$1.449/litre is $4.36 U.S. for a U.S. gal.

 

Gas is getting expensive in Canada. Although a bunch of green onions has been hit harder by inflation than gasoline. One bunch of green onions can run a careful shopper almost $2. Unbelievable. The price of gasoline is still worth a mention.

Gas is sold by the litre in Canada. Friday it was hitting nearly $1.50 per litre at some name brand stations. Although not quite as bad, it was still $1.449 at off brand gas bars. That converts to $6.59 for an imperial gallon of fuel or $5.49 for a American gallon. Why the difference? The U.S. gallon is much smaller than the traditional Canadian or Imperial gallon.

As the Canadian dollar is not worth as much as the U.S. dollar. The price drops to $4.36 per gallon when paid for in U.S. funds. Yanks think they have it tough with gas running around $2.40 a gallon in the States. Americans would be so surprised to know how much stuff costs outside the U.S.

A reverse after school pick-up

 

Usually when the parents arrive at the school at the end of the day it is to pick up the kids. This time was different, dad was dropping off something: sleds and snow saucers. There's are small hills in the park beside the school that are excellent for sledding. The slopes are long but not too long and steep enough for fun but safe play. And so dad made a drop-off instead of a pick-up. If the winter is long with lots of snow, more than one parent will be doing this reverse after school pick-up.

A very complex story with a sad ending for many

 

Champion road graders have quite a history. The first Champion road graders were horse-drawn. When it became possible to make self propelled road graders, Champion made the first ones. When hydraulics came onto the scene, Champion was the first to improve their machines with the new technology. With operations in both Canada and the United States, Champion was a solid company shipping graders all over the world to almost a hundred countries.

Then it was sold to Volvo Construction Group in 1997. Although the promise was "No jobs will be lost," the Goderich plant was closed by the end of 2009. I believe the original operations in the States have also been lost.

Then in 2014, in a move to cut costs, the Volvo Group discontinued production of motor graders as well as backhoes at its Shippensburg facility. Production of both lines was transferred to Volvo Construction Equipment’s Chinese subsidiary. The Shippensburg facility produced its first motor grader only about four years ago earlier when the motor grader line was moved to Pennsylavania from Ontario.

The end result of all the opening and closing of plants was the loss of about 1,000 jobs in four countries, Poland, the US, Brazil and Canada.

Not-for-profit, a win for the community

 

Boler Mountain is a not-for-profit that has been adding to the richness of the living-in-London experience for more than seven decades. Boler opened originally as a small ski hill with very little going for it other than location. For London area skiers, Boler was close and that was its major drawing point.

A trip to Blue Mountain near Collingwood on Georgian Bay takes a full three hours. When the day is done there is another three hour drive to be tackled before one is finally back home. A day trip to one of the ski hills near Pontiac, in Michigan, demands more than another hour behind the wheel. The distant hills may be bigger and the runs longer but the time spent on the road drains a lot of fun from the day.

Five years ago, Boler expanded its existing forty-year-old chalet and that is using the word chalet rather generously. The resort likes to brag that the new chalet has a large modern kitchen. The young skiers could care less. Steaming hot chocolate, crispy French fries plus hamburgers, cheese burgers and hot dogs keep the kids happy. 

And if one prefers bringing their own hot chocolate and brown bagging it to keep skiing cost down, Boler mountain allows that too. But, when one comes in off the hill, a serving of the traditional French Canadian ski hill standby, poutine, is awfully hard to resist. 

Poutine, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is a serving of French fries sprinkled with fresh, cheese curds and then smothered with hot gravy. The cheese curds immediately start melting and the poutine is ready to eat. Oodles of calories but skiers can handle it.

Boler Mountain has a reputation for snowmaking

 

Ski Area Management, covering the ski resort industry in North America, has short-listed Boler Mountain for the honour of being declared to have the best snowmaking crew on the continent. Boler Mountain is up against such big names as Sugarloaf in Maine and Vail Mountain in Colorado.

Considering how little snow there is to be found on the ground surrounding the small ski hill located in the middle of a London, Ontario, suburb, the snowmaking experts at Boler have earned their place in the annual competition.

And that snow is not cheap. The little hill gets no break from the city but pays the full industrial rate for the water supplied by the City of London PUC.

A ski hill and tubing runs right in the suburbs

 

There are three tubing runs at Boler Mountain. The runs are about ten stories high and tubes have been clocked going as fast as 70 km/h. I find that amazing but even more amazing is the fact that the tubing runs are almost in the backyards of some of the most expensive new homes in London. I expected the NIMBY, not in my backyard, movement to try to shut down the suburban winter sport resort but so far so good.

Maybe its age is providing the facility with some protection. It is decades old and its roots extend deep into the last century. Maybe the fact that the resort is mainly known for its skiing, a winter sport with some panache, also helps to keep the critics at bay.

Come to think of it, I have noted downhill ski tracks appearing at the backyard gate behind some of the homes. My guess it that the homeowners have a family membership and to go skiing they simply put on their gear and slip out their back door. In some cases, there may be a high-speed quad chairlift immediately behind the home.

A chairlift and ski slope may be fine behind a home but I must admit I would find the noise of the snow making machines a bit hard to live with.

Parking Lot Snow Piles Attract Kids

 

It's winter. There's no school, at least not until Monday. There's very little snow. And even if there was, playing with friends is difficult with COVID-19 raging. But there are still great mounds of snow scraped off the parking lot at the local strip mall. To kids desperate for something to do, these piles of snow spell F-U-N. One can climb 'em, slide down 'em and, when tuckered, one can just relax and chat with a friend on 'em.