Canadian boating - Great Lakes and Atlantic region

[peter loveridge]

Greenland had forests when Eric the Red discovered it, still has a little one on its SW tip

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dave Lochner

...
Watching the Republic of Doyle has helped accustom my ears to the Newfoundland accent.

Wow, someone else watches that show. What sticks out to us on that show is the Irish accents. Newfoundland is quite close to Ireland and the Irish starting going there quite early in the settlement of the west.

If I am remembering where I heard this correctly, it was at the Irish Immigration Museum in Dublin or it might have been on the Jeanie Johnston famine ship in Dublin, many Irish were dumped in Newfoundland because it was the close place to Ireland thus it was the fastest and cheapest way to remove people from the country. Landowners were legally responsible to pay for shipping people overseas which included health care and food.

A few followed the law, most did not. One of the Canadian towns, I think it was St. John's, sent a letter back to Ireland complaining about the horrible condition of the people that were just dumped on their waterfront. The people were starving and barely clothed and certainly not prepared for the weather conditions.

There is a huge population of Irish descendants in St John's, and when we watch Doyle, we will hear an Irish pronunciation every so often We will look at each other and ask, "Did you hear that?"

Tis also one of the few places in the world that teaches the Irish language.

We want to visit this part of Canada one day...

Later,
Dan

[flandria]

Nunavut is a Canadian Territory, separate from (used to be part of) the North West Territories... Since it was mentioned earlier. As to Ontario marinas, I just nod along with everyone else... No Go For Now.... or my boat is No Good For Nothing as it stands (literally).
DNHYB
Do Not Hold Your Breath
No access even to take off the winter cover or do any prep on the boat regardless of how far or close my "neighbour" might be.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dave Lochner

... I could never understand why an island covered in ice was called Greenland and an island covered in rock was called Iceland. Soon both will be covered in rock.
...

I saw a documentary about archaeology digs regarding settlements in Greenland. When the Vikings first arrived in Greenland, the land was in fact green. They had large land animals like cows, sheep, and I think they said horses. However, over time the climate changed, grass died off and the large animals disappeared. Only small animal bones were found at some point and the Vikings either left or died.

What was surprising was that the Vikings did not eat marine mammals and did not adapt to the climate getting cooler. The native peoples already knew how to survive but the Vikings did not adapt.

Later,
Dan

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by hpaabor

TVO our Ontario public television produced this real time trip up the Rideau Canal. Its almost 4 hours ending at the Parliament buildings. I'm guessing this might be the extent of cruising in Canada this year.
https://www.tvo.org/video/documentar...v0PNi-3vlr_7Gc

We saw a bit of that last night and were fascinated and starting shouting out "YOU MISSED THE NAV AID!"

[Rol1964]

Deleted

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by hpaabor

TVO our Ontario public television produced this real time trip up the Rideau Canal. Its almost 4 hours ending at the Parliament buildings. I'm guessing this might be the extent of cruising in Canada this year.
https://www.tvo.org/video/documentar...v0PNi-3vlr_7Gc

Yeah... it was on last night...I wanted to just crack a brew and zone out to that, but the Admiral wanted to watch a movie... She did promise me that we would do the Rideau in person some day.


There will be high winds today, so we were allowed to briefly visit the boat to make sure things were battened down. Still hoping for sailing in June or July...

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SuW

Marinas I have heard from:
Treasure Island, Gananoque Municipal, Collins Bay: all completely closed.
IMS, Iroquois: Boatyard closed, restrooms/docks open to the liveaboards/campers only (don't ask).

Our boat is in the boatyard at IMS.

The local government replaced the yellow "Do Not Cross" tape on the Morrisburg boat ramp with a concrete traffic barrier. You could still launch a kayak, I suppose.

The St. Lawrence river between Iroquois and Cornwall is at a high level, but it is controlled. Not as high as the highest last year.

The St. Lawrence Seaway is open. Lots of traffic.
https://www.vesselfinder.com/

Thanks for this summary Suw. One addition though, while the Seaway is open, all Seaway locks are closed to recreational traffic right now. So that includes all the locks between L. Ontario and Montreal, as well as the Welland Canal.

[nortonscove]

Originally Posted by Dave Lochner

Kissing a cod? Is that anything like kissing a girl after a bad date?

I am intrigued by cod tongues and cheeks as a meal. I'd rank that a little above haggis.

No b'y. Cod tongues are fantastic fried up with a little onion and sometimes a bit of white wine. Many locals fry them in salt pork scruntions. Cheeks are enough like scallops to fool the newly initiated.

[deblen]

An excellent read. / Len


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ew_Founde_Land

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by peter loveridge

Greenland had forests when Eric the Red discovered it, still has a little one on its SW tip

* Although Eric founded the first European settlement(s), a man called Gunnbjörn Ulf-Krakuson was there, about 100 years earlier.
Scientists have estimated that the Greenland ice sheet, which is more than 3 kilometres thick in places, is between 400,000 and 800,000 years old. This means that the island today is unlikely to have been markedly different,than when Europeans* settled there, around 982 - 985 AD. However, there is evidence that the settled areas were slightly warmer than today, with large birch woodlands providing both timber and fuel. This warmth coincided with the period known as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, also known as the Medieval Warm Period. Currently, only five species of trees or large shrubs occur naturally in Greenland: Greenland mountain ash, mountain alder, downy birch, grayleaf willow, and common juniper; and and those hardy plants grow only in scattered plots, in the far south.
An interesting mystery ➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...ings-disappear

[Montanan]

Trudeau invokes WWI battle to prepare Canadians for a long fight with COVID-19
By Levon Sevunts |
english@rcinet.ca
Posted: Thursday, April 9, 2020 17:58

Harkening back to Canada’s nation-defining victory in the Battle of Vimy Ridge during the First World War, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians today to show their mettle again, this time in the fight against a virus that threatens to kill tens of thousands of Canadians.

Speaking during his daily briefing outside his home at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa, after Canadian public health officials released sobering projections of the COVID-19 pandemic modeling, Trudeau said Canada was still at an earlier stage of the outbreak.
Canadians have the “chance to determine what our country looks like in the weeks and months to come,” Trudeau said.

Projections released by Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam Thursday morning showed that under the best case scenario there could be between 11,000 and 22,000 deaths in Canada over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal health officials project up to 22,000 COVID-19 deaths in Canada
The worst case scenario – with no epidemic control measures – could see up to 80 per cent of Canadians eventually getting COVID-19 and more than 350,000 deaths, modeling projections showed.

‘A fork in the road’

Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam responds to a question a news conference in Ottawa, Thursday Apr. 9, 2020.
“Our healthcare systems across the country are coping for the time being,” Trudeau said.
But Canadians are at a fork in the road, between the best and the worst possible outcomes, he added.
“The best possible outcome is no easy path for any of us,” Trudeau said.

“The initial peak – the top of the curve – may be in late spring, with the end of the first wave in the summer.”
Canadian public health officials expect smaller outbreaks for a number of months after that, he said.
“This is the new normal, until a vaccine is developed,” Trudeau said, adding that it will “take months of continued, determined effort” to get through the pandemic.
“We’ll need to keep practicing physical distancing, staying home, and washing our hands” Trudeau said.
“It will help get the numbers that Dr. Tam was talking about – between 4,000 and 44,000 deaths – as low as possible.”

http://https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020...with-covid-19/

[Montanan]

Newfoundland and Labrador - Food supply risks.


The economic fallout of the pandemic may force a vital carrier of food and medicine to Newfoundland and Labrador to tie up its fleet of ships and stop delivering as much as half of the island's food supply.

Oceanex Inc. — which runs weekly trips from Montreal and Halifax to St. John's — says it is losing millions a week due to a drop in volumes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is asking the federal government to offset its losses so it can keep running supplies to St. John's.

"We just can't continue," said Sid Hynes, the company's executive chairman. "It's costing us $5 million a week to operate and we are about $2 million short."

Hynes said the company almost certainly will have to cancel one of its weekly trips from Montreal, tie up that boat and lay people off.

'Getting progressively worse'

He said the other Montreal trip and the weekly Halifax-to-St. John's run also may have to stop if Oceanex can't get federal financial support.

"It's getting progressively worse. It's not getting better," Hyne said. "This past week was worse than the previous week."

If Oceanex shuts down, it would create an immediate food security and public safety crisis in the province.

Oceanex said it delivers 50 per cent of all freight to Newfoundland — and 75 per cent of all goods to the more heavily populated St. John's area on the northeast Avalon Peninsula.

It's the major supplier for Costco, Walmart and other major grocery stores in Newfoundland and Labrador and it delivers a significant amount of medicine and medical supplies to the province.

A five-day food supply

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball warns that the island has just a five-day supply of food and that losing Oceanex's services could lead to critical shortages.

"For the many staples that we have in our life right now, Oceanex is the supplier," Ball told CBC News. "So we're literally less than a week away to running out of food that we eat and are part of our lifestyle here in our province."

So this critical supply line is looking for a lifeline from the federal government. Oceanex was struggling financially before the pandemic. It carries significant debt and most of its costs — such as fuel — can't be offset by government pandemic aid programs such as the wage subsidy.

Those problems have been compounded by a drop in shipping volumes that is flattening the company's revenue stream. Delivering new cars to Newfoundland dealerships makes up a significant portion of Oceanex's business in normal times — and it's hard to sell cars when people are barely driving.

Like almost every other company in Canada, Oceanex reached out to the federal government several weeks ago. It shared financial data with Transport Canada and the federal Department of Finance just before the holiday weekend.

Oceanex has asked for a subsidy to offset its $2 million weekly losses until at least September. Federal government officials were said to have spent the weekend working on the file.

"Food supply chains and essential goods are vital to everyone living on the island. So shipping companies are critical. In addition to measures already introduced — including over $27 billion of direct support to Canadian workers and businesses — we're exploring all options," Natural Resources Minister and St. John's MP Seamus O'Regan said in a media statement.

Nearly 6 million people have applied for COVID-19 emergency benefits
Canadians mark Easter as COVID-19 continues to cause pain, grief for many
Parliament adopts wage subsidy bill as MPs applaud all-party collaboration
Marine Atlantic is the other major supplier of food and supplies to the island of Newfoundland. The senior provincial source said the province has gotten some assurance that Marine Atlantic can fill the gap if Oceanex stops deliveries.

But a senior provincial government source argues that would mean securing extra trucking and marine capacity and re-routing existing supply lines — a complex task that would take time and would not guarantee that an already fragile food supply wouldn't be interrupted.

One of the big risks involved in trying to supply the island without Oceanex's services has to do with the availability of protein and fresh produce. Newfoundland and Labrador has a domestic dairy and poultry supply. But fresh vegetables, beef and pork are largely brought in by shipping container or truck — and Oceanex is a core part of that delivery system.

"We need a solution to this. Oceanex is a big part of the infrastructure within our province when it comes to food supply and medical needs, medical equipment in a time of a health crisis," Ball said. "The last thing we want to see is that disrupted."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new...530903?cmp=rss

[Montanan]

Manitoba extends COVID-19 public health orders for 2 more weeks

Manitoba has extended public health orders shutting down non-essential businesses and limiting public gatherings for an additional two weeks.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the province's chief public health officer, announced the extension of the orders under the province's Public Health Act on Monday, in an effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The orders, which were introduced on March 30, were previously set to expire on Tuesday. They are now set to expire on April 28.

Under the current rules, bars, hair salons and massage therapy offices are shut down and restaurants are banned from serving eat-in service.

Businesses are allowed to do repairs, provide security services or take items out of a closed establishment if they operate on a remote basis.

The province is likely to enhance the orders later this week, Roussin said. He declined to provide specifics of what that could look like.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Newfoundland and Labrador - Food supply risks.


The economic fallout of the pandemic may force a vital carrier of food and medicine to Newfoundland and Labrador to tie up its fleet of ships and stop delivering as much as half of the island's food supply.

Oceanex Inc. — which runs weekly trips from Montreal and Halifax to St. John's — says it is losing millions a week due to a drop in volumes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is asking the federal government to offset its losses so it can keep running supplies to St. John's.

"We just can't continue," said Sid Hynes, the company's executive chairman. "It's costing us $5 million a week to operate and we are about $2 million short."

Hynes said the company almost certainly will have to cancel one of its weekly trips from Montreal, tie up that boat and lay people off.

I do not know the specifics of the Oceanex contract, but at first glance, the optics stink: get a lucrative contract that NL depends upon, then threaten to drop it when things go sideways. Especially when fuel prices have dropped like a rock.

Of course I'd expect schedule changes and fewer trips, but to threaten to quit unless they get a subsidy... hmmm.

Anyone with more info is welcome to school me about this situation.