A hub fo the local Lao community When Bounneung and Sengdeuane Insixiengmay opened Kitchener’s Lao-Thai Super Store in 1991, in many ways, they couldn’t have been farther from their homeland. In Laos, they lived their lives against the backdrop of war. It was a reality they left about a decade earlier, with Sengdeuane’s brother, by crossing the Mekong on a tire and landing in […] Read more…
Keeping Polish heritage on the table In 1940, Franciszek Kobus and his 17-year-old daughter, Janina, travelled from their Polish village of Miernów to the ancient red-roofed market town of Wiślica. Invading German troops prowled the small town’s streets. What the Kobuses went in to buy, no one remembers. [continue reading this article] Read more…
First, we take Ontario; then we take Canada About a week after Ontario’s Temperance Act took hold, the four provincial liquor vendors’ cash register chimes probably wouldn’t have drowned out even the smallest of music halls. One wholesaler only rang up $22 in the first week ($429—see note on conversion): he wouldn’t have out-tinkled a […] Read more…
Spring comes to Alert City The ice broke on the Grand River, Robin Redbreast made his first appearance, and a young red fox trotted into town (he was quickly enlisted as the 118th Battalion’s mascot); all hopeful signs Berlin, Ontario’s cold, snowy winter would soon end. The city’s renaming contest was in its final days, with […] Read more…