Category: Spring 2002

“From my breakfast table in the Hotel Hesselet’s dining room, I watch a lone canoeist glide across the still Baltic Sea just steps away. A seagull, perched on the end of the swimming pier, also observes his progress. I marvel at the serenity of the scene as mist slowly lifts off the water. The breakfast… Continue reading ….Sinking

The picture was taken with a box Brownie on the infield at Yankee Stadium just before the first game of the 1941 World Series. That’s Joe DiMaggio in his home whites, staring inward as DiMaggio so often did. The young man beside him is Billy Frayne, 23, all the way from Winnipeg, and he’s in… Continue reading Hall of Famer

On February 5, 2001, Izzy Asper, executive chairman of CanWest Global Communications Corp., Canada’s largest media and publishing company, threw a party at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The atmosphere was more like a Liberal love-in than a corporate gathering-the crowd included Finance Minister Paul Martin, Herb Gray, then deputy prime minister, and… Continue reading An Editor’s Dream–and Nightmare

Shortly after 5 p.m. on November 1, 2001, the fax machine at Multi-Vision Publishing Inc. gave that loud, distinctive, final screech and fell silent. It marked more than the end of an outgoing fax. If MVP president and chief executive officer Greg MacNeil is to be believed, it also marked the end of a 53-year… Continue reading Stayin’ Alive

It’s a bleary Wednesday morning in October, and I’ve just exited Highway 401 near Belleville, Ontario, in my rented 1998 Ford Contour. The car shudders, the brakes squeak, and the engine vibrates as I stop on a deserted rural route and wipe fog from the windshield. I look for a sign telling me which way… Continue reading Crashing….