Wickland, Home of Three Governors, circa 1825-1828, at 550 Bloomfield Rd., Bardstown, Kentucky.

Many people visit historic sites with the hope of finding ghosts. I don’t. However, I’ve always been envious of others who walk around a centuries old room on tours, let their fingers linger on a few of the do-not-touch pieces, nod, and say with confidence, “Oh, there’s a spirit here all right. I can feel it.” I’d never felt anything. Until my visit to Bardstown, Kentucky, that is.

The Spirits of Wickland

Wickland is a Federal-style three-story manor house built circa 1825 to 1828, by Charles A. Wickliffe. Wickcliffe, a Whig member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, and governor from 1839 to 1840 after Governor James Clark died in office, left the estate to his son, Robert C. Wickliffe. Robert served as the last pre-war Louisiana governor from 1856 to 1860. The third and last governor to occupy the mansion was John Crepps Wickliffe ( J.C.W.) Beckham, grandson of Charles A. who was the governor of Kentucky from 1900 to 1907. The full history of Wickland is available on the Bardstown site at: http://visitbardstown.com/wickland/history.html

Dixie Hibbs, local historian, took me through the mansion, room by room, sharing details about the Home of Three Governors (nickname for the estate).  Its high ceilings and long windows full of the day’s last rays, created an atmosphere of cultured elegance.

Entrance to Wickland, Home of Three Governors

Dixie saved the kitchen until last as it’s the room where the spirit of Waleta, the cook, is always found. Now, as I said, I’ve never had that gift of being able to feel a ghost or presence when I’m walking around, so I had to take Dixie’s word that Waleta was present.  I watched with interest when Dixie picked up two divining rods and asked Waleta to cross them. Right on cue, the pieces of iron moved into place. Interesting, I thought, but not exactly evidence that would stand up for most folks to prove a spirit was present.

Dixie handed the divining rods to me. Arms out, I stood still and waited. Nothing much happened.

I could see a look of disappointment on Dixie’s face. She was obviously convinced that Waleta was there, so I said to the empty air, “Waleta, cross the rods.”

I felt a giggle — now I know it’s impossible to feel someone else’s giggle, but I did. Then, I sensed a gentle pressure against my hands and the rods began to move. I watched in amazement — me, a ghost was really responding to me? In a few seconds the rods were crossed.

“I guess she just needed my permission,” I said to Dixie, and dropped the rods. I couldn’t stop grinning.  “Darn, I should have got a picture!”

Dixie grabbed my camera and I took the rods again — they immediately crossed when I held them out this second time. Once again I was surprised at the distinct sensation of my hands being pushed gently together.

Linda Aksomitis in the kitchen at Wickland, Home of Three Governors, holding diving rods that have been crossed by the spirit of Waleta, a cook at Wickland around the mid-1800s.

Over dinner Dixie told me intriguing stories about the spirits of Wickland, then we shared coffee with the two young mediums who communicate with them — Michael and Katie Wilhite.  Luckily, anyone can participate in the Spirit tours with these talented twins as they’re held weekly at Wickland. See: http://visitbardstown.com/wickland/tours.html

Here’s a video about the spirits of Wickland:

Ghosts at the Jailer’s Inn

Jailer's Inn in Bardstown, Kentucky, located at 111 West Stephen Foster Avenue. Stocks outside for photo taking.

During my trip to Bardstown I stayed at the Jailer’s Inn. For a history lover it was the perfect place — operating as a jail for 168 years, the walls certainly had many tales to tell. You don’t need to stay to hear them though, as visitors can also tour the Inn, peek in the cells, and hear about some of the prisoners who spent time behind the bars and walked in the stone fenced yard at the rear. On the far side of the fence, you can wander through the graveyard reading tombstones dating back to the 1700s.

My nights, as I expected, were peaceful — I didn’t even hear the high winds of a storm through the 30 inch stone walls! No ghosts at all.

On my last morning I lingered over breakfast, enjoying the fresh baked muffins and conversation with my host, Paul McCoy, and the two other visitors who’d spent the night. Deciding to take some photos of the upstairs rooms (my room was on the main floor), I grabbed my camera, climbed the stairs and opened the door to the first room. The camera — new batteries the night before — wouldn’t turn on.

Although I figured I’d somehow left the camera on, I called to Paul, “I guess your ghosts don’t want their pictures taken this morning.”

He laughed.

I changed the batteries and climbed the stairs once again. Before entering the bedroom, I stopped to take a photo of the long wooden table that filled the foyer.

Shock filled me as I stared at the three second display of the photo I’d snapped. There was no table. No chairs. Not even any walls or ceiling. Instead, the picture showed  the two shapes in the photo below. I’m not sure which ghosts or spirits they were, but I’m sure they weren’t part of the realm I usually see!

Ghosts at the Jailer's Inn, 111 West Stephen Foster Avenue, Bardstown, Kentucky.

by Linda Aksomitis

Peasant Cookery Restaurant, 283 Bannatyne Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Stopping in for cocktails at Peasant Cookery in Winnipeg provides a great opportunity to find some original ways to sample Manitoba–Canada’s–premiere whisky: Crown Royal.

Crown Royal blended whisky is the top selling Canadian whiskey in the United States. Blended from 50 special whiskies in a distillery just outside Winnipeg, Manitoba, at Gimli, the whiskey has a long tradition of being the “best” of the best. It was, as its name suggests, originally created in honour of the Royal family, in this case, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, way back  in 1939.

Those first cases were delivered to the royal train when the royal couple arrived in Manitoba. For more about the 1939 Royal Tour, see the television and radio clips from CBC radio at: http://archives.cbc.ca/society/monarchy/topics/2367/

Kaitlynd Landry, bartender at Peasant Cookery in Winnipeg, mixing cocktails with Crown Royal whiskey.

Peasant Cookery’s innovative young bartender, Kaitlynd Landry, spent three months developing their cocktail list after intensive training in the classroom and on-the-job.

The Cocktails

Like a wine tasting, I sampled three Crown Royal cocktails before choosing my favorite to order.

• The Manitoban — Crown Royal, Chambord, fresh beet juice, brown sugar simple syrup, and rhubarb bitters.
• Smoked Vanilla Manhattan — Crown Royal, Cinzano, smoked vanilla infused maple syrup, whiskey barrel aged bitters.
• Blue Divine — Crown Royal, fresh blueberries, lemon juice, simple syrup, and soda water.

I slotted The Manitoban, which reminded me of borscht (that I do love!) into third spot, and the strong, sweet whisky taste of the Smoked Vanilla Manhattan into second. Blue Divine, with its tart blueberry flavour, was easily my favourite.

Give these cocktails a try and let me know what you think!

Crown Royal Video

by Linda Aksomitis

Claybank Brick Plant at Claybank, Saskatchewan

As a traveler, it’s easy to miss the treasures we have right at home, looking over the fence at the “greener grass” on the other side. So, this year at holiday time, I set off with my parents and my grandson to explore a little of the southwest part of the province we call home — Saskatchewan.

Gold Bricks & Saskatoon Pie

The Claybank Brick Plant is a National Historic Site — one which is nearly undiscovered! Situated less than an hour’s drive from either Regina (Saskatchewan’s capital city) or Moose Jaw (of the Tunnels of Moose Jaw fame), Claybank is home to North America’s best preserved brick making site.

The plant opened nearly a hundred years ago, in 1914, and operated until 1989 when it was closed after nearly seventy-five years of continuous operation. Over the years the bricks from Claybank were in huge demand due to the refractory or heat resistant clay, which was first mined by Tom McWilliams after getting a permit from the government back in 1886. After Tom, there were various owners.

Bunkhouse Cafe saskatoon pie

During July and August, the brick plant is open 7 days a week for tours — we arrived in time for the 1 p.m. one. I’d planned our arrival to take advantage of the Bunkhouse Cafe home-cooked lunch, which was a choice of soups, sandwiches, and of course, saskatoon pie. My tomato hamburger soup, along with egg salad on brown bread was tasty, but of course, the pie was tastier! Saskatoons are one of the Saskatchewan’s unique food products as this superfruit is only grown on the prairies.

Bricks at the Claybank brick plant.

After lunch, we took the hour long tour. Since the factory had been closed abruptly, I had the feel that someone might just punch the time clock and pick up some of the tools at any time as we walked through the once-busy working areas of the factory. Everything was ready to go, from bricks ready for shipping, to mechanic’s tools on the workbench.

Our guide, a young local teen, Shawn, had lots of stories to share about “back in the day,” from how the manager insisted on having his own locked outhouse for himself and his family, to how it took a full month for the mud coming into the plant to exit as a clay brick.

Rhubarb Wine & Saskatoon Pie

Our next stop was a prairie surprise in southwest Saskatchewan — a well developed, classy winery!

Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery with a country walk, flowers, fish pond and self-guided tour of the vineyard.

Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery offered  a self-guided tour of the vineyard and a window view of staff bottling the wine in addition to wine tasting. While non-prairie folk might not recognize many of the wine types, they were all familiar to me! Currently the list includes eight wines, all available when I was there (except the Mead) for tasting (listed in order from driest to sweetest):

• Chinook 2008 – Carnellion and Barberry grapes
• Sour Cherry – Organically grown Saskatchewan cherries (Carmine Jewel)
• Rhubarb Blend – Rhubarb and grapes
• Saskatoon – Saskatchewan grown saskatoon berries
• Chokecherry – Saskatchewan grown chokecherries
• Spring – Late harvest sour cherries with honey
• Black Currant & Honey  (also known as Christmas wine) – Black currants and honey
• Mead – Traditional honey wine

Lunch at the Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery

My favorite — the Black Currant & Honey — had a rich berry flavor with just a hint of honeyed sweetness.

Lunch at the Cypress Hills Vineyard & Winery was an elegant affair, even though the sunshine filled patio was miles away from any of the other vestiges of civilization.  The pasta salad was full of delicious tiny tomatoes, black olives, and cucumber all tossed in a mildly seasoned house dressing, while the ham sandwich was served on delicious hearth bread. And of course, the dessert was saskatoon pie with a scoop of ice cream.

Lodgepole Pines, Lookout Point, & the Redcoats

Southwest Saskatchewan has more than a few surprises tucked into its geography, with the Cypress Hill Interprovincial Park being one of the most intriguing. Until you make the drive, it’s hard to imagine a lodgepole pine forest just popping up in the middle of an otherwise barren landscape of prairie grass, grazing cattle and hay bales, but it does.

The park is the gift of the last ice age, when this part of the province poked up out of the ice, preserving an entirely different ecosystem.

Fort Walsh, a national historic site inside the park, has a long history, beginning with the Cypress Hills Massacre that occurred prior to the arrival of the North West Mounted Police and its construction on the townsite in 1875. Although the fort was the headquarters of Canada’s “Mounties” until 1883, the buildings we see today inside the Fort were put up by the RCMP in 1942 as a remount ranch to breed and raise horses.

The park is cut into blocks, with Fort Walsh in the West Block, and Lookout Point and Lone Butte in the Centre Block. At an elevation of up to 4200 feet on the Saskatchewan side, and 4800 feet on the Alberta side,  the park is the highest point in Canada from the Rocky Mountains to Labrador and the Appalachians.

Lookout Point in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park Centre Block - on a clear day you can see 100 km!

Campground in the Lodgepole Pine Forest in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.

My grandson hiking from Bald Butte in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.

Even with the short time we had to explore the park, it was amazing!

Birds, Birds, and More Birds!

Chaplin Tourism & Nature Centre in Chaplin, Saskatchewan.

A visit to the Chaplin Tourism and Nature Centre shows just how important Saskatchewan is to birds across North America. Central to the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network sites, the Chaplin Centre does an exceptional job of providing information about the more than 350 species of birds that fly through Saskatchewan — Land of the Living Skies — annually.

While we were a little early to see the up to 100,000 birds that may land during migration, we did see some of the shorebirds that make bird watching a popular activity here!

A wide, panoramic display complete with mounted birds in their natural habitat allowed us to see many species never found in our end of the province: Avocet, snipe, plovers, sandpipers and more.

Article & photos copyright Linda Aksomitis 2010
Photos taken August 10-12, 2010.

It was my first morning in Wales — and I was ready to leave the beautiful Royal Oak Hotel in Welshpool and go exploring! I’d already eaten what turned out to be the “standard” British hotel breakfast of fried side bacon, sausages (two kinds, neither of which tickled my taste buds as they say), pork ‘n beans (or that’s what I call them at home), baked tomato halves,

Sitting area at Royal Oak Hotel in Welshpool, Wales

and cold toast with no butter. Well, I guess that’s not really true — there was butter, it just wasn’t on the toast. There was, however, an abundance of little jars of jam, of which blackberry was my favorite.

A scenic bus ride took us an hour away to tour the historic town of Llangollen Its most magnificent attraction is the Pontcysylite Aqueduct, designated a World Heritage site in 2009.

I’m not great with heights — especially when there’s an edge I can look over. However, nothing was keeping me from walking the thousand feet it would take to cross this two hundred year old aqueduct! Built by civil engineer, Thomas Telford, between 1795 and 1805, it’s a true feat of engineering. The stone used was local, with the central ones over the River Dee a full 126 feet from the water to the iron work (no, I didn’t spend much time looking down!).

The aqueduct canal itself runs through an an iron trough that’s 1007 feet long, 11 feet, 10 inches wide, and five feet, three inches deep. As you might imagine, the canal boats that make their way over the aqueduct are quite tiny, as they must fit into the trough. They’re rather like mini-houseboats with all the necessities of life built in.

I walked the tow path, beside the trough — historically, it was the bridle path for the horses that towed the canal boats. Our guide, Donna Goodman (from Turnstone Tours), said she’s taken a canal boat ride with her husband, and spent much of her time on top of the boat reading, or else bicycling on the shore alongside the canals, since the whole canal system can be walked.

While my trip was early spring before the start of canal boat season, I could imagine myself in one of the boats, moving slowly down the canal, not a care in the world…

Enjoy my slideshow of Pontcysylite Aqueduct & the Canal Boats

Date photos taken: Thursday, March 4, 2010.

Not everyone visiting Las Vegas considers a children’s production when they’re booking shows — but The Lion King is much, much more than just entertainment for the kids!

The Lion King, based on the 1994 Disney animated movie by the same name, was my first Disney production and it was easy to see why it has become the world’s number 1 musical (from the Mandalay Bay website at: http://www.mandalaybay.com/entertainment/lionking.aspx )

The Lion King musical production in Las Vegas - image from displays outside the theater at Mandalay Bay.

Julie Taymor, director and designer of the Las Vegas production, has blended reality with story, creating a production where the music and actors whisked me away to a world beyond my experience. African masks…beating drums…lions…wildebeests…from the first scene to the last, I believed in The Lion King.

Taymor worked with Michael Curry, one of the country’s leading puppet experts, to create the cast of African animals. The masks, rather than covering the faces of the actors, provided an iconic expression for the single puppeteer who’s visible — some of the larger animals required three puppeteers, with two completely covered operating the puppet’s legs and right hand.

The Lion King musical production in Las Vegas - image from displays outside the theater at Mandalay Bay.

As with all live productions, the sets and lighting also contribute to the success of the performance. While the tension mounts through the story, the behind-the-scenes action also gains in momentum. One of the most dramatic scenes was the canvas scroll and series of large rollers that made the wildebeest stampede of thousands  rush right at me, appearing larger and larger until it seemed I’d surely be trampled!

The Lion King musical production in Las Vegas - image from displays outside the theater at Mandalay Bay.

While Las Vegas has many amazing shows, I have to agree with the more than 45 million people around the world who’ve named The Lion King as one of the world’s most spectacular musicals.

For more information see:

http://disney.go.com/theatre/thelionking/lasvegas/#/about/