{"id":48066,"date":"2025-12-05T01:28:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T09:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48066"},"modified":"2025-12-04T09:13:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T17:13:59","slug":"unique-memorable-travels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/unique-memorable-travels\/","title":{"rendered":"Unique, memorable travels"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know what my wife and I will do for at least part of our winter break \u2013 go through the latest edition of Robin Esrock\u2019s The Great Canadian Bucket List: One-of-a-Kind Travel Experiences<\/i> together and make plans. For when? I\u2019m not sure. But plans. Wish lists.<\/p>\n

Published by Dundurn Press, and released just last month, this is the third edition of Esrock\u2019s popular book. I interviewed Esrock when the original book came out in 2013, and it has evolved substantially since then. Notably, as he points out in the introduction, this new list \u201ccasts an overdue lens on Indigenous tourism,\u201d which he hopes will result in powerful and personal connections this country desperately needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New experiences have been added and some revisions have been made. In tandem with the books, there has always been a website, canadianbucketlist.com<\/a>, because, as Esrock writes, \u201cTourism is a constantly evolving industry. Tour operators, restaurants and hotels often change names or ownership, adapt their services or cease operations altogether. Records fall, facts shift and practical information needs to be constantly updated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>The Great Canadian Bucket List<\/i> is organized by province, west to east, then up to Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It wraps up with a national section, which has some \u201cCanada\u2019s best\u201d lists, among other things. There are fabulous colour photos throughout. Esrock highlights four to 17 experiences in each chapter, with his home province of British Columbia having the most entries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You will hear no complaints from me about this! During COVID, I saw more of British Columbia than I had in the previous 28 or so years of living here. What I love about Esrock\u2019s bucket list choices is their range, from, for example, houseboating on Shuswap Lake, which I could see myself doing, to heli-skiing, which is a hard no, to visiting Haida Gwaii, which I hope to do next year, to things that I\u2019ve done, like visit the Malahat Skywalk on Vancouver Island, and things that probably all of us have done, such as take a stroll along the Seawall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The range is as varied for the rest of Canada: there are places I\u2019ve been, things I\u2019d never do, and things I\u2019d jump at the chance to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Years ago, I visited Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo Jump in Alberta and found it fascinating, learning a lot about Indigenous hunting practices. According to Esrock, the \u201cUNESCO World Heritage Site is the most signi\ufb01cant and best-preserved buffalo jump site on the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m \u201chometown\u201d proud of Magnetic Hill in Moncton, NB, where I was born. I\u2019ve rolled \u201cup\u201d the hill more than once and still get a kick out of the cheesiness of it all. As Esrock explains, it\u2019s all an optical illusion, but it\u2019s still magic to me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the privilege of wandering, and occasionally buying something, in every one of Esrock\u2019s best urban markets in Canada: Granville Island here, St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, ByWard Market in Ottawa and the Forks in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a big risk taker, so won\u2019t be leaning off the top of the CN Tower in Toronto anytime soon, even with all the safety cords in the world, or scaling a frozen waterfall in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Que. And I will never jump off anything much higher than a curb.<\/p>\n

That said, there are so many experiences that I would like to have. In the context of Esrock\u2019s book, one of the top ones is cycling the Kettle Valley Railway, especially now that I\u2019ve learned from Esrock that there\u2019s a company that will provide the bikes, accommodation \u2013 and carry our bags! I\u2019d like to check out the tunnels in Moose Jaw, Sask., which \u201cwere access corridors for steam engineers, then used as a safe haven for Chinese migrants fearing for their lives, and finally by bootleggers and gangsters.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I would love to get to Churchill, Man., something I never managed to do when I lived in Winnipeg. Visiting L\u2019Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland and Labrador, where there are the remains of a Norse settlement from 1000 CE, would be cool. Cruising the Northwest Passage would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience (hopefully). There are hikes and kayaking adventures that call to me\u2026.<\/p>\n

But, for now, I will flip the pages of The Great Canadian Bucket List<\/i>, contemplating all the possibilities. I\u2019ll worry about what\u2019s affordable, what\u2019s doable physically and mentally, what\u2019s possible time-wise, etc., later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know what my wife and I will do for at least part of our winter break \u2013 go through the latest edition of Robin Esrock\u2019s The Great Canadian Bucket List: One-of-a-Kind Travel Experiences together and make plans. For when? I\u2019m not sure. But plans. Wish lists. Published by Dundurn Press, and released just last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[3157,24514,7284,2084],"class_list":["post-48066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-canada","tag-great-canadian-bucket-list","tag-robin-esrock","tag-travel-2"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}