Canada is the story of immigrants. Our first immigrants were pioneers, who were willing to live on the frontier, to create new lives for themselves. The Bell family, for over a century, were willing to move and settle the leading edge of our frontier. This blog will explore how one family lived and thrived as pioneers.
Looking back over my life I have come to realize how often I dismiss something out of hand and in retrospect I realize how I have come to regret it. Travel, especially writing about it, requires an open mind. So, I need to make a confession; I find castles boring and choose to skip…
The act of walking is an intimate experience. In a world where everything seems fast, walking is slow. In that slowness, there is time and space that is different from our everyday life; to exercise, a time to think, to remember, to plan, and often, a time to be in the moment feeling…
The moral ambiguity of the Scottish English borderlands This is a story where one can not easily divide groups of people into good guys and bad guys. For those who are fans of the show, Peaky Blinders, it is like diving into the world of Thomas Shelby, the leader of the criminal gang, who is…
Last summer, Nancy and I walked the border between Wales and England, the birthplace of the relatives on my father’s side. My fascination with borders, identity, liminal space, and words found fertile ground during this walk. My search for understanding the meaning of Cynefin and Hireath became the quest of this pilgrimage as these two…
A year ago in 2023, a simple question from my sister has taken me to places I could not have imagined. Why exactly, did our grandfather Mathew Bell have Pinkerton for a middle name asked my sister Jennifer. Mom had little to say to Jen other than “it was a family name.” When…
I do not know how old I was, but I remember wondering if anyone was important in my family, had we done something significant? My childhood answer to myself was a resounding no. It was not something we talked about when our family met for celebrations, and it was not something that was part…
Everyone has a story. Countries have their founding myths, just as families and individuals have a story of their past and how they arrived at the present. These stories depend on memories that are sometimes malleable, as we are not necessarily accurate narrators. Yet within the story, is something bigger that we as humans need…