pandemic

“We didn’t engage with the truckers and that seemed to make them even angrier”: what it was like to escort health care workers through the protest

"I got DMs from several adult children of health care workers saying things like, 'My mom is working a shift on Saturday. I told her to look out for your signs' "

“When you’re working 16-hour days, you don’t have time to consider anything else”: How the pandemic gave two Toronto restaurant lifers a fresh start in Bracebridge

New career tracks, new outlook—and a mortgage that's half as much as their rent was

“I spend 10 hours every day quilting”: Before Covid, he couldn’t sew. Now he sells his designs on Instagram

Justin Yong's one-of-kind quilts have turned into a booming side hustle

Winter surfing in Lake Ontario is brutal, painful and freezing. I can’t get enough

"Lake surfing is defined by disappointment and discomfort, freezing water and horrible weather, garbage waves and garbage floating in the waves. And yet it has become my greatest joy"

I worked as a Loblaws cashier at the height of the pandemic. It didn’t go well

"The soap dispenser in the men’s employee washroom ran out in my second week, and remained empty, despite requests to fill it, for all of May and the better part of June"

“Towels were so close together you could barely see the sand”: A Q&A with Wasaga’s deputy fire chief on beach-based mayhem and some new crowd-control measures for this weekend

"There were people drinking, people BBQing—and not in the designated area. I saw someone dragging a 20-pound propane tank right out onto the beach."