Christmas

Bob Bryden formed the band Christmas on December 25, 1969. At the time, the average age of the band was 17 years old, although Bryden (19) had put out 2 albums earlier with the band Reign Ghost. They released their first two albums in 1970 - according to Bryden, “although our music is heavy, it’s also optimistic. In part, it’s peaceful, and it is something to get into the spirit of”.

Below is their first track from their first album: Just Suppose.

Bob Bryden (guitars, vocals, piano, organ, harpsichord, celeste, effects)
Robert Bulger (guitars)
Tyler Raizenne (bass, electric zombie)
Rich Richter (drums, embryonic whimper)

Winnipeg

The Human Rights Museum was opened in 2014 near The Forks in downtown Winnipeg. Its mandate is to "explore the subject of human rights with a special but not exclusive reference to Canada, to enhance the public's understanding of human rights, to promote respect for others and to encourage reflection and dialogue”. There in an interior ramp made from Spanish white marble which winds up all 7 floors - the architecture, exhibits and presentation is stunning.

Near the museum is the sculpture “Forever Bicycles” by Al Weiwei (2014) constructed from 1254 bicycles.

Winnipeg continues to impress - the downtown area is a great place to while away a day waiting for the 23:30 departure of the VIA Canadian #2 bound for Toronto.

And they won the Grey Cup.

Churchill MB

There are 3 distinct tourist seasons in Churchill - polar bear season (fall), northern lights season (winter) and beluga whale season (summer). The town pretty much shuts down in between - it’s down to 1 restaurant and the train south was full of seasonal workers heading home for holidays and then back at it for aurora season.

The community center in Churchill houses the hospital, library, sports facilities, swimming pool, the high school and some other town offices. The regional volleyball tournament was held there - on the train ride north we picked up players and coaches at both Thompson and Gillam and they all bunked in at the center for the weekend tournament.

Just recently Polar Bears International opened their new office on the main drag in Churchill. PBI is a non-profit whose mission is to conserve polar bears and the sea ice they depend on. They hosted a talk by U. of T. PhD student Stephanie Penk who is using mathematical methods to predict polar bear survival and reproduction based on their food intake (ie. access to seals). The bears hunt the seals on the ice which is a reason the PBI tracks the number of days the bears have been off ice each year - when on land they roam around trying to eat berries and tourists.

Some shots about town:

Return for beluga season.

Wapusk

Wapusk (Cree for ‘white bear’) is a national park east of Churchill MB on the shore of Hudson Bay. The park is a remote sub-arctic wilderness and access is difficult - there is no road for the last 12 km to the park. At end of season, the buggy tours used to move to Cape Churchill (inside the park), but lack of bears has cancelled it. If foxes are your thing, the area is crawling with them - I opened the door to the hotel one night and a big ol’ red fox went strolling on by.

There’s a lot of colour around the town of Churchill.

Just west of town (across the Churchill river) is Prince of Wales Fort which dates back to 1719. In 1782 it was manned by 39 men when 3 French warships arrived and so fort governor Samuel Hearne surrendered immediately - in 1783 it was given back. The fort is in the background across the mouth of the Churchill river - the shot was taken from Cape Merry Battery just outside Churchill.

Churchill Bears

The number of polar bears around Churchill MB has been on steady decline from about 1200 bears in the 1980’s to about 800 bears nowadays - one significant factor in their survival is access to sea ice (and tasty tasty seals).

In the summer and fall, the polar bears hang around shore waiting for the ice to freeze so they can go hunt seals - they store up that fat to make them through the next fasting cycle - it’s this fasting period that it getting longer, from 107 days back in the 1980s to 130 in the early 2000’s up to 151 days (just recorded this year). Models suggest that 180 days off ice is a tipping point where bears don’t have enough time to fatten. Hungry bears are dangerous bears, and so the town of Churchill has a bear jail which houses up to 26 bears at a time:

They used to feed the bears in jail, but that made them want to come back, and so now they only feed the bears ice & snow. The bears are kept no longer than a month (2 weeks is desired) and released a few hundred klicks north of town.

It’s a rough life doing time in bear jail.

More Train

On the train from Winnipeg to Churchill, the cars are 1950’s vintage. The rear car has seating to hang out and steps upstairs to the observation car.

The sleeping cabins are masterpieces in compact design. I booked a single bunky and the pic below is taken from the bench within - one would need a fish eye lens to photograph these capsules. The VIA bag contains towels & whatnot for the shower down the hall - it’s sitting on the bed which pulls out all the way over the bench. The sink (shown lowered) is a basin with no drain plug - when it folds up it drains into the visible slot. The grey bag (under the sink) is sitting on the toilet and once it stows on the floor the bed will pull the entire way out and it’s a surprisingly comfy mattress.

One can masterfully nap as scenery rolls by - a few shots of change going north:

Train to Churchill

The train from Toronto to Churchill MB takes 4 days. The train leaves from Union Station at 9:45 on Sunday, and is supposed to arrive in Winnipeg at 7:30 PM on the following day. We were about 2 hours late; the freight trains take precedence over passenger trains so delays occur often. Below is the departure lounge in Toronto:

So how cost effective is train travel? The lower sleeping berth from Toronto to Winnipeg is about $750 and this includes 2 checked bags if you want, all meals included (they have a kitchen on board and the food is excellent), shower on board, observatiion car and a completely relaxing trip. Cranking the numbers for the full trip from Toronto to Vancouver (4 days and 4 nights), the lower sleeping berth (best deal imho) is $1475.00, a 1-person cabin is $2020, a 2-person cabin is $3500 and Prestige Class is a hilarious $10500 - this includes your own huge room with queen size bed and mimosas in the observation car - the prestige passengers have been subsidizing everyone else since 2015. It’s completely booked every summer.

The Winnipeg train station is pretty nice:

Overnight in Winnipeg and then the train to Churchill leaves noon on Tuesday and arrives at 9:00 (or so) on Thursday - 2 nights. The scenery looks a lot like this:

Off to explore Churchill where it is pretty dang cold with a steady wind.

Pangalactic Performer

I’ve written about John Mills-Cockell and Syrinx before on this site - after Syrinx broke up, Mills-Cockell put out three solo albums (Heartbeat, A Third Testament, Gateway) and these albums are the subject of the Pangalactic Performer retrospective which also contains some unreleased Syrinx tracks. If your interest leans to the early days of electronic music, John Mills-Cockell was a pioneer. He continues to make music on the west coast composing for theatre, film and dance - his web site is here.

Here is Jackie Burroughs, the last track from his solo album Heartbeat (True North, 1973). Jackie Burroughs was a friend of the band members; she became a well known Canadian actress and was awarded the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2005.

And here is the unreleased Syrinx cover of Telstar (written by Joe Meek for The Tornadoes in 1962) - the band was told to get a hit. They also covered Ghost Riders in the Sky (included in the set) and apparently some songs by The Supremes. Mills-Cockell folded the band shortly after.

Woolworths

Here is the first (and last) LP on Woolworth’s Madison label which was launched in the early 60’s to provide “hours of carefree quality entertainment”. I bought it thiking that it might be in-store Muzak but instead the tracks are covers of popular tunes from around 1962 - beyond that the album is a mystery as there are no production or artist credits. The cover is a beaut - the woman also appears on Teenage Dance Party by Bobby Krane and his Orchestra so maybe that’s who is playing on the Woolworths LP.

The first four stores that Woolworths opened in Canada were (L-R):
- Montreal PQ (opened 1959-08-18)
- London ON (opened 1960-11-25)
- North Surrey BC (opened 1961-10-05)
- Baggotville PQ (opened 1961-11-03)

Here is “When My Little Girl Is Smiling” (a hit for The Drifters) which is the best track on the LP:

Election 2019

Vote wisely.

The picture below from is from over 40 years ago and shows a mock-up card in the first voting machine to be used in a Torontro municipal election (Dec.6 1976 in East York). To vote one inserts the stylus beside the candidate - the computer tallies the vote and the punch cards are retained for permanent record.

Picture by Jeff Goode, courtesy of Toronto Public Library.
Support your local library.

Point Pelee

Point Pelee National Park is Canada’s second smallest national park and the most ecologically diverse. The park is a peninsula of land extending into Lake Erie - it’s the southernmost point in mainland Canada at the same latitude as northern California. Over 360 bird species have been recorded in the park and it hosts a large bird migration every spring.

Staying in the park is provided by oTENTiks (a combination a-frame and tent) which are well decked out and sleep 6 - they have gas (or wood stove) heating, water, pots and pans and a swanky gas bar-b-q. All mod cons.

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The park provides a shuttle service from to the southern Tip - it’s about a 3 km stroll down the road if the shuttle isn’t running.

The day I visited was rainy with winds gusting 30 to 50 kms per hr. Of the 360 species of birds, I saw exactly 0.

Come back again in the spring sometime during bird or monarch butterfly migration.

Marshmallow Soup Group

The Marshmallow Soup Group was formed in Kingston ON - they had a hit in late 1969 with “I Want Candy” and the attention scored the band a gig at the International Trade Fair in Lima Peru and also at Expo ‘70 in Osaka Japan (along with Chilliwac).

The b-side is “My World Fell Down”:

Here’s a picture of the band playing live in Peru:

The band put out one other single (“Sing To My Lover” / “Barbee-Lee”) and was no more.

John Lemmon
Ron Smith
Tim Contini
Tim Eaton
Wayne Sweet

This World

Every now and then I see some weird old Canadian LP in a used record store and pick it up on pure whim - the latest find is “This World - The Trio of Time” (or “Trio of Tyme” as it’s spelled on the back cover) from Condor Music International out of Burnaby BC - I mean, how bad could it be?

The story behind this gets a little convoluted - it starts in 1965 when a guitarist named Chris Ducey recorded a folk album called “Songs Of Protest And Anti-Protest” for Surrey Records in Los Angeles. After the songs were recorded and album artwork completed, it was discovered that Chris Ducey already had a recording contract with another label and so the music was prevented from being released.

Surrey Records did what anyone else would do in that situation - they hired a guy (by the name of Bobby Jameson) and named him Chris Lucey. This Chris Lucey then recorded a completely new set of songs with matching titles as those of the existing album (he never listened to the original - it was a clean room job) - they pressed those songs and voila. Some “Chris Ducey” versions of the cover were released in the US, but the Canada, UK and subsequent releases had the covers altered to read “Chris Lucey”.

By the way, that’s not Chris Ducey on the cover - it’s Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones.

The album didn’t do much when it was released in 1965, but in the years since it has become a bit of a collector’s item, with a production sound compared to Forever Changes by Love, another LA band.

A few years later the original Ducey master tapes somehow ended up in the hands of Jack Millman (aka Johnny Kitchen, Ralph Morris, Ludie Priessman) who ran Condor Music International which was based out of LA but also distributed records on the Canadian Raja label. Seems Jack took the original Ducey tracks, changed the names slightly, attributed writing credits on all songs to himself or one of his pseudonyms, and then released the album to complete obscurity. Nobody connected the dots for years but finally in 2012 the original Chris Ducey tracks were released on CD and MP3.

The two tracks starting sides A and B on the LP are a pair: ”That’s The Way The World Has Got To Be” parts 1 & 2 (called “Back Trackin’” and “This World” on the Condor release). These tracks epitomize the folk/protest feel of the album - now over 50 years old and the issues are relevant to what’s going on today. Here is those two tracks by Chris Ducey:

In the summer of 1965, Chris Ducey landed a role on a TV pilot for ABC called The Happeners which was based on the life and times of a Greenwich Village folk-rock trio consisting of Ducey, Craig Smith and Susannah Jordan. The one-hour pilot featured an appearance by the Dave Clark Five and starred Lou Gossett Jr. The intent of the show was to go up against The Monkees (on NBC) but ABC pulled out when the producers refused to make a half hour show so only the pilot was shot (it exists, the full audio is on youtube). After the demise of The Happeners, Chris and Craig (as they named themselves) recorded one single for Capitol records - the a-side is “Isha” and it is fantastic:

Craig Smith had met Mike Nesmith on a couple of occasions, and he also wrote the song “Salesman” which appeared on The Monkees LP Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. from 1967. Around this time, Chris and Craig added 2 more members (Bobby Donaho and Donald Glut) to become The Penny Arkade with Nesmith as their producer who was heavily involved in their promotion and first album - you can see his influence with a track like Country Girl (later recorded by Glen Campbell).

The Penny Arkade recorded tracks for their first album to be called Not The Freeze but everything collapsed around them and the band folded - the tracks were finally made available on Sundazed music in 2004.

Chris Ducey released “Duce of Hearts” in 1975 and also the privately produced album “I Am A Rock”. The restored ”Songs Of Protest And Anti Protest” album finally got released as a CD in 2012 with the original cover and his (not Bobby Jameson’s) tracks and his (not Jack Millman’s) names.

Craig Smith quit the Penny Arkade and headed east to tour South America and Asia and pursue mysticism - he returned with new name Satya Sai Maitreya Kali. In 1972 he recorded two albums (Apache and Inca) which contained pieces from the Not The Freeze sessions interspersed with spoken word and general weirdness. In 2016 journalist Mike Stax released a biography of Craig Smith called “Swim Through The Darkness" which chronicles his struggles with mental health, time in prison and homelessness. Smith died March 16, 2012.

Susannah Jordon would go on to record under the names Sidonie Jordan and Sydney Foxx. She was an Ikette on tour with Ike and Tina Turner and married musician Peter Banks (the original guitarist of Yes) forming the band Empire.

Bobby Jameson put out a pair of singles in 1966 with Frank Zappa on the Penthouse label, and his first album (Color Him In) was produced by Curt Boettcher on the Verve label in 1967. He struggled with addiction and mental issues and dropped out of the music business. He died on May 12, 2015.

I’m quite glad I picked this up - I got my 7 bucks of enjoyment just trying to figure it all out and it’s a bonus that the LP is also really interesting and listenable. I have to wonder how many copies of “This World with the Trio of Tyme” were sold and how much lovely lucre Jack Millman made on the deal.

Ski Patrol Badges

The Canadian Ski Patrol (Patrouille canadienne de ski) was started in 1941 and sometime later started selling badges to raise money - we collected them every year from 1970 through 1998 and at some point picked up 1956/57. The best of course are the two from 1970/71 when everyone on the slopes was a yetiologist.

The Eternal Triangle

The Eternal Triangle was a short lived Vancouver trio from 1966 which consisted of Tom Northcott, Susan Pesklevits and Howie Vickers. They released three songs over two singles (both had the same a-side).

Susan Pesklevits would soon meet Terry Jacks and go on to form the Poppy Family, Howie Vickers would form The Collectors which became Chilliwack, and Tom Northcott had a successful career as solo artist and producer.

The b-side of the first single (NS-10) is Watch Me Go:

The b-side of the second single (NS-101) is My New Love:

Both singles share the same a-side It’s True:

Susan Pesklevits: vocals
Howie Vickers: guitar, vocals
Tom Northcott: guitar, vocals

Klaatu

In 1977, a headline article (“Could Klaatu Be Beatles? Mystery Is A Magical Tour”) by Steve Smith in the Providence Journal started a rumour that the debut album (3:47 EST) by then unknown band Klaatu was, in fact, an undercover side project by The Beatles. With songs like “Sub Rosa Speedway” (a song about Alfred Ely Beach, the inventor of the first subway system in New York City) you can kinda sorta see why:

If Steve had bothered to check YouTube, he could have found this clip below which predates his article by a couple of years - here is Klaatu playing “California Jam” on Keith Hampshire’s tv show Music Machine from 1974 (it’s more Beach Boys than Beatles imo):

Klaatu hailed from Toronto - formed in 1973 by John Woloschuk, Dee Long and Terry Draper. Their first album had no names, photos, biography info or songwriting credits which fed into the Beatles rumour mill. At that time, the band was in the UK working on their second album (Hope) and were amused more than anything, but by the time it was all over lots of people thought they had staged the whole thing in the first place. Hope was released in 1977 and was the last album to chart; the last couple weren’t that well received and they finally called it quits in 1982. From the third album (Sir Army Suit), here is “Perpetual Motion Machine”:

“Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” from the first Klaatu album was covered by The Carpenters in 1977 and it was a massive hit (#1 in Ireland!):

Klaatu Albums:
- 3:47 E.S.T. (1976)
- Hope (1977)
- Sir Army Suit (1978)
- Endangered Species (1980)
- Magentalane (1981)

BTW, 3:47 EST is the time the alien ship landed in the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still from 1951 (the alien emissary being named Klaatu).

A Passing Fancy

A Passing Fancy started in 1965 when Brian Price and brothers Jay and Ian Telfer met and sang harmonies together in a Downsview high school. They settled on the name The Dimensions and set out for Yorkville where they met Bernie Finkelstein (also from Downsview) who was serving coffee at El Patio - he became their manager and the band got a booking.

In 1966 Bernie left to manage The Paupers and the band changed name to A Passing Fancy - they toured Ontario constantly and by 1967 had a recording contract for 3 singles with Columbia records and a gig at Expo ‘67.

Their first single was “I’m Losing Tonight” released in 1967 - it went to #22 on the local CHUM chart:

In 1968 the band put out their only album (A Passing Fancy) which consisted of all the Columbia singles; the album inexplicably led off with an alternate version of “I’m Losing Tonight” without the lead guitar that makes that single buzz along.

In 1968, after filming the tv show Let’s Go at the CBC and playing a gig at The Granite Club in Toronto, band leader Jay Telfer was fired by management and the band folded shortly thereafter. The label tried to resurrect the band for one more single (“Island” c/w “Your Trip”) which flopped and by 1969 the band was dead.

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Their eponymous album has been re-released on both CD and vinyl (the CD version contains both versions of “I’m Losing Tonight)”. It is a fantastic album from start to finish; highly recommended.

Tommy Douglas

Tommy Douglas and Lady Jane share a kiss in May 1968. Mr. Douglas was (as the Toronto Star reported) “walking through hippieland he met Lady Jane and friends” after filming a TV interview earlier in a coffee shop and “Yorkville hippies watched Lady Jane waylay the NDP leader“.

By the way, the sign seen through the window at rear left marks the first Mr. Submarine location (130 Yorkville Ave). A tuna sub was $0.79 and a super-sub was $1.38 - the place had just opened.

Appearing on the taped CBC show The Public Eye in 1968:

Below was taken on June 22 1981 when Mr. Douglas received the Order of Canada.

Thomas Clement Douglas: October 20, 1904 to February 24, 1986.

Photographs taken by Reg Innell, Jeff Goode and Boris Spremo, courtesy of Toronto Public Library.

La Mauricie

When I arrived at the visitor center at La Mauricie national park, I asked why the park was created and the answer given was ‘Jean Chrétien’. He was born in nearby Shawinigan (and made its handshake famous in 1996) and was involved in establishing the park in 1970. According to park staff, “he really likes it here”.

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This year the road between east and west entrance are closed - this would be a nice drive. This is a camping park with a ton of sites - perfect for winter x-country as you can ski from between heated yurts (oTentiks).

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One can park, have a coffee, and do some serious relaxing here. 

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Which is what I did. 

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Côte Nord

Some pics from the north shore.

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