PARIS MAY be the City of Lights, but come midsummer, Toronto can lay claim to the title City of Chinese Lanterns. From July 31 through Oct. 12, the city’s lakefront amusement park, Ontario Place, will host the third annual Chinese Lantern Festival.

Traditional silk and paper lanternmaking dates back thousands of years, but this event, which coincides with the Chinese Moon Festival, gives the art a decidedly modern spin. It takes 60 craftsmen and craftswomen roughly 10 weeks to assemble the steel-framed displays and decorate, using everything from porcelain spoons to compact discs - and about 100,000 lights. The festival centrepiece is the brilliant Porcelain Pagoda - 11 metres high and 18 metres in diameter - made from thousands of porcelain bowls, spoons, plates and teacups. The other 30 lanterns will be based on three themes: Wonders of the World, Animals and Dinosaurs.

Admission to the festival, which also includes live entertainment, food and Chinese movies shown on a six-storeyhigh screen, is $25 for adults and $20 for seniors and children 4-12. For more, visit chineselanternfestival.ca

— Allan Britnell

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TIME AT Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site in Nova Scotia is typically frozen in the year 1744 - on the eve of the first British invasion. But this season, the clock moves ahead 14 years, to the summer James Wolfe and his British expeditionary force captured the French fortress for the second and final time. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of that pivotal event in Canada’s history, the fortress and the town of Louisbourg are presenting a summer-long celebration that features wine-tasting dinners, boat and kayak tours, picnics, parades and treasure hunts. But the highlight, on July 25-27, is a huge re-enactment of Wolfe’s encampment and battle, in which hundreds of people portraying military and civilian French, British and First Nations will stage an evening siege at the fortress for the first time. The whole thing wraps up with an 18th-century-style fireworks display. And if that doesn’t get you close enough to history, budding archaeologists can take part in two week-long public archaeological programs on the fortress grounds in August. For more information, visit Louisbourg2008.com.

IN THESE DAYS of increasing green consciousness, golf course superintendents are beginning to think as much like environmentalists as landscapers. And at The Royal Ashburn Golf Club northeast of Toronto, “golf green” means more than just a flawless patch of grass.

Beyond employing chemical-reduction principles adopted by most modern courses, superintendent Dave Paterson and his team think outside the environmental box. They no longer treat areas around creeks and ponds with pesticides and fertilizers, instead allowing nature to take over. The practice encourages an environmentally sensitive boundary, which creates a natural filtration system and fosters a healthy home for frogs, salamanders and other amphibians.

But more obvious to golfers are the 26 birdhouses mounted around the 202-hectare property to attract bluebirds, a species in recent decline. This spring, Paterson and his team will also add a number of mallard nesting boxes, giving the ducks a place to call their own.

“We’re not only trying to create an experience golfers will enjoy,” says Paterson, “we’re also thinking about the big picture.”