Originally Posted by el_richo

Does anybody play Swingball over here?

Originally Posted by Oink

I have been known to pop down to Kitts and knock a tennis ball about with some cradles to get rid of a hangover. Actually a mate of mine has a younger brother who's a professional Canadian tennis player, my mate didn't get the athletic genes in the family.

Originally Posted by Oink

I have been known to pop down to Kitts and knock a tennis ball about with some cradles to get rid of a hangover.

Originally Posted by el_richo

Does anybody play Swingball over here?

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

Of course, it depends on where within the GTA you are (access is easier from the outer suburbs than from the downtown core) but here's my take on your questions from the perspective of Oakville and the western GTA.

Hiking: the Bruce Trail is a pretty good walk, and eventually I hope to have covered it end to end, small pieces at a time; sections locally, including side-trails, run through some of the regional Conservation Authority lands and include some great hikes of anything from a handful of kilometers to a half-day circular trek. The Bruce Trail itself runs all the way from Niagara up the Bruce Peninsular, for over 500 miles through a mixture of public land, conservation areas, and some private property. There are also a number of provincial parks and other conservation lands where hiking (and cross-country skiiing or snowshoeing in winter) is easily accessible for suburbanites.

Time on the water: there are any number of sailing and powerboating clubs of varying degrees of exclusivity and expensiveness, most of which offer summer moorings and winter haul-out/storage services. There are also lots of boats on trailers in driveways. Many municipalities have public slipways, with varying fee structures for use. There is a certificate of operator competence for boating (for any boat with a motor, even an auxiliary motor for a sailboat) which was introduced a few years ago and, by all accounts, is policed quite fiercely. Boats with engines bigger than 10hp also require registration. Lake Ontario is big and carries commercial shipping; there are myriad smaller lakes where rules for pleasure craft (engine size, speed limits, rules for towables) vary enormously.

Scouts Canada is a thriving organization (I've been a volunteer leader for a few years now). Programmes are probably quite different from those in Aus or NZ - for obvious reasons, a lot of emphasis is placed on winter scouting and watercraft. The Scout organization owns a surprising amount of property in southern Ontario, and camps are extensive and varied. Winter camping, under canvas in properly cold weather (best I've done yet is daytime highs of -18, nighttime low of -30-something), is surprisingly good fun! Most groups meet weekly in school gyms or church halls; there aren't many groups that own their own meeting spaces. Annual fees are pretty reasonable, with additional costs associated with adventure training or camping activities on a per-camp basis. Scouts Canada is fully co-ed, though there are some groups (mostly in places where there is a strong Girl Guides company) where there are few girls registered.

Can't give you a steer on costs for competitive swimming programs, but the Town of Oakville does group and private swimming instruction at its pool facilities following the Lifesaving Society's graduated programme - usually around $75 for a course of 8 half-hour group lessons. There are both privately-run swimming clubs and the town's aquatics club who provide competitive swimming stuff, and have furnished a handful of Olympians in past years. Some of my neighbours' kids swim competitively with Oakville Aquatics, and swim meets seem to include just about every other municipality in the GTA, so you pays your money and you makes your choice...

As for cultural stuff, there are countless options. My kids all participate in the local children's choir, so that takes up quite a lot of non-sporting leisure time. There are active theatre groups, plenty of art studios offering instruction... As for "places to visit" we have been to all sorts of events at a nearby Country Heritage Park; there's maple syrup festivals in the early spring; museums and galleries are a bit hit-and-miss but it depends what you're used to (having previously lived within easy reach of the South Kensington museums and the Tate/NG/NPG in London, I found Toronto's ROM and AGO a bit parochial...) But there are some surprising hits - my OH, who thought she'd be deathly bored by it, really liked the Radial Railway museum north of Milton. As for over-popularity: we've stopped going to some of the more popular hiking trails on public holidays - it rather destroys the tranquility of the countryside when you have to queue up to walk along the path!

Originally Posted by Pine Cone

What sort of activities do kids do on winter camps in order to keep warm enough?

Originally Posted by el_richo

Most Canadian kids smoke weed to keep warm on the winter nights

Originally Posted by el_richo

Most Canadian kids smoke weed to keep warm on the winter nights

Originally Posted by Pine Cone

Clean living is what all the cool and hip youths are doing these days, and no doubt that'll spread to the new world countries within the next few years.

Originally Posted by dbd33

I'd bet a spliff against that.

Originally Posted by Simon Legree

If I knew what a "spliff" was I'd bet against it too !

Originally Posted by Pine Cone

Not that different to half the British kids I grew up with then. It's a phase. Clean living is what all the cool and hip youths are doing these days, and no doubt that'll spread to the new world countries within the next few years.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321

I think you under estimate the popularity of pot with the youth and not so youth in Canada.

Even the hip so called clean living people you will find smoking pot or using pot.

It's too mainstream to be just a phase.