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Michelle Basic Hendry in Muskoka

in Muskoka, Ontario, Painter, Photography, Scholar and visual arts

02/07

Michelle Basic Hendry is an artist, painter and writer living in Central Ontario. She blogs her thoughts about her art and her life, and especially about the timeless beauty preserved in old buildings all over Muskoka. She shares stories of the structures and elements of her own life in many different ways. She writes articles and takes great digital pictures and even paints her stories in acrylic on canvas, and so of course her blog is fantastic.

Artscapes Blog is a beautiful scrapbook of architectural art paintings and Canadian heritage information where Michelle Basic Hendry serves society by sharing her knowledge and ‘visions’ of Canadian artscapes. In this portal Michelle writes about the beauty of old buildings found around her central Ontario home. The girl admits she has always been a doodler, and she loves a good story. Years ago she got a degree in history and stayed passionate about old rural buildings and their stories. She writes that ‘buildings are characters of the landscape; they are a reflection of their builders and their times.’

While at university, Michelle spent a couple of summers wandering the landscape in search of old buildings for a local heritage group inventory and research project. It was a dream job. She could hardly believe she was being paid to do something she loved so much anyway. She was hired as an artist and researcher and she had a sketchbook/notebook in the car and would quickly draw the houses and their locations for future research. The recession of the early nineties sapped a lot of government jobs and Michelle followed her skill and abilities as an artist into graphic design.

Michelle has been blogging for three years. Her website and blog are always evolving as she improves her skills using these new communication tools. Right now she’s moving her whole website to Wordpress to lose the static HTML pages that comprise most of what isn’t the blog. Her website is always evolving, but this upgrade is the biggest technical innovation and style alteration in three years.

With a background in graphic design, Michelle is conscious of her personal brand. She knows the new site will be altering her brand slightly, and she writes ‘I’m hoping the new look will allow the real brand - the art - to show better, to be front and center, and the theme design to be very secondary.‘.

“With my background in history, I was compelled to find the families, the stories from the past and merge them with the present in my art. The blog became the vehicle for putting the art with the stories. All this has led to an upcoming book sharing the paintings, the stories and the history of the places in my work over the last three years - the culmination of my passions for art, writing, and history.” - Michelle Basic Hendry

Blogging has helped Michelle rediscover her love for writing and it has kept her more accountable to her paintings and photography. It has helped her track how she works, where she has been and what she has been focusing on. And so it acts as a life journal of sorts, allowing her to share the stories behind her works of art with her readers and collectors. The blog has been a key driver in traffic to her website and she has garnered a fair bit of media attention over the years because she makes it so easy for researchers and other writers and media makers to find her.

Selling her paintings online was not part of Michelle’s original plan, but in the last three years she has made several sales and met great buyers and through her website and other online contacts she has met all manner of art patrons. She plans on increasing the online store portion of her website in the near future.

Lavendar by Michelle Basic Hendry in Muskoka

Readers that would like to explore the works of Michelle Basic Hendry, should investigate some of the following outstanding posts. Marvel at her photos and paintings of the Vanomi Hotel, now called the Sparrow Beach Lodge, a privately owned 100 year old resort that has only recently closed its doors.

She wrote about her time spent visting Uffington Muskoka and strikes a great balance of hero driven story mixed with art and history. Its wonderful writing that details Pete Marchildon and Judy Veitch, the new owners of the Fleger House and their historic property.

a painting by Michelle Basic Hednry called Waiting - Red Chair A natural storyteller, her piece waiting - red chair plants ideas about an old woman who spent her last days waiting…

Blogging isn’t for every artist. The most important thing you can do is create. But if you do enjoy writing or want to keep a relatively consistent public journal of what inspires you, a blog can be an invaluable tool. Plus it helps others get to know who you are as an artist, and learn about your work. It can be a powerful connection to your collectors, and help you in find your own voice. - Michelle Basic Hendry

Michelle’s blog is already very popular, and some of her posts garner over twenty comments from readers, which is the true mark of a popular and valuable blog. In sitting perfectly still in a canoe she’s discovering landscapes and her text gets mystical as she writes the inspiration, “An excellent photographer or an artist, or a writer or a musician occupies a state of complete presence when they are working on their art. Great art is more than an experience – it is a feeling that engages another sense apart from the one for which it seems designed to communicate.”

In her post Reflections on How We See , I learned something about Eckhart Tolle and something about myself. Michelle wrote, ‘Buddhists and a number of authors including Eckhart Tolle suggest that peace and happiness are found through living in the moment and the resistance to judgment. We are trained from the moment we leave the womb to pass judgments. We experience the word ‘No’ for excellent reasons and some less valid. This is hot or cold, safe or dangerous, good or bad. When we are so well conditioned, it is no wonder we look to the few who seem to escape its grasp – to whom the world appears less black and white

Photo Finishes from Cobourg Ontario

in Canadian pop culture, Ontario, Photography, Scholar, Teacher, Toronto, Tourism, Web Designer, niche blogs, testing and visual arts

01/19

1

comment

Jacques Surveyer is a writer, a web developer, and a very passionate photographer that lives and works in Cobourg Ontario. Years ago he studied photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto before getting an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) from the University of Western Ontario. With this background he found that blogging allowed him to ‘indulge his avocations’ while helping with his consulting business. Jacques is a skilled multimedia magician with a good head for business.

Photo Finishes / Picture That along with TheOpenSourcery.com are two very different tips and tutorials blogs that offer tactics and product reviews for graphics and multimedia processing people. These sites are core to Jacques portfolio as a developer, and they demonstrate to potential customers his expertise in many diverse programming and photo finishing subjects.

Jacques Surveyor Over time Jacques’ two original blogging websites have expanded into ten different blogs. He uses free blog web hosting sites to create multiple presences for specialized tasks. For example JavaScriptures is dedicated to some of the more interesting developments in JavaScript, as applied to lean manufacturing which is serious process to which he jokingly describes Java as the ‘gets-no-respect-like-Rodney_Dangerfield’ programming language.

About ten years ago Jacques Surveyer started blogging on a website platform that he made himself. He built his own blog from the ground up, and people did come, but more people came after he switched over to Wordpress.

“WordPress with themes, plugins and a WYSIWYG editor was a vast improvement over my own homemade CMS.”

After six or more years, Jacques is still a WordPress devotee, even though he’s used Drupal and Joomla and has built projects for clients using both programming languages. But he’s quick to reason, “WordPress has stayed ahead of the curve with widgets, jQuery support, and automated updates of not just themes and plugins but also the blog engine itself”. Jacques did all of society a favour when he weighed in on the classic debate, which is the best open source platform, Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress? and in that post it becomes real clear that WordPress is this craftsman’s preferred software.

Jacques loves to take pictures and gradually his interest spread out into photography and travel destination review blogs. He created PixofDetroit, PixofToronto, and PixofCanada to host the photos and stories of his adventures abroad. Later he added commentary blogs like Takethe5th.com and Bookraft.com (his only active Drupal blog) so he could properly articulate his thoughts on government and society.

Then blogs started appearing all over the place. JavaScriptures and NearlyFreeWebsites are two examples which take advantage of nearly free blog software. Consulting work and help for friends resulted in two gallery sites - ARTSurveyer.com and NeelsPlace.com which are efforts using Gallery blog software and Joomla respectively.

“As Free blog/CMS software has improved I have switched from doing custom websites over to using free blogs like Joomla and Wordpress, Weebly and Wix for my nearly cost free blogging and broader web development work.”

Jacques Surveyer prevented from taking pictures of volleyball game on cobourg beach

Jacques’ popular PhotoFinishes blog dips into the political space too. Last summer the intrepid explorer wrote a terrific piece about how the officials at a beach volleyball tournament in Cobourg successfully prevented him from taking pictures of the participants in action, despite the fact that it was public space, with no photography ban signage posted, and no advertisements or precedents prohibiting photography are known. According to Jacques in this article, the same thing happened at the Royal Winter Fair to his friend a year earlier.

When asked what he likes most about being a blogger, Jacques Surveyer admits that he covets traffic and feels rewarded when his sites grow popular. He recounts with satisfaction the time when his post on KeepanOpenEye debunked Steve Jobs contentions that Flash was slow and buggy, and received over 30,000 visits in one day - that was very gratifying. Also, the Fall Drizzle story on PixOfCanada which visualized the autumn colors in Ontario took in over 75,000 visits in the last months of 2010. To see a pictoral story getting that much attention was also very satisfying for this webmaster.

Blogging has been good to Jacques, because he’s a new breed of storyteller, a free thinker with real knowledge to communicate. When I asked him if he’d do anything different a second tine, he noted that he wished he’d switched to open source or free blog software sooner, and he wished he had taken the time to improve his JavaScript skills earlier. “Skills in JavaScript and CSS make such a difference in the proper styling of a blog.”

This Cobourg Ontario blogger just loves being creative, inventory management and building platforms that push the envelope of the technology. “The revenues are enough to pay the freight but not much more. But telling photo tales and being able to add my two cents on Toronto, or World scene is both fun and soothing to the spirit.”

Fredericks Artworks is a Canadian Art Blog

in Culture Blogger, Scholar, niche blogs and visual arts

09/15

2

comments

Fredericks Artworks banner Frederick Winston is a Canadian painter, and his blog celebrates his own passion for the visual arts in Canada. By documenting great art, and detailing little known artists, he gives Canadians a beautifully painted perspective on their own cultural identity.

FREDERICKS ARTWORKS is a veritable volcano of historically responsible, easy-to-read content that’s firmly centered on the visual arts. It’s an online periodical that reviews paintings and the people who painted them, yesterday and today. It’s very frequently updated, and there’s even sidebar text informing readers of when to expect future posts! Frederick, like so many other personal bloggers, feels guilt and angst inside what he perceives is an overwhelming obligation to an invisible audience. He doesn’t want to let his readers down, but will he burn out if he keeps up this pace?

Ladies Tea, a painting by Frederick Winston Out in front of the curtains, Fredericks Artworks has certainly become a very valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of Canadian art or insights into exhibiting art in this country. The blogspot is part history, part biography and a big part reflection that includes unique social commentary. Reading this material everyday is very healthy for painters, and anyone passionate about supporting the arts and promoting Canadian cultural values.

A look back through the archives reveals many thought provoking glimpses into the nooks and crannies of making art as a business in Canada. Frederick praises small town art galleries, and reviews festivals and visits friends with whom he paints and describes the places at which they glimpse unusual landscapes and why they choose one particular venue over another. It’s truly fascinating stuff.

Bruno Cote, blog bruno cote Soleil Couchant sur la Taiga The artist biographies and Fred’s presentation of other artists’ works are both well researched and focused on the market. There is some borrowing of public information from sources such as the CBC, the NFB, Wikipedia and You Tube, but whenever possible the author attempts to personalize the text with special insights, unusual facts and personal anecdotes. Frederick likes to write about painters from the early 1800s, and the early nineteen hundreds; its truly remarkable is how well these historic biographies juxtapose his critiques and reviews of contemporary artists, including many fresh young faces still studying art in Toronto and Montreal.

Frederick has no agenda. For the first few years he wouldn’t even show his own paintings on his blog. And he doesn’t ever want to be appear political or even opinionated. If there’s even a hint of controversy he runs away – for example when his piece about Norval Morriseau spawned some spurious comments, he apologized and then deleted the whole post. Ha ha!

St Martins, a painting by Ken Tobias Some of Frederick’s best work includes critiques or studies of certain pictures, such as Robert Harris’s A Meeting of the School Trustees, June 1, 2010, and Prudence Heward’s ‘Sisters of Rural Quebec,’. Recently Frederick had creative exchanges with singer, songwriter Ken Tobias after doing a search on him in which he discovered that this musician is also an impressive painter. Frederick communicated with Ken and shared a personal story about how Ken’s song, Dream Two impacted his life. Later it gave the art blogger a lot of satisfaction to write a positive critique of Ken’s art,

Here’s a bit of what Frederick had to say about Ken’s painting, St Martin (above), This delightful landscape work by Ken Tobias, creates a sense of solitude. The picture covers such a vast panorama of sea and distant land that I cannot help but feel a sense of diminution. The recognition of one’s finiteness against the vastness of earth and sky creates for me a sense of awe at the beauty of the earth.”

Frederick’s journey into blogging came from traveling several routes on his path as a writer, and an artist.

Way back when he graduated university with a degree in English and for many years in one vocation or another he produced hard copy newsletters. One publication was an award winner, and so he was published in trade magazines before he became a painter, later in life. The evolution into blogging seemed natural, and his computer literacy and digital photography skills have also improved in accordance with the ardours of the new publishing medium.

Frederick writes, …The problem with writing articles and producing newsletters and blogs is that you pretty much work in a vacuum. After my first year of producing daily blog entries I went through a process of re-evaluation. Even though the blog is ticking along with a healthy readership, a very small percentage of people comment on my postings. So few that sometimes it seems that what I work to produce has little value. One weekend, I was sitting at my art display in a nearby village and someone walked up to me, and said “Hi Fredericks, I enjoy reading your blog.” I was stunned. I told him that I was thinking of putting it to bed and his response was, “No…don’t…I read it every day.”

Art festival in Quebec, fine art, paintings for sale, montreal

Frederick has discovered readers in other artists, art schools, art galleries and among Canadian media and the communication industry in general.

When asked why people read his blog, Frederick Winston replies,

Because I paint, the blog reflects my love of the visual arts in Canada. My blog is unique because I give artists an opportunity of telling their story to Canadians, and the opportunity of sharing special events in their lives and presenting their works. Beneath it all, I strive to present, through art, the way Canadians see our country. Art tells the story of who we are and that story takes us into all parts of Canada, from the art of our Native brothers, into the forest and prairies and coasts of Canada and into our largest urban centers. It also takes us for a walk through time from the recordings of English military officers in watercolours, to the abstractionists of the 20th century, and we see it all through our rich diversity of the visual media.

Canucklehead in London Ontario

in Canadian pop culture, Ontario, Personal Blog and humourist

09/05

4

comments

Canucklehead Blog banner

Lincoln McCardle is a married father-of-two (awesome boys) who spends his days working full-time maintaining the VoIP network for one of Canada’s largest telecommunications providers, but who finds time to attend the University of Western Ontario in the evenings to complete his BA in English. On weekends, and when everyone else is asleep, Lincoln putters away as a humourist on a very unique web portal. There are two types of people out there, those who love Canucklehead straight away, and those who take a while.

Canucklehead is the blog most central to the life of Lincoln McCardle, a working class guy who addresses all Canadians from the living room computer in his London Ontario home. The humour filled portal has a navigation bar that’s divided into seven categories, and all with names that begin with the letter ‘L”. They are Look, Laugh, Life, Love, Lists, Listen, and Luck and this of course is every Librarian’s nightmare, because it is quite impossible for readers to know what’s stored where, and so they have to explore the site and have the Canucklehead experience for themselves.

The first stop is Look, which indexes Lincoln’s favourite web photos of course, and Laugh is his collection of jokes and funny stories. Life is where he keeps his blog – this is the section most frequently updated. Love is a storehouse of assorted family memories. Lists is where you read about a hierarchy of Top Canadians, and Lincoln’s favourite Canadian city names. Listen is where you will find audio and even video clips, including Lincoln’s Torch Run Dec 22 2009 through Paris Ontario. And Luck is a long list of local contests and charity raffles and things involving an element of chance. So it all makes perfect sense in a knucklehead kind of way.

Lincoln McCardle of Canucklehead, a blog in London Ontario Canada Lincoln was born and raised in London Ontario, and has spent his entire life in that city, save six years in downtown Toronto. The megacity is an awesome place for a young couple to meet and fall in love, but Lincoln didn’t want to have a family or career there, and so after the birth of his first son, the family returned back to his hometown. Who are the people Lincoln loves most? After his family, he treasures Homer Simpson, Haruki Murakami & Conan O’Brien. Who does he hate? How about Glen Beck, Justin Bieber & the Montreal Canadiens.

Lincoln isn’t trying to get rich with his blog, but there are some text link ads to poker sites now, and some affiliate marketing in the sidebars.

I hate sandcastles canucklehead

McCardle is convinced he’ll never be truly wealthy, but he’s content that he ‘leads a comfortable life by most people’s definition of the word, although very little of that is due blogging‘. While excited about how popular his website has become, it will always just be just a favourite hobby, and not a vocation. For Lincoln, the blog is something to do while the rest of the house is sleeping. His web smorgasbord of assorted passions is created for people like him, and those who want to be more like him. He writes, …it covers its own expenses, with a little left over for beer, Lego and a growing collection of Apple iGadgets.

Lincoln McCardle believes that all Canadians should receive one case of beer without taxes at the Beer Store on the Friday immediately preceding long weekend holidays. He writes about the necessity of implementing a Canucklehead Case Day.

Lincoln McCardle on a rope swing, Canucklehead

Lincoln admits he has led a charmed life - and he’s forever thankful to his family, friends and well-wishers who constantly provide support and encouragement.

There are also a lot of bloggers, too numerous to list, that Lincoln offers a heart-felt thanks for their advice and encouragement in those early years while he struggled away learning and blogging at the same time.

Because of his kids and his active disposition toward loving all people, Lincoln is an active community member, whether it’s being team captain for the Walk for Kids Help Phone, or as member of London’s local Movember committee @MovemberLondon. Lincoln has also recently decided to run for a position on CIRA’s Board of Directors; have a look at Lincoln’s nominee statement on the CIRA website. CIRA is the organization that governs .ca domain names, and Lincoln now runs a few .ca websites. He’d like to be part of the establishment. Another one of his projects is a site for merchandising text friendly gloves (the index fingers are somehow detachable to allow easier texting with mobile devices) called Twittens. Its a brilliant idea and we wish him luck. Above all else one thing is certain, Lincoln likes to keep busy!

Lauren O’Nizzle in London Ontario

in Blogging, Canadian pop culture, Culture Blogger, Ontario, Personal Blog and niche blogs

03/30

7

comments

Lauren O’Neil, aka Lauren O’Nizzle is a 24 year old journalism student at the University of Western Ontario. She’s working on her master’s degree, but she’s already the most sophisticated, web tech-savvy pop culture princess we’ve ever encountered. This girl makes media, and in less than two years she has become an outstanding example of a new type of entertainer, a socially brilliant one girl band on a noble quest to “spew random hilarity” all over the internet.

LaurenOutLoud is the website that hosts her entire menu which includes Lauren O’Neil web journalism portfolio. In addition to this formal magazine like portal, Lauren O’Nizzle’s content is distributed across numerous social mediums including, her LaurenOutLoud blog which is complimented by her twitter page @LaurenONizzle her LaurenONeal Delicious bookmarks account, her Nizzle .Posterous email blog platform, and of course her Lauren ONizzle on YouTube account.

This isn’t your typical marketing student blog, or any form of high brow intellectual content, although her posts are smarter than you might expect from a 24yr old person; the largest search terms in her blog’s tag cloud are ‘funny, muchmusic, TV, youtube’ in that order, and these are followed by ‘jschool, internship, cute’ and ‘dating’.

lauren ONizzle looks shy sad quiet fragile and its an illusion

Lauren O’Nizzle is very creative, and a little nerdy in how she stretches ideas and goes the distance for her followers. She’s been know to scan and post original drawings, and apply advanced photo shop skills to borrowed images. Also impressive is her ability to infuse comedy into her video interviews.

The name O’Nizzle came about organically as a nickname her friends applied several years ago. When it came time to create her Facebook account etc, she decided to go with that handle to protect her future employers from seeing any scandalous photos that may or may not appear in that space. Now, most friends don’t even call her Lauren anymore, to them she is simply “Nizzle.”

When an digital artist named Cameron Stewart cartooned her, she remarked on how the picture was ‘the sickest thing she’s ever seen’, and she used it on her menu page layout. That menu is so compelling. This young journalism student already embodies the future of electronic news media and entertainment. She is a great example of how people will soon make media for other people.

lauren ONizzle in the bathrrom with a toothbrush and phone camera Born in Chatham Ontario, Lauren moved to Windsor for her undergraduate degree, and now she lives in London. As a journalism student, her blog is a place where she doesn’t have to worry about journalistic integrity and reporting on hard news. On her blog, she can have the freedom to take sides and write about what ever she desires even if it’s about creepy old naked ladies.

In a way, Lauren began blogging when she was only twelve years old, after she discovered Angelfire. In that strange space she created a diary web page called “Spaz Central.” She filled this page with animated gifs and pictures of her awkward, frizzy-haired adolescent girls posing like the young models in Seventeen magazine (pictures that had been taken with a disposable camera and scanned at the library, of course).

As a self-proclaimed soul mate of Tina Fey, Conan O’Brien and Lisa Simpson, Lauren colours her stories funny and smart.

Lauren loves to multitask and is always on the go; she’s a little obsessed with always creating content. When she isn’t being viral, she likes watching comedy TV shows, doing yoga, reading fashion magazines, dancing and eating sugar cereals. She’s an active blog reader and prolific commenter. And Lauren is not at all shy about having her picture taken, and her face can be seen mugging all over her media empire. Her openness gives followers a big window into the life of a young blond journalism school student in Canada.

She also defines herself as being the opposite of Sarah Palin, Jay Leno and Bart Simpson.

Recently, Lauren was named one of the 10 finalists in the in AXE Canada’s Ridiculously, Ridiculously Good Summer Gig Competition. Voting for the Axe Summer Gig ends on March 31st, which ironically is the very day in which her profile here on Canada Blog Friends was posted.

“Success for me is making people laugh. Every time I get an email from somebody telling me that something I’ve posted has made their day or cheered them up, I’ve succeeded. I don’t do this for the money or the perks or the mad groupie hoes. I do it for the lulz, plain and simple.”

lauren Onizzle cartoon by her friend, i cant remember his name

“I saw an episode of Ghost Writer when I was 9, where ghostwriter goes into a computer modem and fights a hacker. I thought that this was the coolest thing ever so I begged my parents for a modem until they finally got me one.”

Lauren’s considers her blog to have no true central theme. Her posts run the gamut. Funny things, weird things, pop culture, web culture, nerdities, schadenfreude and all things karma related and esp things that she observes while shopping. Half the time, she says it’s just brain vomit. Whatever is on the top of her mind at any given time is effortless transmutated into social capital. Lauren’s followers tend to be people who share her wacky sense of humour and have similar interests to her.

For Lauren (Nizzle) O’Neil, blogging is how she brings her humour, lifestyle, hobbies and career aspirations to one place so she can properly share them with the rest of the world.

Weighty Matters in Ottawa

in Activism, Ontario, Scholar, food blog and niche blogs

03/10

2

comments

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is a 38-year-old married father of three that loves to read books, watch TV and BBQ meals at home. Yoni is passionate about a lot of things in life, most notably martial arts, hiking and single malt scotch. He also really enjoys being a medical doctor with a family practice in southwest Ottawa, and he’s addicted to blogging.

Dr. Freedhoff started blogging in December 2005 to give his patients more exposure to medical information about weight loss, proper dieting, and exercise training. Since that time, his web journal has matured into a fountain of first rate nutritional advocacy, and a powerful truth beacon; today Weighty Matters shines a bright light on the soft underbelly of Big Food.

Weighty Matters is an award winning health and science blog that currently ranks among the world’s top health blogs. The domain has been profiled in newspapers, and on television shows across the country, and Yoni Freedhoff even spoke to The House Standing Committee on Health in Parliament in December 2006.

Yoni jogs in the Try a Tri Challenge in Ottawa Yoni is a health nut that loves being outside and trekking in nature. He once hiked from Switzerland to Liechtenstein across the Alps without taking a single bus or car along the way. So it should come as no surprise that he now has a triathlon named after him in Ottawa; the Dr. Freedhoff Try a Tri Challenge (100m swim - 11.4km cycle – 2km run) event is for anyone who wants to do a short triathlon, and is well suited for beginners and young participants.

Yoni is a trust agent debunking the food industry and his growing popularity is certainly well reflected in the views, comments, retweets and trackbacks that Weighty Matters accrues with every post. His expert information is rare and precious, and he really is perhaps one of the most important bloggers of our time because his message is so unique.

Sweetners in Weighty Matters Stated formally on the bottom of his sidebar, his blog’s mandate is ‘to provide readers with critical appraisals of nutrition and weight related claims, products and policies so as to allow readers to make more informed decisions in those areas.’

The good doctor uses his growing authority to highlight backward government policies that cater more to well funded food industry lobbyists than on budget health industry advocates. Yoni likes to tell the truth around nutrition and weight management and isn’t scared of torching the merchandisers, marketing executives and government ministers that mislead Canadians so they can sell more breakfast cereal, or put more artificial sweeteners in their ‘health snacks’.

“It’s definitely reader-beware out there. Mom bloggers getting trips paid for by the products they promote, health bloggers with no actual background or training, illness bloggers who rely on their own personal experiences to extrapolate to the disease as a whole. It’s tough finding reputable sources.”

Weighty Matters reads like a gossip magazine of food industry cover-ups, lies and licentious behavior. Every post is a potential scandal that should get somebody fired. Right now March 2010 a number of recent posts prosecute the claims of Saralee, Frito Lay, and catch Del Monte hiding sugar behind the word fruit concentrate in so-called fruit snacks aimed at children that have more sugar than Twizzlers and worse still, have earned the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s seal of approval in the form of their Health Check.

CBC Kids morning sponsored by Kelloggs - screengrab image copied from weightymatters.ca

Yoni remarks on how Kelloggs appears a featured sponsor on the CBC Kid’s website and includes CBC staff official reaction to his blog post and their denials that ‘Eggo’ was introduced into a recent script as surreptitious product placement for Kelloggs sponsor. Good catch - who else do we have in Canada that is watching this stuff, and keeping an eye on these guys?

While Yoni goes after a great many people and policies, the two that he has hit the hardest are likely the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Health Check which he calls a “misinformation program”, and Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating which he feels is better described as, “Canada’s Food Guide to Unhealthy Eating”.

10 potentially fatal, yet still approved by Health Canada “natural” weight loss products

Registered dietician on how Food Guide “servings” are stupid

Why Health Check’s serving sizes are inexcusable

Breaking News: Official Health Check endorsement of Pizza Hut

Overweight Canadian kids not eating enough according to Canada’s Food Guide

There is very little doubt that weight and diet related illness together are now the number one preventable cause of death in Canada.

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is the founder of Ottawa’s Bariatric Medical Institute, which is a multi-disciplinary, ethical, evidence-based nutrition and weight management centre. He writes in his blog profile ‘Nowadays I’m more likely to stop drugs than start them, and love going to work in the morning.’ Yoni is referring to how as a medical doctor he once prescribed pills, but now seeks other more natural solutions. I like how he combines the two ideas in his biography, taking drugs to go to work. That’s because such a large percentage of people do take drugs to go to work these days, and if you consider caffeine or nicotine to be drugs then the percentage is very high indeed.

“The studies on medical information and the web to date have been frightening with the vast majority of sites providing false and sometimes even harmful information. It’s tough too when you see a patient who’s educated themselves from some of the more questionable sites (which in turn are often quite compellingly written) and they don’t want to hear your opinion. Certainly it provides another degree of difficulty in effectively counselling patients.

All in all I’m living a far more interesting, exciting and richer life than I had ever expected, and it’s not a stretch to say that much of that reward has come as a consequence of my tiny, little blog.” Dr Yoni Freedhoff, March 5th 2010

Keri the Canadian Explorer

in Blogging, Culture Blogger, Ontario, Photography and Toronto

01/16

6

comments

KeriCDN is a talkative girl with lots of creative energy; exploring Canada is her raison d’etre. At Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario, Keri studied business, history and linguistics, but her real life education started in February 2008, when she started blogging.

Keri The Canadian Explorer has culturally significant adventures everyday, and she shares her discoveries with a growing tribe of domestic and international followers. It’s interesting that she profiles all types of Canadians, not just the ‘great ones’. She reports the facts and lets her audience decide if her subjects and settings are worthy of praise. For example, she’s quite proud of a recent video exploring the Canadian Navy.

Keri’s site contains no advertising. She has refused to do sponsored posts and thinks Google AdSense looks tacky; she doesn’t want to appear avaricious for three cents a day. The business training inside of her is however looking for benign sponsors; she would like to play a part in something larger, something sponsored by a proud and worthwhile Canadian enterprise.

To that end, she threw a blog party at the Reservoir Lounge last November. It was a big success, and helped put her at the center of a local community of like minded individuals. Since then she has banded together with some other famous web friends to create The Toronto Blog Girls which is a loose association of popular Toronto fashionistas and event bloggers that reside in Canada’s largest city. All of these girls are attractive, intelligent and artistic, and together they’re a powerful press squad.

Check out Ryan Couldrey’s photo of Keri using automatic weapons.

Keri’s biggest fault might be that she’s too darn nice. In the video she did with Five Hockey Legends, she really shouldn’t have let security interrupt her filming, and it’s so typical of Canadians to apologize and be so concerned with procedures instead of just rolling tape and saying sorry later. To that point it would have been great if she’d turned and tried to leave with Red Kelly’s NHL Stanley Cup ring… but she’s too nice.

Keri often profiles influential speakers and attends a lot of events on inspirational subjects. In most episodes the girl charms her way backstage or somehow corners presenters after appearances. Her well conceived queries combined with her compelling interview style more than compensate for the bad lighting and sound quality in these commando videos. See Gary Vaynerchuk Loves Canada!

KeriCDN Quests for the 2010 Olympic Games

Keri’s short term dream is to attend and chronicle the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. As a true Canadian explorer and premium blogger, she believes it’s her manifest destiny to be at this international event, sharing the experience with the rest of the nation. This single cause has coloured her blog for months. She entered contests, wrote letters and collectively schemed right along with her readers to get herself over to the other side of the continent in February. And then finally, it worked.

Keri had her hands on the torch in January 2010. She photographed it, wrote about it, and was questioned about it on national television. Before that, Keri charmed contest mavens with her Samsung mobile explorer video entry and issued repeated requests for votes. Her quest for Vancouver goes all the way back to September 2009 when she reviewed the Olympic apparel at The Bay, and fantasized about her wish list of events to cover. Later that month while bike riding with her friend Jody, the Olympics Games are back on her brain. She interrupts her explanation of the difference between an Inukshuk and Inunnguaq and gets completely sidetracked by a point about the Nunavut flag being associated with next year’s Olympics. Well all the obsessing finally paid off…

Keri has been contracted by Canoe.ca and Sun Media to cover the Winter Games as official press.

In addition to her blog, you can subscribe to KeriCDN videos on YouTube and follow her on Twitter @KeriCDN.

Whimfield, Modern Pre-Industrial Living in Prince Edward Island

in Prince Edward Island, Tourism, farm blog, food blog, gardening and niche blogs

12/24

1

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Laura-Jane Koers started blogging in 2001 when the practice of writing personal stories on the web was still called journaling. She describes it as a ‘social outlet for a socially awkward girl’. The practice served her well, and now Canada Blog Friends is proud to present her portal as the most sophisticated blog on the index.

Whimfield, Modern Pre-Industrial Living is an online magazine quality niche blog that’s the work of one female genius. The portal centers on a 100-year-old farmhouse on 63 acres of field, forest, and streams, located in a small community outside of Montague, on Prince Edward Island. The stories are written by a girl who emigrated to PEI from British Columbia, with her boyfriend Cameron. It’s a 100% original ‘lifestyle content’ blog that paints the perfect picture of a beautiful young couple, very much in love, enjoying a modern pre-industrial life in rural paradise. They have no modern appliances, except an old tractor, and so they conserve and enjoy the goodness of nature in a manner similar to the pioneers.

What’s most intriguing, is that both Laura-Jane and Cameron work in technology. They run a web marketing and web project management business called Brightflock, and Cameron also has a web application development company called Kibo Software. Follow Laura-Jane on Twitter @ljbrightflock Here are two smart people, and their love story is their most compelling component of their all natural lifestyle without manufacturing software or gadgets.

Cameron and Laura-Jane of Whimfield farm blog in PEI Cameron Lerch is a lucky guy, and his life is chronicled in hundreds of photographs, anecdotes and poems; indeed most of his thoughtfulness gets recorded online. One of the most popular posts on Whimfield is the long version of how they met. The story …It Feels So Good To Love and Be Loved define their characters to readers, as it relates how they themselves defined their characters. Laura Jane writes later that, “The short version is that we were both absolute social outcast teenagers who were ecstatic to find each other. In one another we found support, love, and a best friend. We’ve grown up together. It hasn’t always been easy. We both have a lot of respect for one another and for our relationship itself. Relationships are hard work, but the rewards are deep and many.”

cameron Lerch and Laura-Jane Koers in Buggy at Anne of Green Gables House in PEI Canada

Cameron embraces Laura-Jane’s blogging but, “…back in the old days he had a love/hate relationship with it because I didn’t censor anything. I swore, I gossiped about his irritating habits, and I left no stone unturned. As time passed, though, we developed a set of rules. In order for blogging to work for us both I have to respect his privacy.” And she adds that, “Now that we’re known in our community and we own businesses, he is even more protective of our privacy. He really respects what I do though. He reads all of my posts. And he’s written two of his own posts.”

At Whimfeld, there’s no conflict and that’s okay. Laura-Jane’s new web journal is an information rich look at the life in the country, and it can be grouped into multiple niches. It’s DIY home renovation, environmentalism, gardening, food, travel and photography. This female blogger has a good eye for photos, and a professional approach to blogging around compelling images. She writes, “…I still use my photography to illustrate my points. I love to combine my photographs with my writing. It’s some kind of symbiotic happy existence. I don’t like to write a blog post without an original photo to accompany it. Usually a photo will inspire the post.”

“Blogging saved me in 2001. I love talking about blogging. I could cry talking about blogging.” Laura-Jane Dec 2009

Whimfield starts with a bang! A fascinating road trip story starts the Whimfield blog. Laura Jane opens the manifest by detailing her migration in Driving Across Canada: How To Sleep in Your Car In The Depths Of Winter with her boyfriend Cameron in a jeep like automobile. The couple slept in their vehicle and rigged a boat heater to run off the battery at night. The lessons learned and the manner in which they are related are truly unique and priceless.

Laura-Jane writes, “It all began with a desire to leave urban Victoria, mostly because of the expensive price of property there. We wanted a farm, but we did not want to be mortgaged to the hilt to get one. So we started looking elsewhere in Canada. It was a simple equation, really. Where could we go that was beautiful, idyllic, and affordable? We trolled real estate websites, and we looked at the most affordable properties that had all of the qualities that we were looking for. We saw a picture of our lonely little house, and it just called to us. We sold everything and drove across the country because of that little house. It was on Whim Road. We couldn’t resist it.”

Read Whimfield: Summer of Discovery to glimpse the passion for nature that drives Laura-Jane and read how she ‘discovered’ her own property blooming and coming to life in the spring. Portable solar power, because the couple closed on the farm in the winter, they more or less bought the property sight unseen and so took front row seats to Nature’s spectacle in the spring, summer and fall.

Cameron and Laura-Jane in Whimfield autumn lane

On the subject of deck building and Farming in Prince Edward Island, Laura Jane continues, “The dream for us was never to be farmers per se. The dream for us was to be able to have the time and freedom to dabble in a lot of things at once. For example, spending four hours a day on web projects, a couple hours outside in the yard gardening or farming, an hour reading a book, an hour playing music, and so on. Variety is the spice of life. Doesn’t that sound like heaven? It does to me.”

Jennifer Jilks writes My Muskoka

in Activism, Blogging, Muskoka, Ontario, Photography and Tourism

12/07

1

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banner for My Muskoka Jennifer Jilks is an Ottawa school teacher now living in beautiful Bala, Ontario. She’s over 50 and that’s a huge niche right there. She’s also a travel expert, wildlife photographer, hiker, and blogger who posts twice a week about a special little part of Canada called Muskoka.

Jennifer Jilks of My Muskoka blog My Muskoka cottage blog is an inside look at life in five Northern Ontario towns including Bala, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst , Huntsville, and Port Carling. She also chronicles the changing seasons as reflected in the shorelines of the Muskoka lakes.

Jennifer Jilks is fifty two years old. Before living in Bala she taught school for twenty five years in Ottawa while raising three kids - now her children are adults, and they are all remarkably different. They are all professionals. Jennifer’s daughter is a hydrogeologist and married to green party candidate Jean Luc Cooke. Her second child is a gifted actor, and the youngest boy is a government statistician.

Living and Dying with Dignity

About Jennifer Jilks

You can learn a lot about Mrs Jilks by reading the sidebar of her blog. Halfway down the right hand column is a picture and link to her book

Living and Dying with Dignity, a daughter/caregiver’s point of view. She writes here that ‘My mother’s cancer, dad’s brain tumour and dementia changed my life. The book includes information, research, as well as coping strategies from real life experiences.’ And now suddenly we understand what drove her to start this blogspot. It wasn’t fame, or a marketing assignment, or a creative outlet for her photography, but an expression of true self. This woman hopes to share her healing with readers. Jennifer is a Muskoka Hospice worker and the experience of helping people living and dying with dignity rings like a bell and resonate through her life’s work. Indeed her continued care giving and volunteer work at the hospice gives her existence meaning and adds value to her perspective on life in Muskoka.

Jennifer Jilks Photography

In addition to chronicling the adventures of her three cats, Jenn’s blog images waterfowl, wildflowers and rodents in high quality photographs. She submits her pictures to a camera critters blog and to a popular Ontario photo contest website and it was through Lenzr that she first came to my attention. In late November 2009 Jenn_Jilks compiled a beautiful array of breathtaking photos, with multiple entries in all three web challenges.

Jennifer Jilks and Social Justice

Today Mrs Jilks understands the explosive power of blogging. She learned the hard way after posting a series of well researched articles detailing the political, economic and social implications of the Bala Falls hydro electric project.

Muskoka Lakes She generated sixteen comments with a particularly contentious post on the bala hydro electric project in the fall of 2008 where she was accused of being a puppet for Dalton McGuinty.

Fortunately other bloggers came to her rescue. Jenn’s site is at the center of a local blog ring that doesn’t have a badge yet, but the members appear in an earlier post. Muskoka Bloggers is a list she updates frequently and links to in her sidebar.

Last summer, Jennifer Jilks did her civic duty and published a piece on the 2009 drowning in Bala explaining the water currents better than news media. Jenn lives in the Township of Muskoka Lakes and in one posts she took it upon herself to debunk the The Myths of Muskoka.

My Muskoka blog is already publishing original stories about the 2010 G8 Summit’s impact to ‘locals’ in Hunstville and surrounding towns.

My Muskoka is a very credible citizen journalist, a passionate photographer, and a writer with a soul living inside Ontario’s premier Muskoka cottage country travel destination.

Rebellious Arab Girl in London, Ontario

in Activism, Blogging, Ontario, Personal Blog and niche blogs

10/26

9

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Mona is the living manifestation of her rebellious blog; she’s a strong female personality in the Arab world, and that’s rare. Although core values are slowly changing, Middle Eastern culture still seems to discourage female participation; Mona’s blog is rebellious, because it exists.

Rebellious Arab Girl is emotional and writes her caustic journal to promote change. It’s a complaints blog from a girl who began blogging because she had built up a lot of anger toward “certain issues with the mentality of certain people within my culture. My message was to tell the world that I am just an ordinary girl who happened to come from a very conservative culture.”

Mona will be 29 years old in December. She started blogging on her 25th birthday because that’s when she became a rebel and really felt alienated from familial and cultural expectations. Apparently being a 25year old unmarried Arab girl is not an easy existence, and the blog was an outlet for Mona’s feelings. This girl is single and complicated, and these realities give her blog colour and purpose. She’s not using her domain to look for love, or at least not overtly, but rather to complain about not finding love, and to comment on the structure, traditions and expectations of Muslim Canadians. She writes, “I didn’t want to fall into the following category: if you are 25 and not married, then you have to or else you are screwed for life! I rather find myself first and know what I want from life, then feel committed to someone who is not willing to accept my ideologies and beliefs. Hence, my blog is a very big part of me, and many men don’t accept it. So, it is either the blog or them, and obviously I chose the former!”

Mona's amazing digital art Computer Science grad from the University of Western Ontario, Mona now works as a computer programmer in London. “I love my profession since I create web applications that so many professionals out there can make use of. No more using a pen and paper, and everything is just a click away and processed in the background. I love it. I make life simple for so many people with my skills.” Earlier in 2009 Mona was unemployed, and she blogged about job hunting and complained about the process. In that time however she created some terrific digital art. Now that she has a job, I’m sure readers hope she finds time to continue creating her masterpieces.

Mona likes London’s diversity, “It is a very family oriented city with a very diverse population. Moreover, I believe the diversity is the main reason why London is a very unique city.”

Rebellious Arab Girl likes to speak out about issues within her culture that won’t work if you “live in this side of the world”. She really believes people should keep their core values but try to change the way they perceive life and interact with the rest of the society around them. When she heard about Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign platform she created and published one of her own:

Vote for the Rebellious Arab Girl today!

1. She promises you peace in the middle east!
2. She promises you democracy in each Arab country with 4 – 6 year election time frames with citizens voting new leaderships!
3. She promises you a separation between religion and the state!
4. She promises you no more visa requirements for Arabs to visit other Arab countries!
5. She promises you Palestine to return to its rightful owners!
6. She promises you government funding for each Arab University to allow and contribute their scientific research to the world!
7. She promises you equality in the work force between the sexes!

Also along these lines, in June 2009 Mona wrote I Think its Time for Change about which she confides, “This is one of my favorite posts actually, because I created promotional fun banners because I love to create digital art. Also, I wrote this post because I always wondered when will there ever be a female leader of the Arab World?”

On Blogging & Writing
“I became a better writer over time since I exercise it almost daily though my blog. Also, last year, I decided for fun to take a couple of advanced writing courses at the University to enhance my writing skills for online publications. I wanted my writing to be convincing since I do enjoy it more than a hobby.”

Surprises?
“My biggest surprise is the size of the audience I have been receiving. It is quite extraordinary to be just another girl with hardly anyone to listen to in real life, to having such numerous amounts of readers who love you for being you, and are willing to take time out of their day to read what you have to say and comment. It is a great indescribable feeling having a blog.”

Two more of Mona’s favourite posts include, The Positives Outweigh the Negatives, of which she says “I really like this post because I wanted to tell the world that Arabs are great positive people, because they have great family values that distinguish them from other cultures.” And another on the subject of Arabs Marrying Non-Arabs, about which she writes, “I wrote this post because I receive several emails a day from people asking me if it is right or wrong for Arabs to marry non-Arabs. So I tried to explain my point of view, and I stirred a very long debate regarding this issue.”

Rebellious Arab Girl in her own words,“I don’t believe my site is targeted only to the Muslim community or even to the Arab community. My site is targeted to everyone who is willing to read the life of just another girl who happens to be an Arab and Muslim. I wanted people to realize that I am no different than them.”

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Michelle Basic Hendry in Muskoka

Photo Finishes from Cobourg Ontario

“WordPress with themes, plugins and a WYSIWYG editor was a vast improvement over my own homemade CMS.”

“As Free blog/CMS software has improved I have switched from doing custom websites over to using free blogs like Joomla and Wordpress, Weebly and Wix for my nearly cost free blogging and broader web development work.”

Fredericks Artworks is a Canadian Art Blog

Frederick’s journey into blogging came from traveling several routes on his path as a writer, and an artist.

Frederick has discovered readers in other artists, art schools, art galleries and among Canadian media and the communication industry in general.

Canucklehead in London Ontario

Lincoln admits he has led a charmed life - and he’s forever thankful to his family, friends and well-wishers who constantly provide support and encouragement.

Lauren O’Nizzle in London Ontario

As a self-proclaimed soul mate of Tina Fey, Conan O’Brien and Lisa Simpson, Lauren colours her stories funny and smart.

She also defines herself as being the opposite of Sarah Palin, Jay Leno and Bart Simpson.

Weighty Matters in Ottawa

There is very little doubt that weight and diet related illness together are now the number one preventable cause of death in Canada.

Keri the Canadian Explorer

KeriCDN Quests for the 2010 Olympic Games

Keri has been contracted by Canoe.ca and Sun Media to cover the Winter Games as official press.

Whimfield, Modern Pre-Industrial Living in Prince Edward Island

“Blogging saved me in 2001. I love talking about blogging. I could cry talking about blogging.” Laura-Jane Dec 2009