This story was originally written by my eldest son, Lark, for Billy Pellow's Chapleau Trails book of local stories. I recently re-read it when Brian brought it by my new place in Hamilton to remind me of all the family and to re-live my experience through Lark's words and our old family pictures. Thanks Lark for documenting this story of my life with my own family and with Esher and our four boys.

I was originally nervous about Lark sending the story to Billy for his book but…

As an expat, vacations usually mean going home and trying to jam…

A very special Throwback Thursday of me and my beautiful wife Loreen who I married 32 years ago today. Her and I are pictured here with her family dog Sandy during our honeymoon at our cottages on Prairie Bee Lake.

In some ways it has been a long ride raising our beautiful children and going through our respective career changes; in another way, it seems like we're…

Breaking Down Camp 

Copyright Lark Ritchie, 1998. All rights reserved.

Copyright Lark Ritchie 1997. 

This Article was featured on...

'The Ultimate Sportsman' Website, and

the Paperback Edition of the same name (November 1998) ISBN: 0-9668789-0-6

Each of us has within ourselves the ability to create life-memories and experiences for someone else,and through that, add to our own life-experiences. The wilderness can be an important element in a reciprocal…

Today, I was at a celebration of a friend's fiftieth wedding anniversary, and got talking to a few other friends who encouraged me to post more of my stories...

After getting home, and thinking about it, I decided to re-post a few here at Kamazooie, because the old site (Geocities.com) I used back then closed in 2009, and the stories are now only archived and cannot be edited, or new stories added.

If you have the interest, you can find more by…

Ok this is long overdue and is likely to be short. So apologies in advance. Earlier this year I had to travel to London on business for an array of media and conference work. I love going to London for any reason, including business. But as it turned out, my daughter Bianca was able to book time off and join me.

It worked out extremely well...although I was working for a number days while she was there, she had friends who lived in the city (school mates from our days in Germany and…

We all have this idea in our head of what an actress's life is. You get to be anybody you want to be, travel, tell stories that are important and go to the magical Hollywood parties. But to get there, we have to go through every hot level of Hell.



Audition after audition. Tiny pay-check after tiny pay-check. Joe-job after Joe-job. Public transit that seems to want only for you to miss that callback. The poorly disguised look of disapproval received when you tell…

This is a very special Fathers Day as it occurs on the Summer solstice and it is also my father's birthday so there are many things to celebrate.

Here's to you all you great fathers out there and to all of those celebrating their fathers or remembering ones who have passed already.

Hope you have a great…

I wonder a lot about my own passion and read often about the joy and success that can come of pursuing your true passion. But, how do we know what that is?

I like this one from yoga coach Jes Allen.…

This is interesting. A team is working to resurrect Sci-Fi author Philp K. Dick, who wrote the book that launched the movie Blade Runner. 

I hope he starts writing again ;-)

It is with bittersweet feelings that we watched David Letterman sign off in his last show last night. In a tribute to his long career of helping us end our day with laughter and grace, I thought I would post this Top Ten list of the Best Things That David Letterman Gave Us:

[...Drum roll...]

10.  Something to watch besides infomercials after 11:30 at…

I find that Mothers’ Day gains more and more importance to me as time goes on. This spring, I had the great pleasure of traveling and staying with Mom over a 4-day period as the weather was warming up after a long and cold winter.

As we drove together, we talked about how this time of year was always a busy one for us as we prepared for the Spring Bear Hunt and…

I have the great fortune of being a member of the Advisor's Circle for the World Travel & Tourism Council, a global organisation which advocates the significant social and economic contributions of the sector and presses for changes needed to make travel and tourism accessible, easier and sustainable. Every year WTTC holds an annual general meeting which I have attended for the past several years. This year's event was held in Madrid, Spain. 

The business schedule was intense and…

For the first time in my career I was invited to speak at a conference, in this case "Global PR Trends" held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cairo, Egypt. The presentation went swimmingly as I talked about Dubai Airports' communication strategy and how it delivered value to the business. If anything I could have shortened it a bit, but I digress. Over dinner that night the conference organizer, Kosta Petrov who hails from Macedonia, insisted I take full advantage of a very rare opportunity…

Well, since this is my very first book, I’m not sure any advice I give would be based on any kind of profound experience. Yet, I can tell you that the thing that kept me going was having someone interested in what I was writing. I spoke about it to a few selected people that I knew were supportive and encouraging. And their responses and questions like—how much I’ve written, what am I writing now…—kept me wanting to keep writing so I had some more to share. It was kind of pushing me as…

Perhaps this Winter-Spring season more than most, we in North America at least, joyously welcome the arrival of Spring.

It is often said our minds are like gardens where anything can grow. This Spring, be sure to plant beautiful flowers there to share and not weeds.

Welcome…

I must admit, I don't have the worst job in the world. Yesterday, my job was to entertain some customers in the Barcelona area as we prepare to meet with them formally at Mobile World Congress; the largest mobile and telecom show globally. As part of the tour, I got tickets to see Basilica Sagrada Familia Cathedral, the exterior of which is shown in the photo below.…

I was so fortunate that I didn’t have any pressures or real hard deadlines to meet, so when I did have a block I could wait it out. I think most of the time when I did have a block, it usually came from outside distractions—I allowed myself to become distracted. Sometimes an audition, a talk I would have to give or conceiving a new workshop…would take a lot of my concentration. But if I was being 100 percent honest with myself, I would have to say I allowed those distractions to block me. It…