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I never considered the village of Waterdown a good spot for photography, sure I knew about the trail and the waterfall at Grindstone Creek, better known as Smokey Hollow. But a chance morning to get out and do some photography landed me in this historic village, and I immediately knew that I had to include it for this project as more than the waterfall makes for good photographs. The area where Waterdown eventually grew has been occupied by humans as far back as 7,500 BCE. Still, the first known peoples were the Chonnonton Nation, one of the many civilizations known collectively as the Neutral Nations.Read More →

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My first introduction to Brantford came in the form of the film Silent Hill where the city’s depressed centre featured as the downtown of the titular Silent Hill, a fictional mining town that ended up in a supernatural cataclysm after a coal fire broke out. Brantford, in reality, has a far more complex history where the dark colonial past and rich indigenous heritage are seen like never before in Ontario. I’ll admit, this week was hard, made harder by recent dark elements of Canada that were brought to light for us on the colonial side of history. The earliest known human settlement in the GrandRead More →

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Connections, its something that we have found that many of us have a great need for. With the past year and more of stay-at-home orders, reduced social contacts, especially those outsides of the virtual world, the need for human contact has grown even more. So this week, we’re back among people to celebrate a small group within Milton (and beyond) that provided a great many people, myself included, some form of social contact and allowed for the formation of a social group. That group’s name is Connect, and for Week 33, we celebrate that group and its ending. Eight years ago, a friend of mine,Read More →

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When it comes to the community of Owen Sound, it is one of those places that, unless you live up in that area, you have to make a point actually to go and visit the city. And having to head up there as part of the capture plan for my Railroad Project gave me a perfect chance to revisit the beautiful downtown. Sadly I could not spend as much time as I wanted because the drive up took far longer than I expected, mainly due to traffic, but well worth the trip all the same! The earliest human settlement of the region was of theRead More →

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It’s been a hot minute since I had a chance to hang out with following historical reenactors in any major way. But this week, it’s a little different from my usual War of 1812/Napoleonic event. We’ve skipped ahead one hundred years and into the Great War. I had a chance to head out to The Hex, a small farm in rural Milton, for an event with a World War 1 unit representing a Swiss Regiment that defended the country’s border and helped maintain their neutrality during the conflict. During my time at school, World War One fell into my Grade 10 history class in aRead More →

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Lindsay, the last bastion of civilization before the wild north of cottage country. If you could call Lindsay a “Bastion of Civilization.” I wrote that quote many many years ago now in a short story about a rather frightful drive up to a cottage. Honestly looking back, the story is terrible. But the quote, the quote has lived on and seemed to have gotten around a bit especially among friends from PYPS who are from and some still live in Lindsay, Ontario. Having spent the morning in Coboconk (which as an aside also features in that story) doing my first photo shoot in a longRead More →

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There have always been certain locations that have appeared in all my projects; one of them is the city of Toronto. But that’s the weird part about running a project that relies on some freedom of movement when that freedom has been curtailed. You often have to find new locations to visit. But it took twenty-nine weeks to make it out into Toronto. But it was a weird way of going into the city. I didn’t take public transit, I went early, and I drove in, right into the core of Toronto. Something I don’t often do, because well, I don’t particularly appreciate driving inRead More →

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I honestly cannot remember where I first saw St. Marys mentioned, but there’s a good chance it was on Pinterest. And it is well worth a trip with a historic downtown that I love with tonnes of historic buildings that stand a lot of railway history. While off my usual beaten track, it was well worth the detail out for a lovely stroll. Sadly I couldn’t stay for too long and missed many interesting sites in the town; I certainly hope to make it back out here for a future “On The Road” video for my YouTube channel. The area where St Marys is todayRead More →

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Hamilton is an interesting city; it’s seen a lot over the course of its history, which is echoed in many buildings. The downtown core is the focus of this week, which I have spent many years wandering around and watching the ever-shifting changes from the piles of abandoned buildings to many disappearing or being reborn. While I don’t visit the downtown as much anymore with my exploring days shifting to more legal means and the number of abandoned buildings in the downtown becoming slimmer, it certainly was an eye-opening experience going back. The earliest humans to settle in this region were the Chonnonton or AttiwandaronkRead More →

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Well, we made it to the halfway point! And I finally made it out to Elora, Ontario. A location I’ve wanted to include in the project since the first couple of months of 2021. But things kept getting in the way and it had to be pushed back. But I wasn’t going to let it happen again and while my client shoot had to be pushed back, I still wanted to make sure to include the historic village anyways! Of course, the day I went the weather was not exactly ideal, but I’ve never let a bit of rain or overcast skies stop me andRead More →