropia, Lake Erie beaches, Long Point Biosphere Reserve, Long Point Provincial Park, moth, North America, Ontario, Ontario Parks, species of birds
I recently went to the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto’s Distillery District to see the play, “Billy Bishop goes to War”.
Lieutenant-Colonel W A 'Billy' Bishop V.C., of No 60 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, standing in front of his Nieuport 17 Scout at Filescamp, France in 1917.
This is one of the most-produced Canadian plays of all time, first produced by John Gray and Eric Peterson at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre shortly before Remembrance Day in 1978. With music provided by Gray, Peterson plays the role of Billy Bishop recalling his exploits as a Royal Air Force ace in the First World War. Bishop was from Owen Sound, Ontario, and made Canada famous for his skill in shooting down enemy aircraft during the war, 72 in all. He ended the war as Canada’s most-decorated citizen, having gained a Victoria Cross, a Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross. Peterson and Gray have done no less great service to Canadian theatre, by bringing Bishop’s exploits, and their talented presentation, to the attention of a much wider audience.
From Vancouver, Peterson and Gary took the play on a Canadian tour, including Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. In the course of this tour, the play caught the attention of producers Mike Nichols and Lewis Allen, which led to its eventually being performed at the Morosco Theatre on Broadway (demolished in 1982) for four months, only the second Canadian play to reach New York. They later toured to the Edinburgh Festival, London’s West end and the Arena Stage in Los Angeles. It was produced for television in Britain, Canada and Germany and in 1982 was awarded the Governor General’s Award for drama.
In 2009 the “island airport”, located on an island in Toronto Harbour, was officially renamed the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Reportedly, there was some objection from the Owen Sound Billy Bishop Regional Airport, which conflict, in true Canadian fashion, has not appreciably escalated. There is also a museum in Owen Sound honoring Air Marshall William Avery Bishop.
Captain Billy Bishop, V.C., of the Royal Flying Corps, in the cockpit of his Nieuport 17 fighter. At the time this photograph was taken in France in August, 1917, he had already shot down 37 German aircraft. – Photograph by William Rider-Rider, now in the collection of Library and Archives Canada.
Bishop was born February 8, 1894 and grew up in Owen Sound, where his father was a lawyer and provincial civil servant. As a boy he was a leader among his peers, who built his first plane in his teenage years, and also survived its first crash off the third floor of his family home. He attended Royal Military College, where, again, he seems to have been an active leader, but not too interested in academic work. In the play, Peterson brings out this individualistic, daring aspect of the character of the flying aces, both in Bishop and in a rival, the English flyer, Albert Ball. Peterson and Grey’s play has the two young men competing in shooting down enemy planes, and we learn that Ball was shot down himself at the age of twenty in 1917. Bishop survived the war, and lived until 1956.
When the First World War started in 1914, Bishop joined a horse cavalry unit, and was eventually sent to England. Later in life he wrote about his feeling that flying was so much better than the “mud and horseshit” of the trenches: it was “clean up there”. Peterson plays him talking about this and looking up into the clear open sky while he speculates on flying there. In one scene during the play, Bishop crashes and lands among the men in the trenches. He asks where he is, and, in a scene that is very funny despite the seriousness of the situation, an infantryman with a Newfoundland accent informs him ironically that he is not in downtown St. John’s, b’y. Later, in a letter home, Bishop apparently described this crash landing as “one of the most exciting adventures of my life.”
In England, he joined the Royal Flying Corps, but he was only accepted as an observer, and Peterson hilariously portrays the snooty upper-class English attitude to a colonial who has the nerve to want to be a flyer. The scene reminded me of Paul Gross’s portrayal of the attitude of the English army recruiter in Alberta, in his 2008 movie, “Passchendaele”. In Bishop’s case, however, fortune took a twist. Bishop was wounded and sent back to hospital in England where he made friends with an aristocratic Lady St. Helier, a friend of Churchill’s. She apparently used her influence to help him get training as a pilot, and in November, 1916 Bishop got his wings and was transferred to France, where he soon gained a reputation for shooting down enemy aircraft. Like Ball, he preferred to fly alone, and the German air aces began to call Bishop “Hell’s Handmaiden”. By 1917, he had established such a reputation that he was returned to Canada to do recruiting for the war. He wrote a memoir called “Winged Warfare” in 1918.
Peterson’s play shows him returning from Canada before the war ended and continuing to shoot down enemy aircraft until he reached his wartime total of 72. Following the war he was in several businesses, but it seems that flying was his first love, and he later became involved in organizing The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, where many World War II pilots were trained in the wide-open spaces of Western Canada before going to serve in Europe.
With Grey playing the piano, Peterson takes us through Bishop’s story by beginning as an older man sitting in a chair in his bathrobe reminiscing about the past. He doesn’t remain seated, however. Peterson gives us a lively one-man show, acting out the part of Bishop and the various people involved in his life and exploits, not hesitating to use props and to jump up and down on the furniture when necessary. It is a serious story, but he is very funny, while he manages to capture the personality of the flying ace, both devil-may-care and deadly serious at the same time.
I’ve seen this play more than once, and I had the feeling that the one I saw years ago was different in some way from the one I saw recently. Soulpepper always provides very helpful “Background Notes” in a handout for each of its plays, and I was interested to read that Peterson and Gray had updated the play in 1998 to fit their ages, and that they are currently reflecting Bishop less as a young romantic daredevil and more as an older retired man thinking about survival in war as a metaphor for life.
Part of the Distillery District, Toronto, Canada
In any case, I enjoy it every time I see it. It’s one of the best, but only one of the great Canadian classics that Soulpepper Theatre Company and the Young Centre for the Performing Arts have brought to our theatre scene. It adds much to the already exciting Distillery District.
Leslie Windsor
Tags: Billy Bishop, Billy Bishop Goes To War, Distillery District, Eric Peterson, John Gray, Owen Sound, Soulpepper, Young Centre
It started with @whygocanada tweet. Julie Ovenell Carter is a well known Canadian travel writer and she tweets for WhyGoCanada.com, a Canada travel source. Julie’s tweet read: “My favourite food souvenir from Canada? Hawkins Cheezies of course! What’s yours?…”
I discovered one on a road trip to Quebec last year.
We were with Carole and Andy, friends from Calgary, staying at a cottage in the Laurentians. While in town shopping for groceries, we spied Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses.
Now, if you’ve ever trick or treated on Hallowe’en, you know what a Hallowe’en kiss is. Gooey, taffy-like candy and done right, made with molasses. In my old neighbourhood, Halloween kisses were popular. They came in orange, black and yellow wrappers. They were cheap. And they were shelled out by the handful. Here’s the deal: Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses are different. They’re better, WAY better.
Bigger, softer and good. Very good. Too good. The four of us went through an entire bag in a week. At Christmas, Glenn and I looked for a bag to send Carol and Andy thinking they’d get a good giggle. We never found the kisses
Julie’s tweet for our favourite souvenir food was my motivation to find out the story behind the kisses. My online / telephone journey took me across Canada from Vancouver all the way east to the city of Saint John, New Brunswick and the home of the Grandma Molasses company. Turns out it Grandma Molasses doesn’t make Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses but it does supply the molasses.
Molasses is made from 100% sugar cane juice amd has been a staple in North America for over 200 years. According to Grandma Molasses, it used to arrive in Saint John by ship in ‘puncheons’ (big wooden barrels) and was sold in bulk at local general stores. That got me to wondering if my dad’s habit of serving us toast topped with molasses on winter mornings didn’t come from his New Brunswick roots. Original Foods , a Quebec company, makes Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses. So my next call was to Original Foods, based in Montreal. Two calls later I found out that you can’t buy Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses in Vancouver (Sorry Julie!). but Metro and Walmart sell them in stores in the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario.
As for Julie’s favourite, Hawkin’s Cheezies. Check this Halloween post that Julie wrote for more about them.
Tags: Calgary, Canada, Grandma Molasses, Grandma Ste-Catherine kisses, halloween, Julie Ovenell-Carter, Laurentians, molasses, Montreal, New Brunswick, Original Foods, puncheons, Quebec, Quebec City, souvenir, souvenir foods, St. John, travel Canada, Trick or Treat
Do me a favour, nay, do yourself and your sausage & rib loving friends and family a favour and check out The Red Steer if you find yourself anywhere in or around Bancroft, Ontario.
The Red Steer butcher shop near Bancroft, Ontario, purveyors of Old Tyme Service & Quality
For the final home stretch of the BBQ season (for some anyway, in my personal experience I happen to know many a brave Canadian who has pulled the BBQ right up to the backyard sliding door to flip steaks in February) a hidden gem of a butcher shop humbly awaits your meat eating fantasies. The Red Steer provides: steaks, roasts, homemade sausages, homemade Red Steer burgers, Ontario lamb, fresh fish, seafood and Ivanhoe Cheese in a self-described Old Tyme Service & Quality shop. Their beef is ‘dry aged’ (a process of hanging in the open air) on the premises.
Just South of Bancroft on Highway 62 is a newly adopted extension of the town (formerly its own modest sized town) named L’Amble. As the directions to the Red Steer were once described to me from a local resident of Bancroft:
“Whatcha wanna do is drive South on 62. Once you see the sign saying ‘L’Amble’ you’re gonna wanna go ahead and slow right down”.
This is the most accurate way anyone could explain how to arrive at ‘the Steer’ (as now feeling like a regular, having been a handful of times, I feel comfortable using this shorter variation) from Bancroft since the highway is fast and ‘the Steer’ is easy to shoot past.
The man at the helm of this fantastic butcher shop is a hulking, super friendly guy named Duane who makes the most incredible sausages I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. With flavours ranging from Honey Garlic-Farmstyle (his wife Julie’s favourite), Garlic and Chive-Bratwurst (one of his favs), sundried tomato, Cajun Italian and pork and beef breakfast sausage, trying one of each will not be a decision you will soon regret. Softly packed, these sausages melt on the tongue with perfect flavour and soft texture. Duane explained that they get all of their meat within Ontario, their beef and pork hailing from Norwich Farms in London, Ontario and their grain fed chicken is from a farm in Peterborough, Ontario.
The Red Steer has been around for the past five or so years, it was opened by Duane and Julie, with occasional help from reliable workers when needed. I chatted with Duane on my last visit and learned that he has no interest in today’s technology. As a result, you will not find a website, facebook page, blog, tweet or email address pertaining to this amazing butcher – heck, the business phone number isn’t even listed, Duane informed me with some pride. They have a fax machine, but as Duane explained, he has little time or patience for any other technology and its stressors.
On my most recent visit, he was selling vacuum wrapped racks of smoked and seasoned ribs that were marinating within the swells of the packaging in a thick reddish brown honey bbq sauce. He advised, at around ten dollars a rack, we try one out. They have, after all, been selling off the rack… no pun intended…“For example,” he began,
“I had a guy in here yesterday. He bought one. Came back in today, bought five more. I would say I had tried them myself, but I haven’t. Keep selling out before I get a chance!”
Well, not being able to argue with perfectly good reasoning we happily added it to our pile of different flavoured sausages and fresh ribs which we marinated and cooked low and slow later that night. All other meat we had, for weeks to come, made us yearn for an address closer to what might be one of the best butchers in Ontario.
Author’s Note: at the time of this post, the Red Steer is closed on Mondays. Their telephone number is 613-332-6735. We were unable to ascertain the fax number.
Tags: Bancroft, butcher, Ivanhoe Cheese, Kelly, Norwich Farms, Red Steer