Expo 67

I've already told you about the handkerchief collection I found at a flea market, so you already know the Antique Market a couple of Sundays ago was a bad idea.  I really can't risk collecting more vintage things!  I did do well at the flea market at first - I did not succumb to the adorable deep red plaid sandwich plates that extend a collection I started a few years ago (they weren't in pristine condition) but then, well.  I found the handkerchiefs.  And this pristine, brightly coloured tea towel.

Maybe you've never heard of  Expo 67, a World's Fair type of centennial celebration here in Canada, but it looms large in my imagination.  Pete is pretty sure he actually attended Expo 67 as a tiny child, and I sort of feel vaguely that I might have as well, but I don't want to ask anybody and be disappointed if it isn't true. 

When we bought my uncle's cottage we found some Expo 67 references - not super surprising given that they bought the place in the early 70s, around the time that promotional items would have started to get stale at home and get shifted up north.  There is the 45 of the theme music for the Ontario Pavilion - A Place To Stand - that I wrote about a couple of summers ago, and also, The Travellers 'This Land' LP that includes a folk song ('Man And His World') promoting the event.

So now, in the summertime, I think a lot about the promise of that time and the amazing architecture assembled for it, some of which still stands in Montreal, its host city, today.

I was really surprised to find this tea towel, though.  Given how big a deal Expo 67 seems to have been, and how much tourist swag must surely have been sold there, it is just weird that the only things I've ever come across from it are at the cottage and in that flea market. 

The tea towel has images of several cool pavilions but I am most excited by this one because Ontario!

I guess you really had to cross a bridge and go out onto the water for it?  And there is such a lot of water here, it's so fitting.

I do love Ontario, I must say.  Pete and I have driven a lot of it together but we still haven't made it north of Sudbury and I'd like to.  Not this summer though, with the roof off our house and framing in progress as I type. 

This summer I am content to visit our time capsule cottage and float in the lake!

What's your favourite thing for this summer?