Canadian COVID-19 News

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Kelkara

Try again ... Valhalla is in BC: https://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/valhalla/

And I believe even Asgard is on Baffin Island: https://www.google.com/search?source...q=mount+asgard

You know, I searched for "Valhalla" on Google Maps and nothing came up - so I thought I was on safe ground. But now that you mention it, I have heard of it, although I've never been there.

So, Valhalla IS in Canada. I guess that reasoning can't be used by the unvaccinated to get on a bus. Good to hear!

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Scorpius said: "Since Valhalla is my "final" destination and it's presumably not in Canada (although maybe it is)..."

Well of COURSE it is! Gimli MB is there to prove it, isn't it :-0)!

You do know that before entering Valhalla, you are required to recite:

Sol er oppe,
skovens toppe
glimrer alt som Gimles tag;
bud os bringer
hanevinger,
hanegal om klaren dag.
Vågner, vågner, danske helte!
springer op og spænder bælte!
dag og dåd er kæmperim.

Gimle was, as I'm sure you know, the most beautiful place in Asgard, the home of the Æsir, including Thor.

Should our paths ever cross, upon the waters, I may tell you what befell Thor one early morning after the Æsir had had one heck of a party in Gimle :-)

TrentePieds

Oh my goodness!

[Midnight Son]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Scorpius said: "Since Valhalla is my "final" destination and it's presumably not in Canada (although maybe it is)..."

Well of COURSE it is! Gimli MB is there to prove it, isn't it :-0)!

You do know that before entering Valhalla, you are required to recite:

Sol er oppe,
skovens toppe
glimrer alt som Gimles tag;
bud os bringer
hanevinger,
hanegal om klaren dag.
Vågner, vågner, danske helte!
springer op og spænder bælte!
dag og dåd er kæmperim.

Gimle was, as I'm sure you know, the most beautiful place in Asgard, the home of the Æsir, including Thor.

Should our paths ever cross, upon the waters, I may tell you what befell Thor one early morning after the Æsir had had one heck of a party in Gimle :-)

TrentePieds

Living 700 km North of Gimli, and with the last name of Thor.

[Greg K]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/tr...avel#mandatory


Also applies to cross-provincial trains.

Because forcing the unvaccinated to take a Greyhound bus instead is so much safer.

It's all about the science.

[sv_pelagia]

Greyhound abandoned Canada (except for transborder to/from USA).

One actually familiar with Canada might know this.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Scorpius said: "Since Valhalla is my "final" destination and it's presumably not in Canada (although maybe it is)..."

Well of COURSE it is! Gimli MB is there to prove it, isn't it :-0)!

You do know that before entering Valhalla, you are required to recite:

Sol er oppe,
skovens toppe
glimrer alt som Gimles tag;
bud os bringer
hanevinger,
hanegal om klaren dag.
Vågner, vågner, danske helte!
springer op og spænder bælte!
dag og dåd er kæmperim.

Gimle was, as I'm sure you know, the most beautiful place in Asgard, the home of the Æsir, including Thor.

Should our paths ever cross, upon the waters, I may tell you what befell Thor one early morning after the Æsir had had one heck of a party in Gimle :-)

TrentePieds

No, I didn't know that about Gimli or Gimle. I just remember it as the site of the Gimli Glider.

Ok, I recited the poem (I'm sure my pronunciation was atrocious) so I guess I'm ready for Valhalla. I also translated it. Interesting. In it, they refer to the Danes. Is that the Denmark we know today or a broader term for all Norse?

And I look forward to meeting you "out there" and hearing about Thor's misfortune!

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

You know, I searched for "Valhalla" on Google Maps and nothing came up - so I thought I was on safe ground. But now that you mention it, I have heard of it, although I've never been there.

So, Valhalla IS in Canada.

MapQuest will provide travel directions to Valhalla.

Valhalla is a hamlet and census-designated place within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census.

[N Coast Murray]

Originally Posted by Montanan

MapQuest will provide travel directions to Valhalla.

Valhalla is a hamlet and census-designated place within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census.

When Vikings pictured Valhalla in their minds, I doubt it's a cozy little hamlet thousands of miles from any sizeable mountain.

This is more like it...google image search for 'Valhalla mountains BC Canada'

https://www.google.com/search?q=valh...&bih=530&dpr=2

A place to inspire a throaty roar and hairy chest thumping!

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Montanan

MapQuest will provide travel directions to Valhalla.

Valhalla is a hamlet and census-designated place within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census.

Well, if any anti-vaxxers in Canada wish to travel to Valhalla, New York, I could support a travel ban exception for that (maybe Greyhound still goes there). I would just feel sorry for the good citizens of Valhalla, NY.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Scorpius

Yup. I've been to both with Scorpius. The pass from the Ahclakerho to Takush Harbour in Smith Inlet has only 2-3 feet of water in it at HIGH tide and so is impassable with a larger vessel. Also it's so narrow the branches from the trees on either side touch in the middle. Fairly long though.

Been on my list. I suppose I could visit by dinghy from Fly Basin, or preferably (if time) via the long way around.

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

Been on my list. I suppose I could visit by dinghy from Fly Basin, or preferably (if time) via the long way around.

I would definitely go the long way around. The trip itself is AMAZING.

[Mike OReilly]

G&M: Non-medical exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines pose challenges for Canada’s human-rights commissions

Many human-rights commissions have publicly stated that vaccine mandates do not violate human rights. While employers are legally obligated to provide accommodation to employees in certain circumstances, experts say that must be balanced with the need to protect others during a health crisis.
...
Many health organizations and health experts, including the Canadian Medical Association, have called for an end to non-medical vaccination exemptions. The Ontario Medical Association says the only valid exemptions to a COVID-19 vaccine are medical ones.

Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, highlighted the fact that most religions support vaccination. In most cases, non-medical exemption requests amount to personal-belief objections to vaccination, which shouldn’t count as a justified exemption, Mr. Caulfield said.

“I think the law is pretty clear,” he said. “Having a strong singular belief about the vaccine is not a justification from a human-rights perspective for an exemption.”

[N Coast Murray]

UPDATE: Kitimat Craft Fair Nov 5th & 6th where no proof of vaccination was required.

This is the only large indoor event in BC that I know of where no proof of vaccination was needed, and was allowed by Provincial health authorities.

I've been posting Kitimat's Covid numbers every week since the craft fair, and it appears that in a highly vaccinated town you can get away with large indoor events.

The week before the fair we had 12 cases. In the weeks following the fair the numbers dropped, then went to 15 for the week of Nov 21st to the 27th...this is the week that you would expect to see case numbers climbing if there was any significant transmission going on.

I know of one vendor who sells items which mock vaccinations, so one can assume some of the vendors were unvaccinated in addition the public.

This is good news for areas of Canada with high vaccination rates.

http://www.bccdc.ca/Health-Info-Site...1_20211127.png

[TrentePieds]

Scorpius said (in #3231) "...In it, they refer to the Danes. Is that the Denmark we know today or a broader term for all Norse?"

Well, since you ask, and since there seems to be some interest from others, I shall, despite my exalted status of moderator, permit myself a bit of thread drift :-)

We are dealing with NORSE mythology, and back then, in a time when we Norse barbarians stood off the Roman Legions in the wilderness on the southern border of what the Romans were pleased to call Thule, “Asatro” (“Asa” = Æsir, “tro” = belief, thus belief in the Æsir) was the religion of the Norsemen ( “Men of the North” i.e. not Roman). We were, as is well known, a warlike lot, as reflected in the poem you have just learned. An ultimate battle between Good and Evil, the forces of Light and the forces of Dark, was very much part of Asatro, as it is today, and if you remember the phrase from the Mahabharata that “the field of Kurukshetra is in the heart of man”, you will see the congruence. Not surprising, since Norsemen are Indo-Europeans who came to their present lands during the Great Migrations. The pantheon of the Norse and the pantheon of the Hindus are in many ways identical, as are their “creation legends”.

Back then, the word “dane” simply meant “we the people” - a particular tribe (of Germanic peoples) in other words. As we may still observe today — even in societies that consider themselves civilized and worthy of emulation — if you are not “of the tribe” you are a potential (deadly) enemy. So, yes, the diversification into Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Faeroese and Icelanders is a development post-dating the events alluded to in the poem. Danes spoke various Germanic dialects collectively known as “Norse”, and a million years ago, when I was in school in Denmark, I had some modest facility in those dialects — enough to get the gist of the Sagas. “Saga” is cognate with English “sayings”. The Sagas are the written form of the oral tradition that came down to us via the “learned men” called “Skjadur” - “Poets”. These men were in many ways the equivalent of the Druids of Britannic tradition. For instance, the Hávamál (“The Word of the All-Highest”) is a treatise on “correct” behaviour for both men and women. Konungasaga is the stories of the legendary chieftains (“kings”) of these tribes. The Norse were organized much as the Scottish clans have been right into our own day, with the same rights among men and women, and the same obligations to and by the king.

Hrolf Krake was one of these kings, and my childhood home is to found even today on Rolf Kragesvej (Hrolf Krake's Way) in the City of Odense. In viking times this was a holy place, “et Vi”, a glade in the forest, dedicated to Odin (“Wotan”). Thus Odense = “Wotan's Holy Place”. You will recognize the similarity to Druidic tradition here. Rolf had his Royal Hall at a place called Lejre, not far from the present day city of Roskilde ( = Hroar's Well). Rolf was Hroar's nephew, and he was killed, through an act of treachery, while hosting, at Lejre, a rival clan of Swedish vikings of which his brother in law was a member. When I was a wee little lad, probably in 1944, my grandfather treated the family to Easter dinner at the attractive inn that had by then replaced King Rolf's Hall, a hall that would have been just as my forebears visualized Gimle, the feasting hall in Asgard.

To inject a bit of seafaring here: Roskilde is, as is well known, the present-day home of the Viking Ship Museum, and harking back to a thread of a few weeks ago: Yes! Square rigged ships could indeed “reach”. Viking ship replicas have been found to have a “tacking angle” of about 130º

Like the Scots, Danes still take clannishness VERY seriously! In the early '20s some chap by the name of Wallace, a New Yorker who was not without a certain uhm... ideology, started publishing a magazine known to us all as Reader's Digest. We who have had some editorial experience won't mention “cherry picking” :-)! Following Hitler's War, RD, seeking to make smooth “the American way”, started publishing the rag in all western European Countries, and with a hubris that still brings a smile to many faces, chose to call the European editions by the appropriate equivalent of the Danish title “Det Beste” (“the Best”)! Well, round about 1948 I had acquired a copy, Lord knows how, and showed it to my mother. She riffled through it somewhat cursorily, scanned a few pages, handed it back to me and said: “WE DANES don't need this!” :-)

So to return to the poem and the killing of Rolf, the story of which you will find in the Bjarkamál.

Such things are, of course, immensely difficult to translate, but here is the gist of it. Might mention that in Scowegian, and probably in German, “the red cock crowing” is a metaphor for fire, particularly for fire deliberately set as an act of enmity.


Dawn has broken.
Treetops
Glow like Gimle's roof.
News is brought us
on the wings of cockerels,
Cock-crow greets the breaking dawn.
Awake, awake you valiant warriors,
Rise and gird your loins —
'Tis the time to do or die!


TrentePieds

[Scorpius]

Wow, TrentePieds, that's quite the story! (I didn't dare hit "quote").

Thank you!