Best Canadian City: my awards

Quick! What's the best Canadian city? The subject has led to a lively discussion on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, something so prickly that Toronto-based author Andrew Potter suggested could actually bring about a civil war.

Most people equate Canada with its natural beauty, or hockey, or Mounties, or beaver nickels. Last year I visited Canada six times, mostly to focus on Canadian cities (resulting in this string of videos on Canadian cities). I like Canadian cities. So thought I'd put together my awards.

(Note: I've not been to Halifax, among others.)

Canadian city most want to live in: MONTREAL. Montreal is ridiculous. A top-five city in the world to me. I love a place that takes bikes seriously (public-use bikes clean-up canal rides), and the city truly beats NYC with bagels. Plus all sorts of playful architecture, like a orange-shaped food stand (that serves as my Twitter photo) and the unreal Habitat '67 (above).

Canadian city with most interesting neighborhood: TORONTO's post-hippie Toronto Islands. You get there by ferry, it has super views looking back on TO (above), a fun community of locals that have survived development, a hokey amusement park, nude beaches and the spot where Babe Ruth hit his first homerun.

Canadian city that's best in winter: QUEBEC CITY. Its winter carnival has dog-sled races and a huggable snow man, and there's free open-air skating rinks, minor league hockey with NHL buzz, ferry rides over the icy St Lawrence. Plus curling.

Canadian city with most energy: right now, WINNIPEG. I enjoy having French food across the river in St Boniface (and seeing the atmospheric cathedral ruin), but I've never seen more energy than at the Winnipeg Jets' first win (above). (If you don't think Peg is a hockey town, watch Guy Maddin's hilarious 'My Winnipeg' documentary.)

Canadian city with them most tunefully suggestive name: SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN. Pronounced as SASKaTOON by locals. It's the place I zeroed in on during back-seat atlas-scavenger-hunts on long roadtrips as a kid. Plus the saskatoon berry makes for a nice pie.

Canadian city that’s most beautiful: Easy, VANCOUVER. Views from False Creek ferries are worthy, as is a revolving meal up Landmark hotel (above).

Canadian city that most surprised me: EDMONTON. Expected a flat oil town, and immediately struck by the deep river valley linked with shady trails and crossed by a historic bridge to Strathcona's theaters and bookshops. (I bought a used copy of the full transcript of Louis Riel's trial. Yet to read, must say.) And I was surprised when 12-year-olds agreed to teach me hockey in the second-biggest mall in North America.

Canadian city most want to return to: ST JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND. It's not just the apostrophe, seafood, rugged coast, local kids with Bieber haircuts and the voice of 70-year-old pirates, but its friendly vibe of a place that really sees itself as its own nation.

Be a Jourblist

Question: Is "blog" a bad word?

It's certainly used dismissively by beacons of the traditional media world, who frequently see blogs and social media as pesky, Napster-esque flies to the real champions of thought and journalism.

In Evgeny Mozorov's book The Net Delusion, he writes of the online world as a playground for "a bunch of bored hipsters who had an irresistible urge to share their breakfast plans," while Andrew Keen in Cult of the Amateur claims all the online revolution is delivering is "superficial observations of the world... rather than deep analysis."

Too often, I have to agree.

Now that anyone can self-publish, unsurprisingly, the level of poor-quality writing sinks the playing field in broader perception.

While planning to make today's speech on "research" at TBEX'11 in Vancouver, I started to think "blog" needs an alternate name. A "blog" would remain the outlet for casual posters, sharing photos and online travel diaries with friends and family. But something else would be needed for those of us who treat blogging as journalism, as a potential for work.

So, until a better suggestion comes along, I'm suggesting this:




A couple years ago, I chipped in on a NPR panel after three Americans were detained at the Iraq-Iran border. A former CIA guy dismissed them as "Berkeley bloggers," suggesting they were poking around a place that's marked with a very clear border. "They had to know they were crossing into Iran," he said.

Before going on air, I had poked around Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, and found a blogger who had been recently to the same area, had photos of the region. I contacted him and asked, who told me, "I almost made the same mistake. It's very very difficult to know where one country begins and the other ends."

Not full-proof journalism, but -- unlike the CIA spouter -- he had actually been. So I quoted him.

Either way, I think it's time more of us try up our game. And never treat a blog post as "just a blog."

Vancouver Wins! (Game 5)

Just as TBEX 2011 kicked off, the Vancouver Canucks won game five of the Stanley Cup finals and the city erupted. I heard hoots till 5am. One local told me, 'The energy today is much much bigger than the Olympics." And they've not won the Stanley Cup yet.