POB Flag Football team wins state championship

The Plainview Old-Bethpage flag football team captured the state championship this year after an undefeated season.

On June 10, the Plainview-Old Bethpage flag football team defeated Warwick High School, 27-7, to win the New York State Regional Championship. The Hawks had an amazing undefeated 18-0 season, and the win marks the first regional championship triumph by a POB team since 2003.

Sophomore All-County quarterback

Jennifer Canarutto led the Hawks in the championship game. On that day, she completed 8 of 12 passes for 120 yards and 3 touchdowns. She also rushed for a game high of 68 yards. Rachel Ganz, sophomore wide receiver and defensive back, added 4 receptions for 69 yards and 2 touchdowns. Senior linebacker and wide receiver

Ashley Cassano was a dominant force on defense, tallying 10 flag pulls and 1 interception. Cassano also completed 3 passes for 49 yards and one touchdown. Throughout the season, the Hawks were the dominant team on Long Island, scoring 447 points while only giving up 52. In addition to Canarutto, sophomores Lara Glasser, Emma

Heaney, Rachel Ganz and senior Ashley Cassano were selected for the All-County team. Sophomore Julia Kesselman earned All-Conference honors, and Coach Alec Abramowitz was named Nassau County Conference 1 Coach of the Year.

July 21, 2023

Pioneering Spirit Continues to Inspire Visitors to Banff, Canada

BY KAREN RUBIN TRAVEL FEATURES SYNDICATE GOINGPLACESFARANDNEAR.COM

The spirits of the founders, pioneers and entrepreneurs are everywhere in Banff, which, for a small town within an immense national park (Canada’s most visited) continue to inspire the 4.5 million who come each year with their rich heritage and cultural legacy.

We find their presence ever-present – at the Mount Royal Hotel, one of the oldest in Banff; at the Cave & Basin historic site (the hot springs that started it all); at the Whyte Museum and the Moore House; atop the Banff Gondola; in the old Trading Post (which I remember visiting decades ago), the OpenTop Sightseeing tour in custom-designed vintage automobile, and most spectacularly, the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum.

I love that all around the Sky Bistro on the summit of Sulphur Mountain are poster-sized photos of Banff’s pioneers and founders, many who are already familiar from our Open-Top tour, the Whyte Museum, and the historic markers about town: There are the Brewster brothers, Norman Luxton, and the colorful park warden, Bill Peyto, who toted a live lynx into a bar. There are the indomitable, liberated women like Pearl Brewster, who manifested the frontier, mountaineering spirit; Caroline Hinman, who came from New Jersey to organize Off the Beaten Track pack trips; and Lizzie Rummel, who, born to a German aristocratic family, came to the Rockies in 1914 and ran back country lodges.

Cave and Basin

The visit to Cave and Basin is

Banff, Canada’s first municipality set within a national park, has lured pioneers, adventurers, entrepreneurs and free spirits © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com like going back to the origin story for Banff – it is the very reason Banff developed and why Canada’s first national park was established here, though this area had been a special place for First Nations peoples for 10,000 years.

“... like some fantastic dream from a tale of the Arabian Nights,” is how William McCardell described the mist-filled cave on the slopes of Sulphur Mountain when he, his brother Tom, and their partner Frank McCabe, three railway workers who stayed behind, first spotted the venting steam in the fall of 1883.

They immediately saw the profit potential, fenced it off, built a small log cabin at the entrance (they called it “the hotel”) and put in a claim for a land grant. But the Canadian government, in financial straits from building the transcontinental railroad, also saw the potential. The government paid them $900 and, in 1885,

Going

set aside 10 square miles around the thermal springs. In 1887, Prime Minister John A. McDonald declared the land protected for all Canadians and named George Stewart, park superintendent.

Canadian Pacific Railroad’s visionary executive director, William Cornelius Van Horne, opened the Banff Springs Hotel in 1888 with 250 rooms, and invited writers and artists to come to promote the destination.

At the Cave and Basin, people paid 5c to enjoy bathing in the thermal pools, one sex at a time – ladies in the cave when men were in the basin, and visa versa.

A 30-minute guided tour takes us into the cave (surprisingly small) and the basin and tour the 1914 Bathing Pavilion.

Our guide, Ranger Amar Athwal, tells us that 500 generations of indigenous people gathered here at the hot

Near And Far

springs before the first Europeans ever arrived; one of the oldest artifacts found in the area is a bison skull from 8500 years ago, bearing wounds inflicted by humans.

The natural springs, mysteriously hot even in winter and supporting plants and life that did not exist anywhere else, were regarded as a spiritual place of healing, and where different tribes gathered to hold ceremonies in peace here. (When the park was created, the native communities were pushed out.)

The natural springs are a unique ecosystem, Athwal tells us. The water flows year-round despite the fact that temps can go as low as minus 41 degrees in winter in Banff. Here, the water stays 92-100 F so plants grow here, animals like the garter snake live here, and the Basin harbors a tiny snail that is unique to these Banff thermal springs (which we get to see).

There is also a memorial Internment exhibit which opened in 2013, dedicated to the Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and Ukrainians, who were interred here during World War I.

You can also stroll the thermal water boardwalks (the best bird watching in Banff National Park) and hike trails around the Cave and Basin.

Whyte Museum

The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies is a historical museum, art gallery, and archives that celebrates the lively history, heritage and people of the Rocky Mountains.

The museum was founded in 1968 by Peter and Catherine Whyte who were artists and philanthropists.

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