My homies at Toronto Guardian asked me if I wanted to go on a photographic adventure that would be taking me all around the city and beyond. Having only been in Toronto for 6 months, I jumped at the opportunity to do some more exploring and discovering an abandoned POW Camp in Bowmanville.
Honda Canada is currently promoting it’s newly released 2015 model FIT by sending all sorts of folks on a choose-your-own-adventure day. They don’t tell you who you should bring, what you should do with it (hopefully not crash), or even where you can take it, they just hand the keys over. They want to allow you to figure out for yourself what makes the car good, great or even awesome.
On this occasion, we had the ring leader, the multi talented photographer and motorcycle guru Viktor Radics and his phenomenally lovely friends Zach Rose, Jade Perry and Andrew Knapp. Annnnd myself. Viktor had a plan for us, and we were all along for the ride. Some of the key events: Brunch at The Beet Organic Cafe & Market, meeting the delightfully famous Instagram dog Momo, driving 100km out of town to Bowmanville to photograph an abandoned POW camp, and my first experience chowing on the goodness that is Chipotle.
Beginning bright and early at Balzac’s coffee in the distillery district we met up with the team at Honda Canada who gave us a full run down of the car. They mentioned that they had made it substantially better compared to the previous years model. Having personally never met last years model I’m not exactly qualified to discuss what made it better, but in terms of the functionality of the seats, and indeed the ability to FIT a lot of things in it, I took his word for it. They move around in about a million different ways in a very short time which is sweet for people with an active lifestyle. They also have an impressive new feature, when using the right indicator the main screen in the middle console immediately switches to a camera located on the right hand side rearview mirror. This shoots in the blind spot where bikes love to sneak up when you are least expecting it, or other cars when merging on the highway.
Anyways enough about the car, lets hit the road! Here are some photos I took on the adventure!
First things first, connecting our phones via bluetooth to the smart computer for the first time, it allows you to play music directly from your phone, deal with incoming calls, and I’m sure a few other things. You can connect up to 10 devices and have them all stored in the system so it’s all ready to go as soon as you enter the next time.
The gang having fun in the FIT! It is pretty spacious for it’s small size, one of the cars best features for sure. Sunroofs are cool too!
Our first port of call: The Beet Organic Cafe & Market at 2945 Dundas Street West in Toronto for some absolutely delicious fresh juices, salads and burgers. The service there is enough to warm the polar ice caps, lovely people! The Steak Salad pictured above is one of their tasty menu items.
After arriving in Bowmanville, we made our way to the abandoned POW camp and started to explore.
Zach making his way into the first building at The Bowmanville POW camp also known as Camp 30. The building was a government owned school that was converted into a Prisoner Of War camp for WW2 German prisoners. Now it lies in ruin, a perfect site for a photo adventure.
Inside there were BMX riders making the most of the secluded spot to practice tricks on a makeshift ramp.
Fancy a dip in the pool?
The surroundings of the camp are beautifully overgrown.
Natural light spills through another building.
Going up?
The attic.
There isn’t anything left to break in this place so vandals might be a little disappointed.
Kiss me? Creeeeeepy.
Heading back to the car.
Bush bashing! It can do that too!
Heading home. Goodnight Honda. It’s been a long day.
Article and Photos by Dale Tidy
