Author: ourcountrydev

I’ve been asked about my favourite place in Canada a bunch of times over the years, and for a long time I told people I loved going to British Columbia — it’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth, never mind in Canada. But something happened in the summer of 2017 that was completely unexpected. We went to visit some friends at their cottage on Chandos Lake, in Ontario’s Kawartha area, and discovered they were selling the lot next to theirs. We had the most magical weekend, and at the end of it we said, “How much do you want for the lot?”

Last summer was our first summer in our cottage, and we’ve completely fallen in love with the place. It has totally changed me. There was a shift in my work schedule, so I had two or three 10-day breaks, and I was up there quite a bit, chopping wood, fixing things up. I just felt this huge weight lift off my shoulders when I was there. I’d wake up and take my dog down to the water, and we’d go fishing before dawn. I watched the sun set every night. I cooked outside. I even bought a boat. It was funny: my dog had started abandoning me, jumping onto my friend Mark’s boat and hanging out with them all day long, so I had to get a boat or else I wouldn’t have a dog! Now we’re all having fun wakeboarding, exploring different corners of the lake.

Even the drive in, on Highway 504, is special. We take bets on what wildlife we’re going to see, because there are families of wild turkeys, deer, moose and bears. We see beavers crossing the road sometimes with big branches in their mouths. It doesn’t get any more Canadian than that.

I went to Haida Gwaii for the first time last fall and fell in love with it. I come from the Arctic, where it’s all white with snow and there are no trees. But in Haida Gwaii, everything is growing and it’s so green! Back home I know my hunting grounds, but when I went to these islands and found myself wandering through all the trees, I was at a loss.

I was there to help make Edge of the Knife, the first feature film shot entirely in the Haida languages. It’s a story from their culture about a man who survives an accident at sea and becomes known as the Haida Wildman. I stayed in a longhouse and got to see a totem pole being created for the community’s residential school memorial. It was amazing to watch that giant tree being carved. Up North, all I have to carve is soapstone! So I tried carving in wood, and did a figure of an Inuk woman with a baby on her back in cedar, which I left with my friends there.

I saw where the salmon spawn, I went clam digging, and I saw seals and killer whales. I’d seen both before, but seeing them in a new place was nice. I also went seal hunting with two young men, but they didn’t have the proper guns — just a couple of high-powered rifles, which are pretty strong for a seal. We eventually shot one, and I taught them how to skin and butcher it, then we shared some of the raw liver. The Haida used to hunt seals a long time ago but they haven’t done so in many years, so they don’t know how to do it.

Sometimes, glass floats used in fishing nets from Japan wash up on the beach. They are really neat to see. I looked around for some but didn’t find any. Maybe when I go back to see the film being finished, I’ll go see the Pacific side of the islands and find one there.

Being at the lake in Ontario’s cottage country is particularly special for me. My summer cannot go by without a visit to the woods and rock of Ontario, particularly my family’s spot near Haliburton. It’s a home base for us, though visits to friends’ homes in Muskoka, near Georgian Bay and at Lake Joseph, are inevitable, too.

As a kid, going to Kenora and the surrounding lake areas was an incredible treat, and I’ve never lost my love of wildlife, from moose to herons, which developed there. I used to go up north with my husband, but now it’s a tradition we share with our kids, and our place near Haliburton is similar. I hear the loons. I see the path lined with trees out to the road from the front door. The kids fish and kayak and run around free and hunt for lizards and insects. They get to be kids in their wonderment.

It’s really important to me to visit every year. Being there helps me completely shut down my busy life, and I become still. It makes me feel truly alive and present. Any yearning for material things seems to stop, and I’m at peace. I gain perspective and can jump back into my hectic life with gratitude and renewed inspiration after my visit.

As an artist, I need to shed the layers of projection and expectation that build up over time, and see what presents itself … what truly inspires me. This place allows that to happen. I get back to a simple me that can get lost in the chaos of travel and performing. I am transformed by the isolation and privacy, the beauty of nature. That’s what always brings me back home to the lake.

We have a family place in Sechelt, just up the coast from Vancouver. You have to take a ferry to get there, and it’s only about an hour and a half from the city, yet it seems a thousand miles away. It’s a small cedar cabin, just off the beach, on about two acres of land. If you step out the front door, you’re on the deck, which overlooks the yard and some blackberry bushes, and then there’s the ocean, right there. It’s very wild, very quiet. I’ve been going since I was born, and some of my best childhood memories are from there. We grew up fishing off the coast, and I remember being in a little aluminum fishing boat when I was about 10 and seeing orcas swim by.

When I was young, we used to spend about a month at the cabin in the summers. Now, because of the way my soccer schedule is, I don’t get summers off anymore, but as we’ve gotten older, my cousins and I have spent New Year’s there and done a polar bear swim on New Year’s Day. But whenever I go, it’s the same. I walk through the door, smell the cedar and go into total vacation mode. I end up playing a lot of cards and walking along the beach. It’s a pretty mellow time. There’s no stress, no Internet, the cellphone service is terrible and the soccer ball stays on the shelf. It’s awesome.

The word Torngait actually means “place of spirits” in Inuktitut, and you can really feel that when you’re in the Torngat Mountains. Every peak has a presence.

On a six-day backcountry trip last summer, I saw circles of stones that were ancient tent rings, and you could tell they were old because of the lichens on them. These were the places where Inuit ancestors would stop when travelling and hunting in the North. I also saw inuksuit, very old route markers. They’re all over the North, and they come in different forms depending on the landscape. I’d see them in the distance and say, “That’s not an animal.”

After that I visited the Torngat Mountains Base Camp and Research Station. They host a youth program for kids from the Nunatsiavut area of Labrador and the Nunavik region of northern Quebec. It’s about empowering the Inuit, fostering leadership and addressing mental health by connecting them with the outdoors. I was lucky enough to be part of that inspiring experience for the first time last year — seeing kids learning new things, taking what they learned and building on
those lessons. It felt like a window on the Inuit community.

On the last day of the camp, staff talked to the youth about their strengths and potential. Some of these kids come from really difficult places, and seeing the look in their eyes when they were being praised is something I’ll never forget. It reminded me of when I started in sports. I came from a difficult background myself, and I remember being told for the first time in my life that I was very damn good. Seeing and witnessing that happen was really special.

I came out of the Torngats feeling that the spirit of the place has been with all the generations who have travelled through that land.

As a kid, I grew up in Bull River and then moved to Jaffray, B.C. The thing about East Kootenay is that it seems like its own corner of the world. It’s kind of isolated, and the pace of life isn’t like what I experience nowadays. That, plus the wildlife and the scenery, are still things that I long for. Whenever I get to hang out there, it always evokes great memories and nostalgia.

I remember a lot of pond hockey. A lot of my hockey-playing friends from the city grew up in arenas, but I grew up on the ponds. If you had skates, a shovel and a pond, you were good to go.

I started playing pond hockey around third or fourth grade. I remember making goalie pads from foam taken out of a couch someone threw away. They didn’t help much with stopping a puck. We didn’t have boards, so the puck would get lost in snowdrifts. If we couldn’t find it, we knew we’d find frozen horse turds if we dug deep enough into the snow.

Probably one of my most enduring memories is of my house off in the distance — steam on the windows, mom making dinner — and us off on the pond, snow falling through the light, the sound of hockey sticks clacking and skates carving on ice.

There’s something about that lifestyle, with the thousands of acres of silence and solitude, that I appreciated when I was younger. When I get to go back to that world, I gain perspective and peace. I just love being in those places.

When I first moved out of my parents’ home, I bought a red-brick oneroom schoolhouse in Sprucedale, about 20 minutes down a winding dirt road from where I live now. It had a gothic fireplace and northfacing windows, so it always felt a bit dark. It served as my struggling artist bachelor pad for nearly a decade. I even had a studio set up and recorded a few records there. It was a beautiful place. Living in a 100-year-old building could be trying though, especially for a young
rock ’n’ roll guy who was always on the road.

I was so secluded, and nature felt much more intimate there. In winter, it was a battle to keep out the -40 C chill; for a while it was heated only by wood, and I’d go into Huntsville to warm up in the grocery store. There were animals, too; a squirrel once ate the handle off my microwave oven and there were often mouse nests in my studio, which was the warmest place in the house. But I kind of liked the imposition. It felt authentic, like when I come home from a ski with a beard full of snow.

That schoolhouse also had significant familial connections. My grandmother, who passed on her profound love of nature and whose maiden name became my stage name, got her education there. Some of my family is buried in a nearby cemetery. We’ve been in this area for a long time.

I think when you grow up on the Canadian Shield there’s a stability, an unshakable foundation that nobody really points out to you, but I feel it gives me peace. Being a musician lacks stability, and it’s something I long for. There’s always been a magic about this place.

I’ve been fortunate to see much of this country as host of The Amazing Race Canada, but nothing compares to going back to the places where I spent time as a youth — particularly Clear Lake, in western Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National
Park. That’s where I feel grounded and reconnected to what I knew growing up.

My grandma and grandpa had a small seasonal cabin there by the lake, just over an hour east of Russell. There was no plumbing — water collected in a bucket below the sink, and a common bathroom and cookhouse were shared with seven other cabins.

Now, the word “mountain” conjures up images of the Rockies and jagged outcroppings. But this is the Prairies, so if you think that’s what you’re going to get in Riding Mountain, you’ll be disappointed. It’s more of a gentle rise. The whole terrain undulates and it’s densely forested; to see Clear Lake you have to get up on it.

And it really does have unusual clarity. In fact, it’s what Margaret Laurence, the great author from Neepawa, Man., just 45 minutes southeast of Clear Lake, called “Diamond Lake” in her novels. You can see five or 10 metres down — it doesn’t have the algae blooms that are clogging the big lakes in Manitoba.

Over the years, what Clear Lake means to me has evolved. When I was little, it was a chance to be mischievous and adventurous and to explore a wonderful place. To this day, when I hear a loon it reminds me of spending time with Grandma and Grandpa down by that clear water. They’re both gone now, so it’s nice to have memories like that. As a teenager I would come to the lake with pals and rent a nearby cabin. Now that I’m older, I don’t think about carrying on the way I used to — I think about taking my own family. I loved bringing my wife Darla to that cabin for the first time to show her some of the things I got to experience, and to brag about it a bit, because the park really is quite beautiful.

It’s a spot you can enjoy from the first day you draw breath to the last. It will always be the place we go back to.

I was invited to a literary festival in Woody Point, N.L. [surrounded by Gros Morne National Park], in 2010. I took my wife and children and we fell in love with the place. We kept going back. Finally, we were so smitten, we bought a house there.

When I want to really feel a place in my bones, in my psyche, I need to feel the geography. I like to move through it physically. Woody Point is ideal for hiking, biking or kayaking. The biking is particularly fantastic; you see bays and mountains, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and traffic is quiet.

Newfoundland, we’re discovering, has a special tone of activity, especially with artists, painters and sculptors. Every block seems to have a writer. I’m not so much inspired by the geography to write, but it gives me licence to write because it gives me time and space. There are not a lot of distractions, except during the week of the writers’ festival.

And that’s one of the things we love most about the village — this fabulous literary festival called Writers at Woody Point. People come from hours away to take part. It brings in fantastic writers and attracts passionate, devoted audiences. It’s quickly turning into one of the most attractive and sought-after literary festivals.

The place makes me feel quieter, calmer and much more focused on what’s really important: writing, taking time with my family, slowing down to read. It makes me feel like seizing the best parts of life.

Halls Harbour is just 15 minutes from my parents’ place; we usually go there after church on Sundays. It’s this wonderfully transformative but consistently dramatic place in the Annapolis Valley region on the Bay of Fundy, which has the
highest tides in the world.

I remember when my parents first moved to Nova Scotia — I thought it would be a whole new world, that it would seem so far from the ocean. But the reality is that the valley is right near the coast. And it has its own type of beauty: you can see its expanse, the red mud, the red sand and strange clay-scapes. It’s a unique landscape.

You get a lot of wind in Halls Harbour. It’s part of the drama. I can feel the wind; I can smell the seaweed and the salt. For me, that’s the call of the Maritimes. When you get off a plane coming from larger centres, it hits you. It’s that clean ocean air.

To see it through my son’s eyes is so fascinating. He’s not quite two, and he goes along the planks of the dock, laughing at the seagulls and wanting to pick up rocks on the beach. When the wind comes in and gets in his eyes, he finds it hilarious. It’s great. It teaches me how much is there. When I see my son and what catches his attention, it hones my own attention and helps me recapture the whole area.

I’ve lived all over Canada because of my Air Force upbringing, so it’s difficult for me to pick a favourite place, but I find in Gairloch Gardens in Oakville, Ont., a little bit of all the places I love the most, whether it’s the Shuswap lakes in British Columbia or Sylvan Lake, outside Red Deer, Alta.

It’s on Lake Ontario, which looks like an ocean and reminds me of my parents and Cape Breton. There’s a pathway in the park that reminds me of Johnston Canyon in Banff National Park, where I had my honeymoon. There’s a rose garden that reminds me of my mom. The land was first purchased by a Col. William Mackendrick in 1922, the year of my dad’s birth, then by James Gairdner in 1960, the year I was born, so there are all these crazy little connections.

At least three times a week, I’ll go for a run through the park and look at the different plants and animals in season. My favourite time of year is when I see the first rosebud bloom, usually around the middle of June. That’s when you can really smell the earth, and the baby geese are running around. I run just about every day in that window to ensure I see the first rose.

They actually have a slogan for the park: “A place with room for thought.” I’m not one to meditate, but in my own funny way that’s where I go to stare out at Lake Ontario and just experience a little gratitude.

When I was growing up, my family had a cottage in Port Sandfield, where Lake Rosseau connects with Lake Joseph. We’d spend all summer there and weekends in the spring and fall. It was where we came together as a family.

I have three siblings and two cousins, and as long as it wasn’t thundering, the six of us would be outside all day, every day — swimming, wakeboarding, waterskiing, tubing. Sometimes we’d have sleepovers in the boathouse, where you could hear the waves at night.

My grandparents also had a cottage on Lake Rosseau, and that’s where I learned a lot of the lessons that have translated into sport and the way I live my life.

I was the youngest and smallest of the cousins, but that was never a hindering factor. If there was something I wanted to do, my family would figure out a way to include me.

My grandparents had an activity chart up in the stairwell with all our names on it next to different skills; once you did an activity three times, you got a star. I remember being especially proud to get a star for doing a back dive, because it was something I was scared to do.

A week before my first Olympics in Beijing, I went to my grandparents’ cottage with my parents and one of my teammates. At dinner, my grandfather told us about how he qualified for the Olympics in 1940. It was the first time he’d really told me the story in full, and we sat around that table for hours, just chatting. A week later, he passed away. Looking back, that was one of the most special moments I had with my grandfather.

The hoodoos on Bylot Island, just across from Pond Inlet, are the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. My mother was born and raised in Pond Inlet, on the land, in igloos and sod houses. Our family was relocated by the Canadian government in the 1950s. That was a very difficult thing for everyone. So Pond Inlet is our uninterrupted homeland, where we were happy, where we were surviving, where we were supposed to be. There’s a purity to it, a kind of pre-colonial sweetness. When I travelled there for the first time, I felt a very deep connection to it.

The hoodoos themselves are outstanding. They’re pillars of sandstone that are strong enough to stand on but soft enough that you can carve your name into the rock with your fingers. There was nothing running through my mind when I wrote my name on one of them, and that’s the beauty of being in a place that’s magical, cleansing and astoundingly beautiful — your neuroses disappear. When you’re in a big city, you’re crossing the street and you look and there are 500 cars and 50 people walking by and you’ve got to get somewhere before three o’clock and blah blah blah … all that’s gone up there. It’s a release of every stress when you’re out on the land. It’s like that peaceful feeling you have when you wake up but your eyes are still closed, and there’s just a couple of seconds before everything piles on you and you have to get up. I feel like that all the time when I’m there.

I’m originally from Cuba and was barely 24 when I came to Canada. From the very first time I visited, this country took my breath away.

After living in Victoria for four years, my wife and I made the decision to move to Smithers, B.C., to be closer to her family. We have a summer cabin outside of town at Lake Kathlyn. It’s my favourite place to go — I just hop on my scooter and ride out there with my guitar slung on my back. The cabin sits on the lake’s edge, right at the foot of Hudson Bay Mountain. It’s a very small cabin, with just one bedroom, a bathroom and kitchen, but it’s in a beautiful environment. I feel very lucky to have nature so accessible. The loon, a magical bird, comes around quite a bit. A few years ago, I started imitating the sound they make, and sometimes I’ll get a reply back.

I go to Lake Kathlyn any chance I get, especially when I’ve been touring for a long time. On hot days we swim, hike, fish and make fires to roast food. Sometimes I’ll relax with a Cuban cigar and an IPA beer and just jam out with my guitar. It’s a peaceful place, and I’ve written a number of songs there, including “Vale Todo,” the opening track of my fifth album, Healer.

Moving to Smithers was one of the best decisions of my life. Many industry people think it doesn’t make any sense to move to a remote area as a musician because you’re supposed to stay in the city if you want to continue finding success. But I didn’t buy into that fear. Instead, I said it was time to put my family first. And Smithers has made me very creative with my music. I have the time to do it, and now I have the concentration.

I split my time between Los Angeles and Toronto, but my favourite place in Canada is Pocologan, New Brunswick. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place on the Bay of Fundy, between Saint John and St. George, about an hour’s drive from Fredericton. Every Easter from the time I was quite young until I was into my late teens, my mother and I and a whole group of others would meet at a family friend’s home built on the rocks right over the Atlantic Ocean, where the waves could splash the windows on a rough day. It was a truly amazing house; the owner was a woodworker and everything inside was made from beautiful wood. There was a swing inside! The ceilings were really tall, so we could swing inside the house, looking out at the ocean.

Our annual tradition was an Easter egg hunt. My mom is heavily involved in the New Brunswick theatre community, and a lot of her friends are artists and craftspeople, so our Easter baskets were these spectacular handmade creations, like something you’d see in a magazine. In our baskets we’d get kites, and we’d drive to nearby New River Beach to fly them. It would be cold, and the tide would be out, and there would be at least 10 of us kids running around on this cold, beautiful beach with our kites. One of the first years we did it, I ran to the beach and let the kite unroll, and it went higher and higher until I realized I hadn’t tied the string to the handle.

We would climb on the rocks going down to the ocean. We would write our names in the sand in big letters, then watch the tide come in and wash them away. It was magical.

I was talking to my mom about it recently, and she said, “You know, even when you guys became teenagers, you were never too cool to go to Pocologan.” It was a really special time, bringing together families that would otherwise have lost touch. I’d love to have that for my own family and adult friends.

I’m from Point La Nim in the North Shore region of New Brunswick — a place so small that everyone knows everyone. The North Shore is made up of the town of Dalhousie, the city of Campbellton, the city of Bathurst and a whole bunch of little places peppered in between.

It’s a unique area because the North Shore is a mix of white anglophones and francophones and Mi’kmaq people. My father is from Eel River Bar First Nation, nestled along one of only two natural sandbars in the world that have a highway running over it. We dug clams there and cooked them right on the beach when we were young. I remember spending whole summers on that stretch. We would catch lobsters, mussels and fresh salmon. They’re not just “rich person foods” there — everybody gets to enjoy them. The first time I bought clams in a supermarket, I almost had a heart attack because I hadn’t realized how expensive they are in a city where you can’t just pull them out of the water yourself.

Famous people flew into our airport all the time. I remember when Jack Nicholson came to town one summer because he wanted to fish in the Restigouche River. It’s cool knowing that our little part of the world, our little heaven, entices people. In the winter, the east wind is harsh, but that’s just life on the North Shore. It’s a harsh but beautiful place.

I once couldn’t wait to get out, but when I see my old friends back home post a photo on social media of themselves sitting in their backyard on a Tuesday night with a big fire going, surrounded by their family with the water and mountains an arm’s-length away, I think differently.

The first 10 years of my life were spent on a 50-acre hobby farm in Queensville, Ont., north of Newmarket. I had a very happy childhood, full of imagination and exploration. When you’re little, 50 acres is huge; I spent most of my free time biking, climbing trees, and crawling through the barn with my friends, making forts or jumping from the rafters into giant bales of hay.

Even though it was a hobby farm, there was a lot of work to do. We had horses, dairy cows, pigs, rabbits, geese, chickens and a huge organic garden. I was too little to lift the hay bales, so I got to drive the truck.

The farmhouse was already 100 years old when my parents bought it, before I was born. There was a little cubby under the stairs off the family room, and that was my hideout. I would hang out in there and draw on the inside of the door with crayon, and when I was seven, I signed my name.

We moved to Richmond Hill when I was nine because I was skating in the Toronto Cricket Club by then and my competitive career was taking off, but all the subsequent owners of the house have left my signature in the cubby, which is pretty cool.

I’ve travelled the world and I was fortunate to have lived in Mexico for 12 years, but my wife and I recently purchased 100 acres in the Kawartha Lakes area, and it really feels like coming home. I can stand in the middle of the forest and close my eyes and listen to the wind in the trees, and just feel that beautiful exhaustion that comes from being outside all day.

If I am seeking to hit the pause button on life or the daily grind, Parksville, B.C., is my escape. My husband and his brother used to go camping near there when they were young, so there’s a nice nostalgia around it. We took my daughter there when she was two, and we’ve returned every August since to reconnect with my brother-in-law’s family.

Parksville is a small city where everything is built toward the water, with wide, expansive beaches that stretch for miles. The sand is soft, bright and scoured, and there’s that fresh smell of sea air that fills your nose. There are thousands of small, gelatinous blobs glistening on the surface of the beach. It’s all very magical. Everything feels like it has been rendered much slower and calmer there.

When I stand along the shoreline, I have a sense that there is no horizon, that I can just walk out toward the water and keep walking. It feels unspoiled, untrammelled, clean and remote. You can hear birds singing and children laughing. Peacefulness just washes over me.

One of my books, Washington Black, is about a man’s discovery of the natural world and falling in love with marine life. Writing it, I became interested in classifying different plants and animals, and learning which species are native to certain areas. I think Parksville embodies that passion.

When I am there, I feel grounded and we tend to have deeper, intimate and more philosophical conversations. There’s definitely something special about being in Parksville that allows us to connect on another level.

You almost get a taste of Europe when you come to Montreal: everyone speaks two languages and the architecture’s a little different. You just sense you’re in a vibrant city with a lot of history and culture.

I love that you can look out from pretty much anywhere on the mountain and see the brewery on the river. I’m proud to know that it’s been part of the city and part of our family for more than 230 years, but I also feel a responsibility, as a member of the seventh generation, to continue it.

I have three boys and a girl. At this stage, they all want to play hockey, but they’re starting to develop an interest in business and realize that making it in the NHL is a lot harder than they might have thought! It’s not my style to put pressure on them to have an interest in the brewery, but I hope at least one of the four will try to keep it going.

Hockey is sort of in our family genes. My grandfather and his brother purchased the Montreal Canadiens in 1957, and it’s pretty much been in the family and in the brewery since then. Growing up, we lived a block away from the Montreal Forum, where the Canadiens used to play, and if I got my homework done, I was able to go to the games. That’s how it all started for me, and now I’m living the dream of being in the ownership.

There’s nothing like going to a hockey game in Montreal. There’s so much passion and energy and love for the Canadiens in this city; you can feel it when they step on the ice, and when they score a goal or win a game, it changes the mood of the city. It’s incredible.

When I was growing up, my family had a cottage on Six Mile Lake in Ontario’s Muskoka region and we’d spend all of our summers there. I love being on the lake, out in the wilderness a bit. I got engaged in Muskoka, and got married there, too. It’s the most beautiful part of the country.

I think first and foremost of the lake. The water is smooth and clear and warm. It’s not too busy. There are cottages tucked into the woods and built up on rocks. There are some rapids at one end, and just sitting nearby and listening to the water is so peaceful. I feel so disconnected from the busyness of Toronto just an hour and a half away. It feels so removed and isolated. It’s the greatest place to go and get away from it all.

I love going up there with my family and people close to me. I’m not going to say you have to rough it up there, but you’re a little more in touch with nature. It brings people together. Sitting around a fire at night is a great time to catch up and talk about things you don’t normally talk about. It’s a great place to reconnect with people.

Muskoka inspires me because it’s where I want to end up — it’s where I want to retire. I think about my life after the hectic world of motorsports, and it’s really there that I want to be. On the road, I’m hyper focused on work. It’s a 24/7 job and I’m always worried about the next race or appearance. When I’m up there, the world just sort of stops. I get to take a minute and catch my breath and be myself, let the relaxed version of me come out. I find a lot of happiness there.

I’ve seen a lot of sights in my time. My adventures have taken me across Canada and all around the world. I don’t think there’s a country on the map that I haven’t stuck a “visited” pin in. But when I have a scant moment of peace and think of what home really is, what I see are the northern lights over Eagle Plains in the Yukon.

The first time I saw them there was during a reconnaissance flight with my old pal Leo Bachle, late in the summer of ’43. I was on leave from battling those nefarious Nazis over in Europe, and Leo and I had decided to fly up to the Yukon for some peace and quiet and to do a bit of fishing. Well, when I saw those lights roll out over the crimson forest and dance across that wide sky, I was filled with awe and a calm pride. I’d never really believed the lights actually existed when I was a kid; I thought they were just something you’d read about in storybooks. But once I saw them, I knew I’d never forget it because there was nothing that could ever match that sight.

I don’t fly as much nowadays, so when autumn is on its way around, I’ll drive halfway up the Dempster Highway and find a place to hike out, breathing in the cool, clean air and waiting for the sky to darken and unfold. I’ve never seen the lights the same way twice — they change from moment to moment and from night to night. Maybe that’s what keeps me coming back.

One of my favourite places in the world is Saskatoon. It’s where I’m from and I’m very proud of that, so for me to never have heard of Wanuskewin Heritage Park — a site that has been around longer than some Egyptian pyramids — was embarrassing!

When I recently visited the park for the fi rst time, I met Ernie Walker, the man who has made it his life’s passion to not only keep the park alive, but to share its wonders with the world by advocating for it to be included on Canada’s Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A protected site like this, with its rich history as a bison-hunting ground and a gathering place for Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years, is exactly what we need in the world today. We’re all on our devices and the world is moving so fast right now, so to put our phones away and experience nature again is breathtaking. I was shown around the site and although it was raining, the smell of the dirt and the fl owers was intoxicating. We forget what the beauty and power of Mother Nature can do to our souls. When I walked the trails, I felt an attachment to the ground, to Saskatchewan and to what the Northern Plains Indigenous Peoples experienced 6,000 years ago. It’s kind of humbling, and it’s incredible.

In an archeological dig I took part in, I found a stone that had super sharp edges and engraved markings on it. Ernie told me that I was the first person to touch this rock in 700 years. It blew my mind.

I have a country home in the bucolic hills of Caledon, Ont., about 60 kilometres northwest of Toronto. I really connect with the beauty here and what it has to offer, like the quirky and wonderful people I’ve made friends with. It really is a great part of the world. I love coming up, as do my wife and son. Going there is really about getting back into the countryside, where things move at a slightly slower pace and the air seems fresher, the trees greener, the wildlife more plentiful.

I’ve never been the kind of guy to sit for too long on the back deck with a beer or a book. I always have a job going. And here it’s the kind of jobs I can’t do in the city. Cutting the grass, planting trees, building a stone wall, tidying up the barn. Just these outdoor jobs that I love to do. Splitting firewood, stacking firewood and making a fire when it starts to get chilly … there is nothing more satisfying and gratifying. They’re all sort of rituals that I don’t find chores. I actually look forward to them.

I also have wonderful neighbours. A neighbour farmer friend taught me how to plow. I have a local beekeeper who comes to see me. I hike with a group of guys weekly. I feel very much a part of this community and I feel welcome here. The group of friends we hang out with in Caledon have a favourite little cidery down the road and a coffee shop in the village, a bakery we stop at when we’re on our cycling tours, a friendly neighbourhood pub. It’s unique little destinations like these that make it extra special. I never tire of coming here.

The first time I went to Stanley Park was probably in 1976, when I had just come down from Williams Lake, B.C., to go to the University of British Columbia. I’d decided to do some training, and one of my friends said, “Let’s go to Stanley Park,” and off we went. We wheeled around it, and it was like I had gone to the other side of the moon; it was quite a long journey for me at the time because I’d just come out of the rehabilitation centre and was starting to learn about my endurance and how far I could go. I thought, “Well, if I did that, I could go even farther.”

When I was an aspiring Paralympian in the late 1970s and 1980s, I lived in a little apartment in Kitsilano and was always trying to get down to the water, which I’ve always been drawn to. When parts of the seawall started to become accessible, Stanley Park became my training ground because I could go completely around it.

Even though the park is in a big city, when you get out on the seawall, you feel like you’re a part of the natural beauty of the ocean ecosystem. When you move around to Siwash Rock, you really get that sense of the West Coast, with the waves crashing in off the rocks. Sometimes at high tide and with strong winds, the water can blow up and over the wall and onto the trail, and you have to time it so you can pass before the next wave crashes across. If you’re lucky, you can see a seal or even a killer whale or a humpback whale.

The park is a place that made me realize that the world is accessible and inclusive, that I can have a life that’s full, that I don’t need to be cured in order to be whole, be included or be a part of something special. It’s truly inspiring.

Quebec City has always been a very symbolic place for me and my family. I’ve gone there regularly since I was a child, and I’ve performed there a lot. I grew up in Quebec and half of my family is French, so I was very much brought up in that environment.

The city certainly is the most beautiful in Canada, and it renews my sense of wonder and romance about my heritage. For me, one of the most important aspects of the place is its geographical location. As you’re driving along the St. Lawrence River, a city that looks like Prague suddenly appears in the distance. And it’s not large, so there isn’t urban sprawl to dull its impact.

And then when you’re up on top of its fortified hill and you look east and north, there’s just this vast wilderness of la belle province. It’s very heartening to know there’s still virgin territory out there.

Whenever I go to Quebec City, my French-Canadian blood simmers, and I’m reminded of my ancestors who have lived in the province for centuries. There’s something very ancient about the experience, and I seem to go back in time and slow down when I’m there. Everything stops, and I just have to walk everywhere and pause. I’ll turn a corner and I’m unexpectedly flung back 200 years. It’s nice to be able to slow down like that — it makes me feel more alive.

When I moved to Vancouver almost 30 years ago, I had a friend who kept insisting that I come up to visit her in Tofino. She spent her summers there, at her parents’ little cottage. When I finally went, I was like “Holy crap, this is the most incredible place in the world!” I still get that feeling every time I drive to Tofino; as soon as the salt air hits my nose, I start to smile. Being there is the closest thing to heaven on Earth that I’ve ever experienced.

I bought a place on the beach 14 years ago, and that’s where I decompress — even if my two daughters are running in and out, looking for wetsuits with kids they met on the beach, or the house is full of friends. I can be social, be a mom, cook, unplug, relax. I rarely ever go into town, unless it’s for groceries or to eat at SoBo, my favourite restaurant.

When I’m there, I’ll usually get out early in the morning when it’s pretty quiet and take the dog for a walk or go surfing. Tofino is a big surf town, which is one of the reasons I love it so much, but by the middle of the afternoon in the summer there’s probably about 300 people on the beach — it’s insane.

Still, it’s wonderful to be so close to the ocean. It reminds me of growing up in Halifax and of my dad. Not long after buying our place in Tofino, I bought the place next door to it for him. I have some great memories of the times we spent together there reconnecting. When he died, I spread his ashes in the ocean, went out there and walked in the water with him. I know you’re not supposed to do that, but it was so profound and beautiful and sad. Every time I go out on the water, he’s there with me.

From the top of Mount McKay — known as Animikii-wajiw in the Ojibwa language — you can see the Kaministiquia River, which starts north of Thunder Bay and winds its way over Kakabeka Falls and then wraps around the mountain. From up there, you can see the grain elevators that stand alongside the river and the Sleeping Giant, Nanabijou, sticking out into Gichigami, or Lake Superior, that moody wild beast of a lake, where it can be sunny, bright and beautiful one minute and all rolling clouds, gusts of wind and torrential rain the next.

The whole area has been a meeting place for Indigenous Peoples for a very long time, before the city of Thunder Bay existed and before the country of Canada existed. My family still goes back for powwows held on the mountain.

My mother grew up nearby in Raith, on the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation, my grandmother’s reserve. There, it’s all about water. It’s a remarkable place that you can feel more than you can see because it’s the Arctic watershed, the place on Turtle Island where things split and all the water goes north to Hudson Bay or south to the city. The rivers are the highways of the past, so when I’m there I’m reminded of that. It’s magical.

I don’t remember the first time I went to the mountain — I would have been really young. But seeing my kids there when they were smaller, seeing them running around on top through the tall grass, reminded me of the generations that have been there and will continue to be there. It’s a place of spiritual significance for the Ojibwa. It’s a place that means a lot to my family. It’s a place that absolutely touches me; it makes me feel peaceful when I’m there — I feel very happy and whole.

I recently shot the first season of Diggstown in Nova Scotia, which is a place I had never visited before. When I started to do research for my character, Marcie Diggs, I learned that Nova Scotia has Canada’s oldest and largest black community, North Preston in Halifax. It was great to visit that community and see the rolling green landscape, the nearby white sand beaches, the neighbourhoods, the homes, the churches. It was all so beautiful and raw.

The black community in Nova Scotia has some really sad connections as to why and how it came to be in Canada, and that brings up all sorts of feelings for me. First, I was really angry and confused that I had not learned about black Canadian history and its strong ties to the Maritimes in school. I grew up in Scarborough, Ont., but my roots are in the Caribbean; my parents are both from Trinidad and Tobago, and my community felt very Caribbean. For many years, I had this incorrect knowledge that most black Canadians were Afro-Caribbean. I wish I would have learned earlier about African Canadians and places like North Preston. There were so many black people who were an integral part of life throughout Nova Scotia. They owned land and businesses, and were involved in a lot of firsts. Take Rose Fortune, for instance, who was the first female police officer in Canada and lived in Annapolis Royal. Knowing these things earlier would have given me more of a sense of identity as a black Canadian.

Tofino is really special to me. It’s where I grew up and where my family and all my closest friends live. I love it here because it has so much nature — the most beautiful old-growth forests and a rugged coastline. You’ll get incredible sunrises and sunsets over the mountains and the ocean. It’s where I learned to surf and where all my best memories are.

Tofino makes me feel connected to the world around me. I get to go a little slower and take in every second. I feel close to the people around me and to nature. I love the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks and rolling up the shore. I love the sound of all the birds in the forest. And when I’m out in the boat, I can hear the wind whistling.

I spent much of my childhood playing in the ocean, on the beach and surfing. I spent countless hours with my sister rolling around in the sand, swimming and boogie boarding in the waves, having the best and worst surfs of our lives and working towards our dreams on the ocean.

Growing up in Tofino and on that coastline has 100 per cent made me the person that I am today. It’s where I fell in love with surfing and where I found my passion for the sport. The cold water definitely has shaped me. It is a little harder to motivate yourself to surf in Canada and in colder water, but it also makes it more special. I love the ritual of it — it takes more preparation to go out into the water. When I have my wetsuit on, and my hood, and I’m in my little bubble, that’s definitely when I feel the most myself.

For 20 years we had a place on the corner of Innisfil Beach Park. I would sit on my balcony in the morning and have my phone meetings staring at Lake Simcoe. That, for me, is the spot. The water is turquoise and calm. In the mornings you see a few canoes. It’s beautiful and serene. There’s a view of Snake Island and Fox Island, two small islands. I consider myself a water person. The feeling of going for a morning swim in that lake before I start my day puts me in an optimal state to work in creative spaces. There’s this fresh, sweet smell that comes off the lake that’s really apparent in the early morning when you’re swimming.

Most post-production houses for film are located in the busiest areas of Toronto. I would go in to edit my latest film, The Cuban, and then come home, sit on the balcony and think about it. It was in those pauses that I would regain perspective. Having that contrast was so important. It recharged me.

I have so many fond memories of going out fishing with my dad and exploring the lake. One night, around midnight, we were swimming under the stars. I had never seen meteor showers so clearly. I’d seen them in documentaries, but seeing it live — while swimming and looking up at the cosmos — was something magical that I’ll never forget. It was so peaceful and so rare. It took me a long time to appreciate how unique that is. I think the pandemic really helped clarify all that I’m so grateful for when it comes to Lake Simcoe.

I was born in Fort McMurray, Alta., and grew up in the nearby community of Anzac. Whenever you saw anybody on the road, you always said hello. We shared moose meat, grew gardens and fished. We’d laugh and tell stories and cherish our musicians, dancers and jiggers. A railroad through the community was our line to the outside world.

It was also a time when companies came to Fort McMurray for oil and gas exploration. Today, the city is known as the heart of the tar sands, but I remember it quite differently. I left when I was 15 to attend high school. When I returned 15 years later with my son, on the same train I left on, the world I once knew no longer existed.

There were now roads and lines and wells everywhere. Houses had disappeared, replaced with muddy parking lots. The animals we used to live off of tasted different. Everything was nearly unrecognizable, save for a few trees that still had carvings I’d etched into them years before. I felt a sense of displacement.

I still long for the beauty that once was, but I have developed a new relationship with the Earth. Wherever I go is a place I belong — whether it’s the badlands, mountains or boreal forest, I accept it’s part of the world and the creation we’re in. Mining is depleting this living organism we’re part of, and it’s impacting us all, from the air we breathe to the water that surrounds us. Everything is connected; the oceans are the womb of Mother Earth. Everywhere we are is part of everywhere else.

My mom has a house out on Hatzic Lake in Mission, B.C., and it is just magical. It is a place I didn’t really know about growing up, even though I grew up about an hour and a bit away. My mom has lived there for maybe six years now. She is obviously someone who is very, very important to me, and every time I go out to her place, it feels like I’m able to recharge.

I live in East Vancouver, and I wake up at 6:30 in the morning hearing the trucks taking out the garbage and the beeping and the SkyTrains — the noise of a city. Any time I get to go and visit my mom and spend the night, it’s quiet. You can hear the birds chirping, the wind wind-ing. It’s a nice place to go recharge.

I pull up to her front driveway from an isolated road, and across from it are blueberry fields. There are more blueberries here than you can ever imagine. My sister and I will go for a run around the blueberry fields if we’re trying to get a sweat in that day. You walk through the house, and on the other side are the lake and the mountains. She’s got her Canadian flag waving and a dock that leads out onto the water. In the summer, we’ll go kayaking or jump into the lake on hot days. In the winter, we’ll have a fire in the fire pit and roast marshmallows. We often see eagles flying. My mom likes to consider the eagles her neighbours. She’ll come visit me for a day or two to spend some time in the city, and then she’ll say she’s going to go home and chat with her neighbours the eagles in the tree next door. It’s a pretty special place.

One of the challenging things about living in a small city is that you sometimes feel overexposed. When I was growing up in Edmonton, there was this feeling that there was only one bookstore or one restaurant or one mall, and that you were inevitably going to run into people you know. Some people like that small-town vibe, but for me — especially being queer and brown — sometimes I wanted spaces to be invisible in. The North Saskatchewan River Valley was a space within the city to feel anonymous. I have such a tender spot for the River Valley because I associate it with finding my own way. It feels like a choice. I go there when I want to do something with the people I love who aren’t biological family.

This might speak to just how displaced I felt as a teenager, but there were a lot of times I was in the River Valley and I didn’t even know that I was in the River Valley. Sometimes when you’re in a space where you feel safe, it’s not that you arrive at the space and think “I feel safe now” or “I can be myself now.” Sometimes it’s about being in a space where I forget to worry about not feeling safe or acting a certain way. I can let my guard down.

When I go there, there’s probably a good chance I’ll run into someone I know — but I never have. It feels expansive and private. I feel weird about bringing my parents into this space. It’s like, as a teenager, you never have your parents hanging out with you in your bedroom — your bedroom is your private space. The River Valley feels like my Edmonton bedroom. It’s for friends, and it’s for me.

Home is a complicated word for me. My parents were diplomats, so I’ve lived abroad. Now I live in Saskatoon and have had spells in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. But when I return to Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Que., in some ways, I feel like I’m home. The town is part of the family history. My grandmother on my father’s side is from there, and the family — the Bourgaults — are a well-known little family. Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, about an hour east of Quebec City, is known for these small wooden figurines of fishermen holding lanterns and that sort of thing. My grandmother’s cousin, Jean-Julien Bourgault, started that tradition with his two brothers and did extremely well. They got the Order of Canada.

I grew up visiting my grandmother there in her little house. Her house is the second-to-last house before the river — the St. Lawrence, which by then is actually a 35-kilometre-wide seaway. There’s a pier that juts out with a small lighthouse at the end. There’s a ritual in our family that every day, rain or shine, we go out to the end of the pier and look out. The sun sets magnificently here as the wind travels over the flat, cold water. At high tide on a stormy day, great sprays of water cross the whole pier, showering it. There’s this smell of ambient water — water below, water raining down from above and water being blown across. Across from my grandmother’s cottage is a cemetery, a lovely place. A place where my family’s memories are made geographic. These weathered tombstones speak the history of not only the people but of the village.

Memories are imperfect and can fade over time — this has been a repeating theme in many novels I have written over the years. I see this in my own life, in that as I get older many details about my childhood have started to fade away or become less clear to me. But the memories I have created in Prince Edward Island feel entrenched in my mind.

When I was a child, Greenwich wasn’t part of a national park yet. It was a quiet, little-known spot where you’d drive up, park your car and walk about a kilometre over rolling sand to get to the beach. During the day we’d swim in the water, and at night we’d make bonfires. It was an expansive, white sand beach stretching for kilometres and there would never be anybody on it because nobody knew about it.

As I walk along the northwestern shore, I am surrounded by bright green grasses that blow in the wind. There’s a particular smell to those grasses that transports me back to being that 10-year-old kid again.

When I visit Greenwich with my three children, I see them doing the same things I did when I was young. It feels like history repeating itself. During a recent trip, my family went snorkelling and were surrounded by tiny crabs, lobsters and jellyfish. It felt like my kids were getting to experience those same joyful moments on that beach.

When I watch my children run down to the water just as I did all those years ago, I get emotional because of how transporting this place is and how clear those memories are.

Hamilton has a special place in my heart: it’s a chill, inspiring city where you get to just exist. I’m a Calgary kid, born and raised, but I connect with Hamilton because it’s like being back home. I’ve recently spent a lot of my time here filming Run the Burbs and it really inspires me. When I’m filming outdoor scenes in the suburbs, it feels like a throwback to being a kid again. You step outside and it’s warm, there’s people mowing their lawns. Then you can see kids playing basketball and hear others running through sprinklers. When we’re filming a lot of the scenes, neighbours will come out with lawn chairs and sit outside and watch us. There’s this calmness to it.

On weekends, I explore the city. I tend to do a circular tour. Part of that is mapping out some vintage toy stores like Bounty Hunter Toys and Retrosaurus. I love reconnecting with my childhood. I shared this toy store adventure with my kids.

I was surprised to find a large Vietnamese population here. There’s one strip mall with a Vietnamese restaurant, a Chinese butcher shop and an Asian grocery store — and that feels a lot like home. When you’re a person of colour looking to go to the suburbs, the fear is that it will be void of any of your own culture. To find and experience hubs like this in Hamilton makes me feel really connected to it. This city brings me joy because, in my 30s, I’m okay to trade in the hipster cool for this city’s organic cool, with these good places serving good food and doing good things.

During my youth, I spent nine summers at Wilvaken, a summer camp at Lake Lovering in Quebec. I started off as a camper and then worked my way up to become a staff member. We’d spend our days sailing, canoeing and waterskiing, and our evenings admiring the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen. My lifetime best friend convinced me to go to the camp with her when I was a kid, so I made some of my best memories with her next to me.

My nephews went there for the first time in 2019, and the summer before that was the camp’s 60th anniversary, so there are still many things that bring me back to Lake Lovering. It’s always a special time when I arrive back, from seeing those familiar rolling hills to travelling alongside vast farmers’ fields. I can smell the pine forest and hear the birds in the trees — and I immediately know I am home.

When I attended the camp, there were only a couple of other camps on that lake, and there weren’t many boats or people outside of the campers, so the friendships I made during those summers were intimate and special. The people there are passionate about the camp, and that’s contagious.

Having a unique communal living experience like that changes those who go through it. Years’ worth of memories and friendships are compressed into a shorter time period because you’re with each other all the time. Things are just more intense in that environment.

From 1991 to 1994, I had a chance to travel Alberta quite a bit when I did my university degree in Edmonton. One of the spots I still remember fondly, for many reasons, is Kananaskis. We used to go there whenever we had a chance. One of the reasons we discovered Kananaskis was that they had — and this was in the early 1990s — a fully wheelchair-friendly lodge and access to adapted cross-country ski equipment. At the time, this was groundbreaking because there weren’t really a lot of big conversations going on around inclusion, accessibility and equity.

When you are a wheelchair user who loves nature, the options are not always easy. There are obstacles and barriers. Kananaskis was one of my first experiences on my own with my skiing sticks and my muscles, and I could just go into nature. I have memories and photos of having to stop for bears or deer. I had this sense that I was on the wildlife’s turf — in their environment — and that’s why it was so, so, so precious.

I’m now a mother, and my son is nine. It is definitely in the plans to go back there in the next few years — to take him to this favourite place of mine.

Every now and then, I need to retreat — to reflect, absorb nature and just be in the moment. Kananaskis was one of those first experiences. I was in my early 20s when I began to realize that this balance is so important. I was at the beginning of my racing career, and the media attention, the pressure and the travelling — it could get intense. I needed to have balance, to find myself in nature and be active in nature.

I’ve always been connected to nature, but until a few winters ago I’d never had the opportunity to be on ice formed by Mother Nature. I reached out to a friend of mine, Paul Zizka, who’s a mountain man in Banff. He said there was an opportunity to skate on Lake Minnewanka the next morning. So, I met him there.

When I finally got to step on that ice, the feeling was magical. I’ve been skating my whole life; I’ve skated indoor rinks that have the best technology in the world to make the ice as smooth as possible. But nothing comes close to the smoothness I felt on that ice that was just formed the day before by Mother Nature. It felt like I could push, then glide on that one push forever. As a figure skater, that feeling is infectious.

It was so quiet I could hear my blades, and I could also hear the ice. Wild ice sounds like no other ice. It almost feels like you’re in the middle of a science fiction space war, because it makes these “pew, pew, pew, pew” sounds like I’d never heard before. It was completely mesmerizing. I actually lay down and just allowed myself to hear the ice. It feels alive. It feels like it’s talking to you.

That first experience of being on wild ice completely shifted my perception of skating. It allows for more freedom because nature is so free in itself. It forces you, or inspires you, to find that kind of freedom within yourself. From that point on, all I wanted to do was skate on wild ice. Now it’s part of my life, and it will always be part of my life.

One of my favourite places in Canada is the Qu’Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan. My father had a small ranch there, so it’s a place that’s dear to me. We used to ride up and down the hills. We would come up on top of the hill and have this straight vista: if you looked in one direction, you could see the trees from the slopes of other hills; if you looked in another direction, you would see the valley bottom. The valley bottom was cultivated, so at different times of the year, you’d see either the crops growing there or fallow land that was black, recently turned and waiting to be seeded.

There were sights that you saw, but also felt, as you wound your way through trees. I remember the scent of the bark of the bur oak, which always seemed to have a dusty fibre smell to it. If you looked up, you could often see hawks, suspended above the hills, above the valley. At different times of the year, you would be riding along, and as you passed by bushes of saskatoons or chokecherries, or whatever was in season, you would just reach out and grab a handful of them. Saskatoons were always my favourite — and I still love that berry — but I even liked chokecherries, which sort of puckered up your mouth when you ate them.

My fondest memories of my father are in the Qu’Appelle Valley. I think they were happy memories because he was happy there. He loved the place, and he gave us that sense of loving the place.

The McGill campus always stood out to me, growing up in Montreal. It was so noticeable, the way it opened up through these big gates into what seemed to me to be this strange, Victorian world. I would think, “When I grow up, I’m going to study English literature there.”

When I became a student at McGill, the campus was a sort of bubble in the city that was so magical. I love that as soon as you get there, there’s this river of young people and conversation and laughter. I remember being a student and thinking, “I want to be an old lady and still come here with my books and be surrounded by young people.” I always had this dream that McGill would bequeath me one of the large old houses on campus, so I could just live there and read. I mostly grew up in tiny little apartments, so the houses there are so marvellous to me.

I recently met up with an old friend from McGill. Both of us had come from working-class backgrounds, and we reminisced about how the university was a place where we were able to escape this poverty and to mix with middle- and upper-class kids. I loved just sitting on the steps of the Arts Building with all these other students who were so fascinated by literature. I felt like I had finally met my people. Every time I go back, I feel like I’m entering this strange little kingdom again, where people read books and talk about them and are somehow able to escape the problems of actual life.

I discovered Prince Edward County through close friends who moved out here about 15 years ago. I didn’t really know the area at all prior to visiting them.

I bought my first piece of land in the county in 2012. It was vacant, so I was going out there pretty much every weekend, camping in an Airstream trailer. I realized I wanted to spend more time out there, especially in the off-season. So I started thinking about setting up something more permanent, which, in turn, led to me buying a small farm in 2014. It’s an old farm on a dead-end road, so it’s really quiet. I can’t hear cars or see city lights. The air is really fresh, and there’s lots of bird life. You can hear the coyotes howl at night, and it just feels very tranquil. It’s a very calm place to be.

After buying the farm, I realized I needed a place where I could actually create my art. So I built a studio for myself where I can work full-time when I want to. The views are beautiful. I sometimes find myself popping outside to take photos of clouds for a painting. I also designed the studio with this long strip of windows that frame the landscape. Each window is like a different landscape painting. All in all, I’m very comfortable in Prince Edward County. I’ve carved out a little corner of the county for myself, and having somewhere like this to escape to has been a huge relief to me. This place has changed my life.

Granby was where I first arrived, and it was my first contact with Canada. I had never seen snow, and it was amazing to see the cleanliness. When you live in a refugee camp in a war zone, it’s impossible to have this kind of silence and luminosity. And that was the first shock.

But the most important shock was when we stepped out of the bus, and there were so many people in the hotel parking lot waiting for us. Everybody was so tall. They were giants to me. I was so skinny as a 10-year-old. All the men had big beards and coats with fur all around. As Asians, we don’t express our emotions physically. But these people were just holding us — I was not even touching the floor. I still question how they could hold us in their arms when we were covered with infections from mosquito bites and had lice in our hair. But they did not hesitate.

In a refugee camp, you don’t feel human. And then, they looked at me, and I swear to you, I had never seen myself as beautiful. But that purity in their love for us — they gave me back my humanity, my dignity, all that we had lost in the camp. The people of Granby gave me back the humanity that I had lost. From that point on, I was not an immigrant from Vietnam; I was an adopted child arriving in a new family. When summer arrived, different families would take us to the zoo. We went to the zoo every single weekend. Now I realize how expensive it was for these families to take us there. The zoo illustrates all the kindness and generosity that I have received from the people of Granby.

When I was a kid, Sunday was always the most special day of the week. Sunday was synonymous with Niagara Falls, where the end of the weekend meant my family would pile into our Oldsmobile and drive from Toronto to the Falls. I grew up in the restaurant business so my dad didn’t have many days off, but Sunday afternoons were special. My dad had such a fascination with Niagara Falls and its worldwide reputation. My parents grew up in a village in Sparta, Greece, and whenever friends or relatives from Greece would come to visit, one of the first places my dad would take them was Niagara Falls. It was a special place for him and, consequently, became a special place for me too.

When I became a husband and a dad, I extended this family tradition to my own family. I try to get down to Niagara Falls with my kids about three times a year. We bike along the river and head over to Fort George or go find some fresh-made chocolate to purchase. I feel so much comfort thinking back on all the happy memories I have there and all the happy memories still to come. Sunday means family time. In many ways, visits to Niagara Falls bring back the kid in me. It’s like history repeating itself. Having the privilege of playing hockey in this country gave me opportunities to see Canada from coast to coast, but I really do think Niagara is one of the loveliest places in the country.

My job has taken me across the whole country, from big cities to small towns. But the area that excites me the most is the Arctic, specifically the Northwest Passage. A lot of people think of the Arctic as a barren wasteland of tundra and ice, but it’s spectacular in its beauty. There are mountains, vast bodies of water and an abundance of wildlife like seals, walruses and bird life. When you are one of the lucky few who get to travel to this part of our country, you want to tell other people about it.

I have always been fascinated by the mystery surrounding the voyage of the Franklin expedition. In 2006, before the successful searches to find the two ships [in 2014 and 2016], I was sailing through the Northwest Passage on a Canadian icebreaker. “Northwest Passage” by Stan Rogers was playing from the loudspeakers. We were frozen in that moment, listening to Stan’s words about the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea. At that point, we still didn’t know what happened to the ships and crew.

The Northwest Passage never fails to take my breath away. Being aware of what’s happening in the North is so important, and we must listen to our Inuit brothers and sisters because they have been ready to teach us for centuries. Ninety per cent of Canada lives in southern Canada, so it dominates our understanding of our country. And yet there’s so much more to Canada, both physically and culturally. The Arctic really does change your perception of who we are as a country. When I am there, I feel truly Canadian. Our North is such an inspiring force.

When it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador, I could probably have 100 spots on my top 10 “favourite places” list. But a spot that is particularly special for me is Chapel’s Cove, where I have a summer home. My father and his brother originally built a very small cabin here. It was more like a utility shed with a wood stove. They never bought anything new. At one point, they took out a bucket of bent nails that had been pulled out of old wood. We would sit there and they would be like, “Okay, we got an hour to kill. Let’s straighten nails.” As a kid, I remember thinking, “Surely you could just buy a box of nails!”

Today, I have a real home there that I designed. It’s about 45 minutes from St. John’s and overlooks Conception Bay. When I look out, it feels like I am on a boat, with the land disappearing and only the ocean visible on the horizon. As the sun rises and dips, I feel like I am watching my favourite painting change minute by minute in front of my eyes.

I am constantly mesmerized by the lights and boats that float along Conception Bay, with fishermen going out at daybreak and coming back in at sunset, coming and going in vessels of all shapes and sizes. When the bay is filled with squid, humpback whales frolic in the water in front of my cabin about 200 feet from shore. I could just sit there all day and watch them. It’s somewhere I feel at peace and where I can delve into my writing. The words just come easy when I am there and the only distractions are the noises that whales make right outside my window.

II grew up in Forest, Ont. It’s a tiny town with two stoplights. You wouldn’t think much of it passing by, but there is something really special in Forest that gives me a rush of feel-good nostalgia — the Kineto Theatre.

Established in 1917, the theatre is among the oldest continuously operating movie theatres in the world. There was a little concession where you could get buttery popcorn. And old, slumpy red seats I’d plop down onto and then wait eagerly for the lights to dim and the film to start rolling. It’s a beautiful little building that was a big part of my childhood and youth. It’s not that common for very small towns to have movie theatres, so I always felt lucky we had one. It was so nice to meet up with a bunch of friends, get some ice cream and then go watch the big blockbuster that had just come out. Working at the concession stand was a coveted job in high school.

My parents took me to see my first movie at the Kineto: Snow White. I don’t think I made it past the first 10 minutes because I was terrified by one of the opening scenes where she was running through the woods. But it’s memories like these that have such a nostalgic impact.

I have young kids of my own now and I’m excited to take them to Forest and the theatre when they’re older. It’s such an exciting feeling the first time your parents drop you off at the Kineto to watch a movie, and you get to go out on your own. You really get that special taste of independence.