Graham Lanktree has written about medicine, technology, business, fitness and arts and culture for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Canadian Geographic and enRoute.
Historically, when birch-bark canoes were built for the fur trade at the North West Company's outpost at Fort William in Thunder Bay, Ont., it took only a week to build a 24-footer. These were much larger vessels than the 12-foot craft that Mark and Adam Shoalts intend to make.
But because they don't have the experience of these master craftsmen, they're hoping to make theirs in about 18 days.... If everything goes according to plan.
Join us for part three of their quest to build a birch-bark ...
Ottawa is home to the largest urban Inuit population in Canada. Giving community members a place to come together, The Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre shares and celebrates their heritage while fostering cultural values in a new generation.
Watch as children learn how to clean an arctic char, throat sing and carve soapstone sculptures.
French President Charles de Gaulle was coaxed from a visit with Mayor Jean Drapeau on July 24, 1967, by a crowd of thousands chanting his name outside Montréal’s City Hall.
As he stepped onto the balcony over the building’s main entrance, a great cheer rose up. With confidence, de Gaulle gave a brief speech, punctuating his final words with the unforgettable cry "Vive le Québec libre!"
Below the balcony, where throngs gathered to glimpse de ...
The Scottish clans of Canada filled Parliament Hill to show their colours in celebration of National Tartan Day on April 10, 2011.
Among some of the first Voyageurs in Canada, the Scots have played an important role in shaping our nation. And with approximately 4.7 million Canadians claiming Scottish heritage, they continue to to this day. Immerse yourself in the celebration.
Many Haida artists work to not only recapture old traditions but to take those traditions in new directions. Recently, a talented raven's tail weaver named Lisa Hageman spent two years completing a chief's robe using a technique that hadn't been tried in more than 150 years. We spoke to her about Haida art and what it took to complete this stunning project.
CG: Are you trying to recapture lost traditions in your work?
LH: My personal and professional focus is to learn as much as I can about ...
Black history month doesn't get a lot of attention in Canada. A quick search pulls up a few small news stories here and there - one about Canada Post's new stamp commemorating MLB Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins, another about how local artists, musicians and writers are meeting up in Calgary to jam.
Our country was never gripped by a difficult civil rights movement, nor the L.A. riots, nor headline stealing photos of oppression at the end of a stick. And, as with most events in our nation, we don't ...
First Nations and Métis people collected buffalo bones and brought them to train stations such as this one at Moose Jaw, Sask. They received five cents a ton for their efforts.
The prairies were littered with the skulls of bison during the waning days of the Buffalo hunt. There had been, at a time, some 50 to 60 million of the woolly beasts roaming the plains of North America. Even in the 1870s there were reports of herds that would take days to pass. Yet by the early 1880s the prairie bison were on the brink of extinction.Sketch by John Mix Stanley showing buffalo on the plains
In Canada, roughly 1,000 buffalo were left, most held in small herds on private land. There ...
On the edge of downtown Ottawa, just steps from the National Archives of Canada and Parliament, is a gully that leads to one of the city's hidden treasures. Traveling down its grassy slope you can hear the rush of white water and soon see a short stretch of river that kayakers from all over the world come to paddle.
It's on these waters that many of Canada's former and future Olympic kayakers have honed their skills. Every summer this man-made and natural boulder-strewn watercourse becomes a ...
In this short documentary from 1955, filmmaker Jean Palardy visits the three Quebec border towns of Rock Island, Stanstead and Beebe, and the Vermont town of Derby Line to see how residents and officials cope with a civic life that is cut down the middle by an international boundary.
And for a portrait of what life is like in Stanstead today, following security increases after 9/11, check out our feature on the bad case of insecurity that has been brought to this famously laid-back border town.
