Last week we make a lightning-fast dash through southern Ontario to visit Catherine’s family and mine. We had a little bit of time, here and there, to go exploring once we’d set down in the Golden Horseshoe, and I’ve noted a few of the highlights over in the Travels section:

• Tamp Coffee
• Mixed Media
• Burro Tacos
• A Different Drummer Books
• The Cannon
• Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology

We counted no fewer than three stores focusing exclusively on “Hamilton” products–either products make in Hamilton or products branded with variations on Hamilton. The city appears to be latching onto some Detroit-style “gritty but proud and rising” spirit these days, and the result is a kind of gentrification that doesn’t, at least on first blush, seem soul or neighbourhood destroying.

Never ignore the pleasures of the second city.