Column Chronicles: Provinces I love - Frank Cotolo on 148.ca

Provinces I love

Frank Cotolo
January 22, 2015

I have been all over Canada, from east to west and from north to south. I bet you I have visited all of the provinces over a period of time yet to be determined. This is why I decided to use this column to talk about some of the provinces I love. These will be random remembrances but I know you will like them, especially if you live in any of these provinces.

When I got to New Brunswick the trip always makes me think about being bilingual because it is the only province where its constitution makes it official to speak two languages. Also, I really enjoy speaking two languages at once, going from French to English and back to French, especially at restaurants when I talk to servers.

Could there be anything more beautiful than the mountains in Alberta? I try to go mountain lion hunting whenever I have business in Edmonton. The most recent time I was in Alberta, after my business in Edmonton, I went mountain lion hunting I had to go by myself because the professional guide refused to take me if I didn't bring a firearm. I thought it would be fun to go without a firearm, just to even the odds between me and the mountain lions. It did just that and I wound up running for my life down the mountainside. Obviously I escaped the chasing mountain lions because you are reading this.

Ontario can be fun but for me it only seems to be fun on Monday nights. Go figure.

Once, in Saskatchewan, I found a pair of spectacles that turned out to belong to a Mounted Policeman named Jeb.

Quebec is fun if you get drunk and walk through the streets shouting, "Napoleon is coming!"

I once worked at an advertising agency in Manitoba and loved living there. However, when the agency picked up the provincial government as a client and they turned down my campaign slogan, which was designed to attract tourists, I quit my job and moved. To this day I don't know why they turned down the slogan "Man oh Manitoba!"

Another time in Saskatchewan, I met a man who wanted to start a circus and asked if I would help him. I never started a circus before, so I turned him down and went back to Montreal, where I dated a gal who was a part-time snake charmer.

SRN Mediaworks is the best thing in Ontario for my money. I like it better than the Toronto Blue Jays or hockey or swimming in the St. Lawrence River or St. Lawrence himself or Algonquin Provincial Park or Rondeau Provincial Park or my Uncle Granaldo, who has lived there since he was a boy and claims to have known a shortcut to Calgary.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.