Camino is a Canadian brand brings in fair-trade and organic chocolate. Gluten-free also.

They have semi-sweet, bittersweet, unsweetened and vegan white chocolate chips.

https://camino.ca/product-category/baking-products/chocolate-chips/

Available widely.

Although you didn’t ask, there is a fantastic Canadian cake decorating brand that has sprinkles etc. Many are free of major allergens too.

https://sweetapolita.com/

Parksville is likely far more commercial and developed than you recall.

But the beaches remain.

Here are some suggestions with a kids lens:

Vancouver Island

• get mid Island then over to the west coast

• Parksville - large sandy beaches to dig in

• ferry to Denman Island and then to Hornsby Island - fossils! https://hornbynaturalhistory.com/category/fossils/

• Qualicum Beach - gravelly and lots of seniors, but a great place to see bald eagles picking up clams and oysters, dropping them to break them open and diving to eat.

• Cathedral grove on Hwy to Port Alberni, accessible old growth forest

• Alberni - old forestry interpretation site with a logging train in the Cherry Creek area

• Drive to Tofino - an adventure in itself

• Long Beach

• whale watching

If you go to Vancouver, many of the classic stops are worth it

• the Aquarium
• Whale watching
• Grouse mountain gondola and mountain top
• Capilano suspension bridge and the fish hatchery and environs
• Seabus
• UBC museum of anthropology

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Mapping and confirming the existence of a system larger than the world renowned Castleguard Cave system is the story here.

I think that may be US labeling still in use in Vermont and New York.

Canadian maple syrup hasn’t been graded that way for some time. We’re in a syrup producing region and get it locally from producers.

That seems to be regional.

Perhaps there’s some interprovincial barriers that we’re not aware of.

Growing up on the west coast, real maple syrup was a luxury.

Where we are now in Eastern Ontario, we buy it by the litre or even by the case. Our teens pour it freely all over their plates.

We use the medium or amber at the table, and the darkest we can get for baking.

Grade B is now called amber, I believe.

But whatever, the darker coloured syrup has more flavour and is better value.

Did I miss the actual Protostar announcement?

Well, there was something of the kind of CANZUK sharing earlier. But that included SA and India in a kind of outer layer with less complete access.

There’s absolutely no incentive to log in to YouTube now that subscriptions and bells do nothing to control your feed. End stage enshittification.

This is very cool. 😎

I do know about the latter. Knew some folks that taught there.

Few courses are taught by tenured faculty at the Ivies. Junior faculty have to justify final grades, PhD students and sessional have to justify any grades lower than B- on any assignment.

Coupling that with the ‘legacy admissions’ where children of alumni have a lower bar to admission, anyone with a B- average has a questionable degree.

No matter how good their programs are, for the lowers tier of students, they’re just institutions of transmitted privilege. Which is why the complaints about DEI mechanisms to balance that are so suspect.

I wasn’t aware whether UPenn was on the same system but it’s a huge thing for private universities reliant on tuition fees and big alumni donations.

It’s interesting how California is shutting down the practice of legacy admissions, and Stanford and USC are feeling the sting.

But Trump was able to graduate?

Is Wharton one of those US schools (like Harvard) where anyone lower than a tenured professor has to write justifications to file anytime they give a student less than a B-?

Both Trump and Musk have degrees from the supposedly reputable Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

If these two are evidence of their quality of graduates, it really raises questions about whether it was another US institution where ‘legacy’ and money buy admissions and it’s impossible not to graduate.

There is a science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold ‘Falling Free’ about a population of genetically engineered ‘quaddies’ and their situation once artificial gravity technology becomes available.

You can join communities on other instances too if you have specific interests.

There’s currently an Redexit of Canadians who are looking to get off US-controlled social media.

Lemmy.ca has had a huge spike in enrolment as it’s the one that was most prominently promoted in r/BuyCanadian. Apparently, it’s had over 9k signups in the past day.

She was on the D at one point, it was name dropped.

And on DS9 when some of the Dominion War stuff went down.

Why would anyone assume we’d be given the right to vote?

Puerto Rican’s still can’t.