Remember Dead Poets Society? I saw that film when I was a teenager and still remember the moody aura of that ivy-league all-boys’ school in autumn Vermont. Shot at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware, the movie did a good job of portraying the life of smart, sensitive, lost, lonely and desirous young men at boarding school.

Or so I thought.

With the release this past September of several artsy videos aiming to illustrate what life is like at another St. Andrew’s – this one St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario – I’m not sure if it’s such rebellion and angst and inspiration as the movie portrays.

One thing’s for sure: there is drama. And that drama is captured quite well in these videos, even if they are meant to promote this particular boarding school. You can’t go wrong with bagpipes, and the Scottish guy who made them really knows his stuff.

William Scoular, St. Andrew’s Head of Drama, has directed productions for London’s West End, Broadway, and Toronto’s World Stage Festival and continues to maintain a career as a writer and director for stage and screen. He’s also pulled the strings for numerous music videos, which is what these eight recordings, totaling 17 minutes, are most reminiscent of. Scoular opted for music instead of narration in order “to elicit an emotional response from the viewer – to not simply show, but to evoke what it feels like to be a boy at St. Andrew’s,” he said, in a press release.

However, there is another, fun way to take a peak at life among the Andeans: Go there.

This November 25th to 27th, the drama department will put on A Chorus Line in the Ketchum Auditorium, on the campus of the 111-year-old school. Tickets: $15, with a complimentary fantasy of being part of Dead Poets Society.

This weekend, weather permitting, J. and I are heading to Black Creek Pioneer Village on the north end of Toronto. I’ve been meaning to go for awhile – mainly because my love of history and genealogy has started me on a writing project (my second book of poetry) that tells the tale of my great-great-grandparents.

John Chisholm, my great-great-grandfather, was a cooper. He made barrels for a living. Probably comparable these days to somebody who welds metal into shipping containers. Back then, barrels were used for everything: packed with wine, wheat, loose salt and fish, and whatever else one place produced and another place wanted.

There is a cooper at Black Creek. A guy who sits in his workshop working a lathe to make curved slats of wood. Or so I imagine. Really, I’ve no idea, but I’m excited to see how it is actually done. And to generally soak up the 19th-century atmosphere, including an 1840 cider mill, an 1855 blacksmith shop, and a unique 1840 Neoclassical outhouse from Limehouse, the community where Donald Chisholm, John’s father, lived.

Our visit will also include a lunch of locally-sourced foods, in the Historic Brewery Restaurant & Pub – otherwise known as the Halfway House Inn. Built in 1847-48 at the intersection of Kingston Road and Midland Avenue in Scarborough, the two-story building once offered rest to passengers riding the stage coach between Dunbarton, Pickering and Toronto.

Sometimes I wish I could have ridden those coaches. I know the bumps would have been murder, but to see how things once were, and what the busy concrete city looked like covered in trees, would be amazing.

What about you? Any interest in another era? Any places that conjure another time that you’d care to recommend?

Photo by Gary J Wood

Spanish Paradores are restored castles, palaces and monasteries that combine authentic historical surroundings and modern conveniences in a unique accommodation. Staying in one of these ancient buildings is an ideal way to go beyond Spain’s classic tourist sites and experience history within the culturally vibrant Hispanic world. Here are five of our favourites:

Parador de Cardona

1. Parador de Cardona

An overnight stay in a real knight’s castle is on offer at the stunning Parador de Cardona. The hotel is located in the impressive ancient castle of Cardona which has been painstakingly restored and transformed to a contemporary hotel. Enchanting and authentic medieval features like stone towers and battlements mix with many modern luxuries. Antique paintings and furnishings provide a charming and romantic environment alongside all of the features expected from a 4 star hotel.

2. Parador de Baiona

Another of Spain’s great old castles, the Parador de Baiona has been transformed into a romantic luxury hotel overlooking the beautiful coastal landscape of southern Galicia. Skilfully restored to its medieval splendor, the castle’s interior features arched hallways, original stone staircases, knights’ armour and antiques. Guests walk the battlements and scan the horizon just as the castle guards once did, although it is likely that they didn’t enjoy the same lavish, comfortable bedrooms.

3. Parador de Zafra

This beautiful hotel is located in the mighty fortress of Zafra, originally built for the powerful Duchess of Feria. Built in 1437, the stunning castle façade has been carefully restored to its former glory. Many of the old features have been saved including coffered ceilings, iron railings and the beautiful inner courtyard. This 4 star hotel also offers modern comforts, including elegant bedrooms which once hosted Hernan Cortes, a Spanish conquistador from the 16th century.

Parador de Zafra

4. Parador de Soria

One of the more modern Paradores, the Parador de Soria is located in peaceful forest surroundings and offers breathtaking views of the historic city of Soria and the beautiful Duero Valley. This hotel has been designed to offer light, spacious modern accommodation in a traditional Spanish architectural style and the restaurant provides a delicious taste of local cuisine.

5. Parador de Tortosa

Built in the 10th century, the Parador de Tortosa offers an elegant combination of original stone features and a charming interior featuring large Catalan Gothic windows. The surrounding historic town of Tortosa has a rich and varied past combining Roman, Muslim and Christian rule, influences that are reflected in the hotel’s gothic, classic and Arabian features. Guests enjoy four star amenities and stunning views over the lush landscape of the Tarragona region.

Guest post by Escapio.com

Jason towing the canoe in the mist and waves on Michael's Bay, Manitoulin Island

Every summer, Jason and I head north to Ontario’s Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater island in the world. We spend whatever time we can: a week, a few days, a fortnight. So far we’ve been staying in Tehkummah at Watson’s Camp, a friendly, quiet spot where we rent a wee cabin and try to swim every day in the greeny-blue water of Lake Manitou.

I love it there. Partially because it’s the kind-of a place where you can buy local smoked trout at the supermarket and pop into somebody’s farm on the way home to buy Northern sweet corn. Partially because the wide hay fields and cedar snake fences and views of Georgian Bay and smaller inland lakes are beautiful. But also because it’s a bit of a family spot.

Around 1865, my great-great grandfather John Wilson Chisholm arrived on island to build barrels to hold salted fish harvested near South Baymouth. He went on to man a lighthouse out on Michael’s Point, a spindly jut of stony limestone land. His lantern showed ships the way into the once booming town of Michael’s Bay where the saw-mills did a steady business carving up all the grand old pines and fat cedars into shingles and lathe.

Since I’m working on a book of poetry about this set of ancestors, our travels this summer involved a lot of research. We started our summer tripping in Jordan Village, Ontario, just east of where my great-great-grandfather and his wife, Margaret, started out. They made their way north, following the Niagara Escarpment to the town of Malta, near Southhampton, which was wiped out by a swamp fire, before continuing on to the island where they eventually died.

At the South Baymouth Museum, I found a small article from the Manitoulin Expositor about my great-great-grandfather, dated September 20, 1879. It was about the lush plum tree he was able to grow in his orchard – “37 Lombard plums in a distance of seven inches.” No wonder, I thought. He started out in Niagara. The land becomes real with this type of wandering. With clear, solid roots.

After an eventful ten months, I am back on the blog.

First novel finished. MFA nearly earned. A few articles, short stories and poems published here and there. A lot learned.

Travel? Not so much. There was a last-minute press trip to Israel in February which was pretty incredible. And some local travel funded by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council for the collection I’m hastily trying to complete in time for the CBC Literary Awards deadline.

But mostly I’ve been hunkered down in my head for the last long while, writing poetry for last fall’s amazing workshop with Dionne Brand, fiction for the winter workshop with funny and insightful Michael Winter (my favourite quote from that class, paraphrased: “We want to write about death and longing and we’re stuck describing the jam jars”) and, most challenging and educational of all, writing, examining, editing, analyzing and rewriting my first novel, Swarm, with Susan Swan.

Awhile back Nomadic Matt commented on my blog that he didn’t understand why people took classes for creative writing. What do they teach? he asked. How to be more creative? Unfortunately, some deadline or other prevented me from taking him up on his challenge but I can respond now.

His questions aren’t new. They’re cousins of another comment I heard just the other day: How can poetry be good or bad when it’s somebody’s opinion?

The answer to both is CRAFT. We take creative writing classes, yes, to carve out a space to be creative. But also to hone the craft. Poetry, fiction, most writing, is good or bad according to its craft.

And with the MFA nearly behind me (in early October I defend my thesis: wish me luck!) I can say that my capacity to express the creative inside me is much improved after two years listening and talking to more widely-published writers, reading, discussing what it is to be a writer and wrestling with what the hell I’ve been trying to say.

It’s been a great two years. And now for the rest of my life.

How Long?

How many years, seasons
cold, day
after day, snow

stuck to sweating windows, sun
spread on the wild
fields, will this

last? Our rambling
conversations, accentuated
by ideas, flashing

mouths
damp with meanings, veiling
the troubled

earth. None of us can
truly see, not
from the windows

of our adventurous
cars, nor even, in our
un-spooling, anxious

dreams. I can’t hear
your voice, each word
a bandage

over reality. Instead, I ask
the birds, balanced
on hot

updrafts, searching
for their nesting
grounds, the white bear

spiraling to dark
bottom, the drifting
hunter, the drowned

fisherman, the dead,
the dead,
how long?

– Lauren Carter

I am a poet and writer working in the small city of Orillia, Ontario, Canada (about 125 kilometres north of Toronto). I write local travel stories for Edible Toronto but am currently focusing most of my creative energies on a novel set on the tipping point of fossil fuel depletion (well, a future tipping point as some would argue that we are already there) and a second collection of poetry dealing with climate change in a personal and historical perspective.

Read other people’s climate change posts at www.blogactionday.org

In other news, check out the latest issue of Prism International for my poem The Double. On a fine independent book-seller’s shelf near you.

First, there was a canoe trip into a world where the only electricity was the unbridled kind that comes with thunder. And then, in September, I started down a new path. Graduate school. Currently, my sharpened pencils are scribbling out a one-act play for a playwriting course and busy jotting notes in another, all towards a MFA in Creative Writing.

But the best part is that I’m doing what I love to do: making stuff up.

And as I attend more readings than ever before and gaze out over a classroom of people who also appreciate the act of commenting on the world in a creative way, as humans have been doing for millenia, it pains me to hear what our prime minister has to say about the arts. “I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see … a bunch of people at a rich gala … all subsidized by the taxpayers, claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know those subsidies have gone up, I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people,” Stephen Harper told reporters this week.

That’s funny. Despite my poetic nature, I always thought I was more or less an ordinary person, with a dog, a mortgage, taxes to pay and, oh, yeah, voting to do. And don’t even get me started about WHO gets to go to those “rich galas”. My invitation – and the ones for the thousands of other struggling artists out there – must have gone missing in the mail…

But, as usual, Margaret Atwood says it better than I can.

Please click HERE to read her thoughtful essay about all this seemingly prehistoric clap-trap (enlightenment, anyone?) and then think about the question she poses: what kind of country do you want to live in? Does it involve a few diverse shades of dissenting voices or is it all just a single tone of Conservative blue?