On June 17th, 2022, the City of Hamilton, Ontario surpassed $1 billion worth of construction since the beginning of the year. That marks the earliest the City has reached a billion-dollar mark in construction value. 
The milestone was achieving 3,761 building projects in the residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial sectors. With school out for the summer, residents can take advantage of the open municipal golf courses, or a golf tournament at King’s Forest Club and Chedoke Golf Club. Dundurn Castle along with the Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology reopened for museum tours last week. The Cooks were excited to get back to demonstrate Victorian recipes in the Historic Kitchen. Hamilton’s Pumphouse was built in 1859 to get clean Lake water to the city. It’s received plenty of attention. Hamilton is home to The Royal Botanical Gardens, The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, The Bruce Trail, McMaster University, Mohawk College and Redeemer University. McMaster University is ranked 4th in Canada. 
Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and it’s home to “The Hamilton Tiger Cats” The city is 58 kilometers (36 miles) southwest of Toronto in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area (GTHA).
The Sunday, June 26, 2022 edition of The New York Times introduced us to Mrs. Elsie Eiler, 88, who runs a business on the brink of disappearing into the prairie.
She’s the sole business woman of the Monowi Tavern, which her family began running in 1971. On top of bar tending and cooking, she is also Monowi’s Mayor and Tax Collector.
Tavern regulars pour their own coffee, join the gossip conversations, and restock the beer coolers – but The Tavern probably won’t last forever. It’s one of the best gathering places for the county – a place to swap stories. “This is my home,” Mrs. Eiler once said. “All my friends are around. Why would I want to leave?” 
In the photo above friends and family are celebrating Mrs. Eiler’s half-century at the tavern last year – a place to swap stories – and enjoy themselves. As well – Arby’s featured her in a 2018 commercial, and has had visitors from all 50 states and more than 60 countries. MONOWI itself is the photo below. 
<Article and Photographs by ALYSSA SCHUKAR; Thanks to “Sunday Business” from The New York Times; and of course to Mrs. ELSIE EILER – wonderful story and fine images.>
Yonge and College buildings even today inspire images of mystical rites in the 19th century, mixing Romanesque and Gothic, with many of the ornamentations being Gothic. The 4th floor on the south side has pointed gables, similar to a French chateau, and there are octagonal towers facing Yonge Street. 
In the 19th century many men belonged to clubs, fraternal societies, secret organizations, places to socialize, and create business organizations. Some of these structures, created then, are today among Toronto’s finest heritage buildings. The former Masonic Hall remains as an event space at Yonge and Davenport. 
The old Temple Building, long gone from Bay and Richmond, was for the IOOF (Independent Order of Foresters). The Odd Fellows building has been saved as its development rights were sold to allow greater density in the newly-built surrounding condos. <PHOTOGRAPHY – Ross Winter>
From The Globe and Mail – There’ll be a temporary suspension of COVID-19 bottlenecks for travellers as the federal government announced it will stop mandating random testing of fully vaccinated travellers.
The suspension will be in place until July 1, when the random testing will resume outside of airports.
DEBORAH FLINT (that’s her on the right), born in Hamilton, Ontario, took the prize after running The Los Angeles International Airport after four years. 
When Ms. Flint took the reins in Toronto, she was faced with Pearson, along with the Pandemic, and Canada’s air travelers who’d been thrown into crisis. More than two years later she found herself leading the Airport, clogged terminals and passengers stuck on parked planes and parked luggage as in 112,000 passengers forced to wait before they were allowed off. 
Vancouver and Montreal had it bad, but Toronto was much more so. Because a busy summer was arriving, Ms. Flint had little time to fix the problems. But she said: “I always say the airport is the front door and the curb appeal reflects the capabilities and ambitions of a country . . . This is so important we reflect the best of Canada – a modern, innovative, capable country that welcomes business and travelers, tourists and immigrants.” 
Corktown is an older residential neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto, The neighbourhood is South of Shuter Street, and North of the Gardiner Expressway; East of Parliament Street, and West of The Don River to the East.
Thanks to Wikipedia for these directions, named for the Immigrants from Cork, Ireland, who settled here in the 19th century after fleeing The Irish Famine.
Ross took along his camera and we checked out everything from Victorian houses to serious construction, trucks and a tunnel.
Toronto’s Corktown made a great afternoon for both of us. 
MISSISSAUGA’s population is about 722,000 and TORONTO numbers about 6,300,000. They both offer a lot. The challenge is finding a way to get into Mississauga. By our mistake we by-passed a highway entrance and found ourselves in an expensive-looking suburb of beautiful houses with plenty of trees. We drove forever it seemed. 
The Marilyn Monroe towers popped up on the horizon. We managed to find underground parking, and then met a young man in a tourism booth. He highlighted several places worth seeing. 
We began by walking through Mississauga City Hall and its surroundings. This was well worth exploring. 
We stopped and admired a painting of Hazel McCallion , former Mayor of Mississauga, who was elected in 1978, retired in 2014 after putting in 36 years with her rapidly growing city. 
Ross and I realized the City Centre was filled with skyscrapers. Some were plain, but several were spectacular. 
We spent more time walking around, enjoying a muffin, taking in the urban scene of Ontario’s third largest city. Neither of us found it boring, even when some of the shops were closed because of the pandemic. 
MISSISSAUGA has a mind of its own. It has a fine downtown with shops, restaurants, higher education institutions and malls, lakes, and all kinds of people – 23% of residents are of non-European descent; 8% Chinese; 7% Black; 5% Arab; 5% Filipino; as well as Latin Americans, Koreans and Southeast Asians. 
Mississauga Transit buses serve within Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, and Hamilton areas. 
GO Trains provide service between Toronto’s Union Station and the eastern suburbs. It offers three main lines: the Kitchener line, Lakeshore West line, and the Barrie line. So public transit is available in many locations. Even Car Shares are easily available for getting home late at night when public transit arrives less frequently. 
All in all Ontario’s MISSISSAUGA is one great city.
The 2021 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair will not take place in person this year. Instead the organization is looking forward to welcoming guests to its 100th anniversary celebration in 2022. The Royal’s Board of Directors made the decision to cancel the 2021 in favour of returning to an education focused online experience this year — in NOVEMBER 2022, 
The Royal will mark its 100th Anniversary then. Plans are to make it bigger and stronger than ever, and looking forward to celebrating with one-and-all. 
“As uncertainty surrounds COVID-19 it became clear we weren’t going to be able to host The Royal in its traditional way,” stated Charlie Johnstone, Chief Executive Officer at The Royal. 
But don’t forget NOVEMBER 2022!
The original ‘Hugh’s Room’ was established in Toronto’s West End Rochesvalles neighbourhood in 2001. 
It was a mixture of supper club and music room hosted by Odetta, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Richie Havens and Loudon Wainwright III, among many others. 
Then it began losing money in 2017 as it was turned into non-profit ‘Hugh’s Room Live’. Three years later reality struck and Hugh’s left its home because the lease was beyond reach. 
The plan then became searching for space to purchase, and they thought they’d found one on Broadview Avenue, just south of Gerrard Street in the East End. One difficulty was dealing with property taxes, reduced 50% by the City for being a music venue for owners and operators. 
Hugh’s’ had to face this until he had occupied the new building for one year. Raising $2-million would be a challenge for anyone these days, and surviving on arts music organizations that meant planning to do something innovative. If all works well a retired carpenter, Andrew Smith, devoted himself to live music, and was making miniature city music venues. He named one of them the old Hugh’s Room and some other silent venues with the name ‘Toronto, Lost Music City’. Will Broadview’s old church be a success? This may well be a triumph! There’s been good luck before for Hugh’s and there might be plenty more coming.
The Canadian Forces’ Snowbirds took to the air on a Sunday (about two years ago) as part of their cross-Canada tour inspiring hope during the COVID-19 pandemic. Snow and hail hit the city on Saturday but on Sunday’s mild Mother’s Day their planes took off. The Snowbirds were without a doubt expected to show up and they did. After flying over Toronto and landing at Pearson International, the pilots kept on with their next destination set for just after noon. By the close of that day there were already 35 new deaths and 308 new coronavirus cases confirmed in Ontario.
Toronto Savvy 