Toronto - 25-28 May 2011

My ride from Quebec to Montreal is hassle-free, and after a brief stop in the familiar surroundings of Gare Centrale, I board the Toronto train.  The train glides through a landscape with no distinguishing features, certainly the most built-up of my journeys here.  This should not be too much of a surprise - in a country of around 35 million people, 13 million live in the province of Ontario, without a doubt the economic powerhouse of the nation.  Tired out by a long journey, I feel like I've been dumped at Toronto's Union Station, where the navigation requires a sharp mind through the noise and the bustle.  Leaving the station quickly - I never like to linger at railway stations - I find Bay Street, one of two principal roads running north-south on Toronto's massive grid system.  My accommodation is the enormous Sutton Place, a luxurious hotel in the heat of the city, and a sort-of self-congratulatory conclusion to my journey.  I can see it from a long way off, but it never seems to get any closer, as I struggle with my luggage for what feels like hours, and wonder just why I didn't take the subway.  Eventually, though, it is in front of me and I stagger in, more resembling a hostel-dwelling student than a guest of four-star style.

One of the loveliest feelings of travel is the moment you find your feet, settle into your latest accommodation, and have a brand new city at your fingertips.  For me, this means going down to the city centre at Yonge-Dundas Square, where the lights are bright, the shops packed, the atmosphere party-like, and the crowd generally young.  At first glace, Toronto is the big North America mega-city I thought it would be, with an energy not paralleled anywhere else on my trip.  It starts to rain, so I head for the Eaton Center shopping mall, described in my guidebook as a tourist attraction in its own right.  Perhaps it's because I've come from one of the world's quietest and most idyllic cities, or maybe I'm just tired from a day on the rails, but my head can't quite comprehend the magnitude of Yonge-Dundas Square tonight, so I retreat back to the comfort of my eighth-storey hotel room, where I cosily watch an explosive thunderstorm roll over the city from my balcony.

Yonge-Dundas Square

Toronto is somewhere I've wanted to come since I was a child, and there's really only one place to start - the legendary Hockey Hall of Fame.  Billed as a shrine to the game, the museum is the world's largest collection of all things hockey, and a real site of pilgrimage for fans.  I tell the ticket man that I'm fulfilling an old dream by being there today,  and he asks where I'm from.  "Ah, our mother country!" he proclaims, reminding me that we are well-and-truly back in English-speaking country.  We share a conversation about the Royal Wedding which he, along with most of the world, enthusiastically watched just a few weeks before, and then I enter the museum, starry-eyed and excited, like the proverbial kid in the sweet shop.  The Hall of Fame is divided into many sections - record-breaking players, past and present teams, world hockey, interactive exhibits, and a reconstruction of the Montreal Canadiens' dressing room.  Upstairs, a former banking hall serves as a trophy room, where the actual Stanley Cup takes pride of place, surrounded by a number of other cups and trophies, some still awarded, others from defunct leagues and outdated competitions.  Back on the ground floor, I watch a twenty-minute film entitled The Stanley Cup Odyssey, which gives a touching overview of how North American hockey came to be.

Exhibit at the Hockey Hall of Fame

Wayne Gretzky's gallery at the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Gretzky is known as "The Great One"

After a few happy hours, I leave via the Spirit of Hockey shop, to explore the independent stores of Yonge Street.  In particular, I am searching for a shop that I've heard sells a great selection of sports memorabilia across all sports.  It's called The Toronto Sports Shop, and in addition to hockey there's baseball souvenirs, American football goods, and European soccer shirts.  I'm on a mission to buy hockey pin badges, which are all contained behind a glass counter.  In choosing them, the Indian owner of the shop struggles to find the badges I'm looking for, and drafts in his wife to help, who seems a lot more knowledgeable about every team.  She asks if I'm from the USA, and when I tell her I'm British, she raises a smile.  "Oh, then how come you know what the teams are?" she asks me.  I tell her that I try to follow the hockey, and we get talking about the current play-offs.  "Vancouver is our winning team here at the moment", she laments.  "We need them to win too; the cup has been going to America for too many years recently."  This is indeed true - the last Canadian side to win the Stanley Cup was Montreal in 1993, and although a handful of Canadian teams have reached the final in recent years, none has brought the trophy home since then.

The sculpture "Our Game" by Edie Parker sits outside the Hall of Fame

A hockey goalie in the Spirit of Hockey shop

Evening rolls around quickly, and I take myself down to Toronto's harbourside, enjoying a pleasant stroll past the famous CN Tower (which has been shrouded in cloud all day) and the Rogers Center, home of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. There seems to be a match in the offing, and the ticket touts are out in force, with prices starting as low as $10.  I toy with the idea of getting a ticket, but decide against it, and instead relax on the waterside with a Pepsi, watching the boats come-and-go.  It's easy to forget that this body of water is not a sea, but Lake Ontario, the smallest of the five Great Lakes, whose primary source is the Niagara River.  There are a number of yachts on the water, and many pleasure crafts moored around the harbour, giving a certain air of old-fashioned style that I rather like.  Night has well-and-truly fallen by the time I decide to head back to my hotel, and as I wander back, I catch a glimpse of the baseball fans, high up in the cheap seats, cheering their team under huge illuminations.  The Rogers Center is Toronto's premier multi-purpose venue, and it is said that the centre uses enough electricity during an evening baseball match, performance or concert to light the whole province of Prince Edward Island.

Harbourside pleasure crafts on Lake Ontario

Toronto's premier multi-purpose venue, the Rogers Center

The next morning, I decide to explore Chinatown, the main axes of which are Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue.  Toronto's largest Chinatown (for there are in fact six in the greater metropolitan area) developed in the 19th century, and is now one of the biggest in North America.  Due to racial tensions in the USA during the 1870s, many in the Chinese community migrated to Canada, and with the construction of the Canadian-Pacific Railway, which was largely built by their manpower, hundreds of Chinese men settled close to Union Station by the 1880s.  An hour's wander around here is a fascinating activity, for there are so many shops and stalls selling everything, from household products to plants, toys to food, and although only a fifteen-minute walk down Dundas Street West, it feels like a different world.  In one shop, I get chatting to a man about the weather, telling him that I had plans to go up the CN Tower, but that it was still too cloudy to see anything from the top (I remark to myself that I would not be able to "CNything"... well, it made me laugh!)  The man asks me where I'm from, and excitedly tells me that he's heard of Exeter.  "Where does it compare to in Canada?" he asks.  "Is it as big as Edmonton?"  I explain that the population of Exeter is one tenth the size of Edmonton, to which he looks surprised. "Oh, it is really small then!" he says.  I like Chinatown - it's colourful and busy, but also relaxed and gentle, and whilst there aren't many people here of European descent, I don't feel at all conspicuous.  Everyone is friendly, and the sights, sounds and smells of the neighbourhood make it a unique pocket of the city.

Toronto's Chinatown

Toronto's Chinatown

For the majority of my second day in the city, I've earmarked the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada's premier museum dedicated to world cultures and natural history.  It's the Canadian equivalent to our British Museum and Natural History Museum rolled into one, housing a mind-boggling collection stretching from ancient Chinese art to dinosaur skeletons, Art Deco furniture to First Peoples clothing.  The ROM is one of those great museums of the world in which you simply cannot see everything, and where you walk miles without even realising it.  It's hard to pick a favourite artefact, but I especially like the Han dynasty figurines playing the forgotten game of Liubo (which means "six sticks"); the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton; and the macabre Mercedes-shaped coffin of the Ga people in Ghana.

Figures playing the forgotten game of Liubo

Mercedes-shaped coffin of the Ga People

The modern appearance of the museum owes much to the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a striking glass structure jutting out of the original building, perfectly contrasting old with new.  The crystal was part of a major renovation dubbed Renaissance ROM, designed to bring the museum into the 21st century.  By 2007, upgrades across the museum had cost an eye-watering $270 million, but it keeps the ROM on the map as Canada's premier cultural destination.  Personally, the crystal does nothing for me - it strikes me as modern architecture for the sake of it - but the museum's collection is up there with the world's best, and I leave after several hours, legs aching, yet feeling I've merely brushed the surface of what's on offer.

Michael Lee-Chin Crystal (source: Wikipedia)

My final morning in Toronto is an early start, as I board a train at Union Station, destination Niagara Falls.  The train is the 8.20 to New York Penn Station, but as much as I'd love to visit the Big Apple, I'm going to keep myself on the Canadian side of the border, and the town of Niagara Falls, Ontario.  The ride takes a couple of hours, after which time it's a pleasant 30-minute walk to the Falls.  I'm virtually the only pedestrian on this walk, up to the point where I meet the Rainbow Bridge, which links Canada with the US.  After this, tourists appear everywhere, and I know I've arrived.

There are actually three falls here - the smaller American Falls and associated Bridal Veil Falls, and the larger Canadian "Horseshoe" Falls.  In between these lies the American Goat Island, possibly the wettest island on the planet.  I hop aboard the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which takes the intrepid traveller on a wet and windy ride right up to the base of both falls, and provides a plastic poncho for every guest.  From the docks, this looks like an overreaction, but once our craft chugs out into the open Niagara River, it quickly becomes necessary.  We all get thoroughly soaked, and there are many squeals as the spray of Horseshoe Falls hits the boat with tremendous force.  Totally lost in the mists, thoughts naturally turn to the safety of our activity, but our boat seems more than up to the task, as we round the falls and return to base after an exhilarating ride.

The Maid of the Mist heads into Horseshoe Falls

Ponchos recommended for this voyage!

I have to remember that riding the Maid is actually one of the more sane activities to take place here, for the Falls has attracted all manner of weird and wonderful antics for nearly 200 years.  The first stunt was disgusting - it came when local hotels bought a condemned schooner in 1827, packed it with wild animals, and sent it over the falls in front of a crowd of 10,000.  Eye witness reports claim that two bears escaped just as the boat was about to head over the falls, and swam to freedom, as did a single goose.  Dare devils next descended on the Falls, including the legendary Sam Patch, known as the Yankee Leaper, who jumped from a 125-foot ladder positioned over the river, to a massive roar of approval from the crowd.  Next up came the French acrobat, Jean Francois Gravelet, "the Great Blondin", who on 30 June 1859 crossed the Niagara River on a tightrope in 20 minutes.  Gravelet would return seven more times to repeat this feat, including one walk where he carried his manager on his back.  After this came the barrel stunts, which began with British man Carlisle Graham, who was screwed into a barrel,  and sent into the rapids.  More followed, most famously Annie Edson Taylor, who has the distinction of being the first person to go over the Falls in a barrel.  Taylor survived, but her first words to her rescuers were that "nobody ought ever do that again."  Next to enter was aviation pioneer Lincoln Beachey, who, in 1911, flew his Curtis biplane under the arch of the Honeymoon Bridge at 50mph, leaving the 150,000-strong crowd awestruck.  Then came Bristolian Charles Stephens, another barrel artist, whose body was never found after his ill-fated trip over the Falls, save for his right arm, which was buried at Niagara Falls Drummond Cemetery.

Lincoln Beachey heads under the Honeymoon Bridge in 1911 (source: Disciples of Flight)

These and many other stunt artists must all have been certifiably mad, but my favourite has to be the Frenchman Henri Julien Rechatin, who was famous in France for his balancing acts.  This inevitably brought him to Niagara Falls in 1975, where he proposed to be the first person to escape from a straight jacket whilst hanging over the falls, upside down from a helicopter.  The authorities threatened legal action, so Rechatin cancelled this trick, but instead appeared on the 520-foot high observation deck of the Skylon Tower where, on a wooden platform protruding from the deck, he undertook a two-chair balancing act, placing one chair on top of the other, with only the rear legs of the top chair touching the seat of the bottom.  Rechatin then climbed onto the chair, balancing without using his limbs for support.  The next day, he and two friends climbed onto the wires supporting the Aero Car which transported people over the rapids, and began crossing the cable, on  specially-adapted motorcycle.  Almost inevitably the bike slipped, but the three daredevils were able to haul themselves into one of the cars, where they waited for the Police.  They were promptly arrested.

Henri Julien Rechatin stunt on the Skylon Tower (source: Picuki.com)

I suppose these pioneers of dare-devilry helped to shape the identity of the town, though I doubt they'd recognise it today.  After visiting the Falls, I take a stroll up the town's main thoroughfare, Clifton Hill, which includes gems such as a haunted house (with three levels of terror!), the House of Frankenstein, dinosaur adventure golf, and Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, where lucky visitors can speak to a genie in a bottle, or talk to a man with numerous pupils in his eyes.  I think it's the tackiest, gaudiest, more tasteless road I've ever walked down, a bit like Paignton on acid, and whilst the tourists lap it up, it's really not for me, and I'm happy when my train pulls in to take me back to Toronto.

Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls

The beauty of Niagara Falls - Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the right, American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls to the left. 

Toronto comes as a breath of fresh air, and to my utter elation, the clouds have finally lifted, and I can see the top of the CN Tower for the first time.  One of the world's most famous communications buildings, the tower was built by the Canadian National Railway Company in 1976, and was the world's tallest free-standing structure until 2007.  In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated it one of the seven wonders of the modern world, ranking it alongside the Channel Tunnel, Empire State Building and Panama Canal.  Night has fallen by the time I get up to the observation deck, and the view is mind-blowing, the electricity of Canada's largest city rolling away beneath my feet.  Up on the observation deck is the famous glass floor, a thick layer of reinforced glass strong enough for people to walk over, and apparently for mindless teenagers to sit across.  A further 33 floors higher in the Sky Pod (1,465 feet above ground), you can see the whole metropolis and, I fancy, all of Canada.  I strain for a view of my hotel, the Rogers Center, the ROM, the Hockey Hall of Fame, Chinatown and the airport, whilst on a clear day it's possible to see over to Niagara Falls.  I feel that I've punctuated my Canadian adventure here, and whisper a silent thank you over the view, for the entire country.

Toronto from the CN Tower

How fast can time go by that I, who landed in Edmonton with abundant excitement and enthusiasm three weeks ago, now strain for a final look as our plane heads back into the clouds.  For months, this trip has been my entire focus - booking tickets, making reservations, watching the exchange rate, researching destinations - only for it now to be in its final moments.  My journal is full of thoughts, my bag chock with souvenirs, my camera bulging with photos, and my mind stuffed with memories.  As we leave Canadian airspace, I realise that a childhood dream has been fulfilled and replaced with adult memories, infinitely richer and more colourful that those young imaginings.  I think back to boyhood nights, eager fingers flicking through the North American pages of my atlas and, sipping a Canadian beer, I raise a smile - perhaps I didn't fully know it until now, but I've been planning this journey for 15 years.