Wonders need a Canadian update

Locomotives crossed the Koksilah River gorge atop the Kinsol Trestle for 60 years.

Nobody told him to go looking for a wonder of the modern world. But about 30 years ago, when he moved from Calgary to Vancouver Island, model-train buff Ken Ortwein kept hearing about an architectural treasure not far from where he now lived.

He took his son and grandsons up the island on the Trans-Canada Highway, then into the remote Cowichan Valley. There, across a deep river gorge near Shawnigan Lake, he saw the Kinsol Trestle for the first time.

“I fell in love with the crazy thing,” he told a local news reporter. Then, as he noted in his diary, “I thought I ought to build a scale model of it. And so, it began.” (more…)

Canada proud

Final frames of Canada 67, the featured film at the Telephone Pavilion, Expo 67.

I stood in what seemed thunderous chaos. Horses galloped to the right of me, to the left of me. Lances appeared to whisk past my ears. The ground felt as if it were trembling beneath my feet. And I grabbed my dad’s arm, fearing if I didn’t I might topple over. Just audible above the din of the rhythmic panting of the horses and the pounding of their hooves, I could hear singing.

“O Canada. Our home and native land…” (more…)