#Canada150

Waterloo Reads 2017: Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Back in the Spring, I was asked to be a champion. Now, before you ask, no this isn’t some scripted thing that blurs the line between sports and entertainment. I was asked to be a champion.  Of a book. To read, understand, and passionately defend at  Waterloo Reads: Battle of the Books (Canada 150 edition). […] Read more…

In their words: Indi Madar’s Beef Suqaar

Indi Madar was about seven years old when she and her mum moved from Djibouti to Canada. Today, Indi is a graduate student at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, working towards a master’s degree in Sustainability Management. She is actively involved in university affairs and is a communications officer for UW’s Graduate Student […] Read more…

In their words: Jennifer Roggemann’s Soo Jae Bi

Originally from Seoul, South Korea, Jennifer Roggemann was 16 years old when she and her family immigrated to Canada, on a cold, grey December day in 1987. She arrived with very little knowledge of her new home and with little English. Today, she is an immigration lawyer and draws upon her first-hand experience to help […] Read more…

Queen’s Bush: We marched right into the wilderness

About 25 years after Pennsylvania Mennonites arrived, another group of US emigrants started a new life in what would be Waterloo Region. They—freemen and runaway slaves—founded settlements on undeveloped lands in Colbornesburg and later in Queen’s Bush. By the 1840s, the Queen’s Bush Settlement’s population was approximately 2000, of whom approximately 1500 were black. This […] Read more…

Onion bhajis and my dinner with Edna Staebler

Edna Staebler and I met and bonded over Indian food. It was her request. She was 100 years old and living in a nursing home; the food—although probably good for her—was bland and boring. She wanted something tasty and flavourful, but not too spicy. It was a request I was happy to grant. During that […] Read more…