to move up and down
This weekend, 200 participants will be in Niagara Falls to take part a sport called ice cross downhill but known more widely known as Crashed Ice, which began as a marketing tool hatched by the makers of an energy drink. Participation has grown, and while it will not make the skaters rich, it does offer the promise of at least fleeting fame.
The premise: Four skaters begin at the top of an ice track, racing each other to the bottom in a race that mixes elements of ice skating, downhill skiing, luge and a general disregard for personal safety.
In Niagara Falls, which is staging the event for the first time, the track is 460 metres long, with a half-dozen jumps. It looks like an extra-wide bobsleigh track, and organizers say it took about 7,500 hours to assemble. (Photo: Jorg Mitter/Red Bull)
Tourists flock to Algonquin Park to take in the spectacular fall colours
Algonquin Park, the cathedral of autumn colour, attracts thousands of tourists this time of year. (Photos: Darren Calabrese/Nationa Post)
Magnificent Aurora Borealis adorns starry sky in Quebec
On October 8 great geo-magnetic storm swept the earth. In this 52-minute long exposure taken from Lake-St-Charles, near Quebec City, photographer Francis Audet captured the long star trail, showing the Earth rotation as well as the Aurora Borealis.
Hindu pilgrims hike over glaciers and mountain passes to visit the shrine in the Himalayas
Every year Hindu devotees brave sub-zero temperatures, hiking over glaciers and high altitude mountain passes to reach the sacred Amarnath cave, which houses an ice stalagmite, a stylized phallus, worshiped by Hindus as a symbol of the god Shiva.
Located in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, at 3,888 m (12,756 ft) above sea level, Amarnath cave is considered to be one of the holiest shrines in Hinduism. The cave is surrounded by snowy mountains and covered with snow most time of the year, except for a short period of time in summer when it is open for pilgrims.
Uranium City is small-town Canada taken to the extreme
Northern Saskatchewan’s Uranium City may be a life too isolated for the likes of most city dwellers, but as photographer Ian Brewster and anthropologist Justin Armstrong discovered on their trip to the ghost town, the city’s sense of community has kept its remaining 70 inhabitants going strong.
“The idea of the abandonment wasn’t as interesting as the people who stayed,” Brewster says. “You know, I don’t really view this as a story about the town and all the people that left, I view the story more about the people that have stayed and why they stayed and that was sort of the more interesting aspect of it for us.” (Photos: Courtesy of Ian Brewster)
Maid of the Mist in peril: Bidding war over Niagara Falls’ tour service raises concerns over what will become of the iconic name
It began with a bridge in 1848, an infrastructure improvement that threatened to kill off the two-year-old ferry service across the Niagara River. The construction of a suspension bridge spanning the river nearly choked out the newly minted Maid of the Mist ferry service, but ownership soon saw a new opportunity — that of a sightseeing vessel, and created a local icon in the process.
The Maid of the Mist has shuttled Marilyn Monroe to the foot of Horseshoe Falls for her role in the film Niagara, borne Prince Charles, the late Princess Diana and their sons, William and Harry, as well as former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, among others.
But the Maid is in peril again, as the Niagara Parks Commission has forced the Glynn family, which has operated the boat tours on the Canadian side of the falls for more than a century, into a bidding war against other would-be operators. Prompted by scandal, the commission aims for the first time to bring the service into line with other Ontario Parks projects. (Photo: Janne Wooddridge/Miami Herald)
A dog jumps before the mass start of the eighth stage of the La Grande Odyssee sled dogs race in Bessans January 16, 2012. The race crosses the Alps in France covering over 1000 km (621 miles) over 11 days. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Finland’s Janne Happonen takes off from the ski jump during a practice session for the third event of the 60th four-hills ski jumping tournament in Innsbruck. Photo: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Photos of the day
People look at the clouds during sunny autumn weather below the peak of Mount Rigi, 1,797m (5,896 ft) above sea level, near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, November 13, 2011. (Photo: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)
Something to see
Spectators watch as competitors drive through Llandudno during the Wales Rally motorsport rallying event in north Wales on Thursday. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)
Photos of the day
People look at high waves on November 8, 2011, in the southern French city of Nice. (Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)
Photos of the day
Visitors walk through National Arboretum in the Cotswolds near Tetbury on October 26, 2011 in Westonbirt, England. (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Tiny Sable Island Canada’s newest national park
It is just a long, slender, green-bean of a thing, but this dune off the cold coast of Nova Scotia is anything but a harmless strip of sand. Its swirling waters are known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, for they have swallowed 350 ships since 1583. Its underwater Scotian Shelf hosts 18 shark species who feast on the island’s grey seals.
The island is tall and narrow — 40-km in length, and only 1.5-km in width — and its body is held together by a skeleton of beach grass that traps the sand granules and the pirate wreckage buried within. Hundreds of untamed horses run wild, their matted manes unruly in the blustering wind where the Labrador current collides with the warm gulf stream and breeds thick fog.
This is Sable Island, a crescent-shaped mass roughly 300 kilometres out to sea. On Monday, Sable Island was formally named a Canadian national park reserve to ensure, the environment minister said in a statement, that the “iconic” and “fabled” island will be protected for all time.
Celebrating the beauty of Tibet
Seen through a photographer’s lenses, Tibet makes for a compelling subject, with its vast green plains and locals dressed in vibrant traditional garb. It’s not unusual to see all ages of monks on bicycles and horses — or pulling an Easy Rider. “There’s something unexpected and magical about seeing a monk stuck in traffic on a motorcycle smiling and waving to you as you’re walking down the street,” says Toronto-based physician/photographer Roman Elinson.
Elinson was in Yushu, Tibet, in 2004 and again in 2007, as part of medical missions to provide care to Yushu’s poor. According to international charity organization ROKPA, one doctor in Yushu cares for an average of 16,860 inhabitants. The photographs Elinson took on those missions are now part of an exhibition titled Beauty in Yushu, on at Toronto’s Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.
