By Yusuf Bangura
We had a truly magical experience a few days ago at Niagara Falls, which warrants some reflections on our trip so far in Canada. We couldn’t have asked for a better treat after the remarkable wedding we attended in Toronto.
Since we left Switzerland eight days ago, we’ve enjoyed a fabulous three-day wedding celebration; an unforgettable visit to Niagara Falls; and dinner at the revolving 533-metre high CN Tower. We’ve also been immersed in marine life at Ripley’s Aquarium, enjoyed a delicious vegan meal at China Town, and explored Toronto in an open air two-hour bus tour. We’ve toured the fabulous and car-free Toronto Islands and the world famous St. Lawrence food market. And we concluded our stay in Toronto with a farewell dinner with our hosts at the loft of Joey Restaurant, not far from our hotel at York Mills. We rate the wedding and Niagara Falls as the high points of our visit.
The wedding was a union of Sierra Leone and Jamaica. It deserves recounting for its breathtaking grandeur. We are connected to the groom’s side of the union. The groom’s mum was a childhood neighbour on Campbell Street in Freetown; only one house separated us. And I studied with the dad at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the 1970s. Additionally, the groom and one of his sisters spent a two-week holiday with us in Nyon in 1979 when they were kids. Our bonds run deep.
*An unforgettable wedding*
I’ve attended many remarkable weddings, but the Toronto wedding is one for the record books. It will live long in the memory for its organisation, diversity, splendour, varied activities, sumptuous food, and fun. The entire event was simply a class act.
We were treated to three days of maximum enjoyment. We started with a pre-wedding reception and dinner at the Albany Club (one of Canada’s oldest private clubs), where guests mixed freely and interacted with the bride and groom. I was happy to reconnect with two of the groom’s aunts, whom I hadn’t seen for 54 years.
The wedding took place at the 100-year old St. Clement’s Anglican Church. The processional, readings, hymns, songs and exchange of vows were joyous and inspirational. It was remarkable to see that the ceremony delivered much happiness, love and memory in just one hour.
After the wedding ceremony, we were bussed to the Albany Club, which was a thirty-minute drive from the church, for a fabulous reception. We started with drinks and delicious finger foods in a separate room before proceeding to the grand and elegant hall for the reception.
There were more than 240 guests—all comfortably seated, with their names crafted on nicely decorated cards in the meal plates. The insignia of the married couple, a stylishly designed CW, was engraved on the cards.
The hall was exquisitely decorated with fresh bouquets of roses; magnificent lighting; and pyramids of macarons. A live band provided soft, upbeat, celebratory and high-tempo Western, African and Jamaican music. And the toast givers recounted moving and inspirational stories about the lives of the bride, groom and their families.
Two moments stood out for me at the reception. The first was the stylish entry of the bride and groom into the hall. They both looked mesmerising as they danced to Stevie Wonder’s *Signed, Sealed, & Delivered*. I thought for a moment that I was watching a live musical film.
The second was the cultural display of a select group of Sierra Leonean and Jamaican women, all dressed in nicely designed and glittering ashobi (uniform dress). Led by the bride and groom, the hall was taken by storm at around 11 pm when the ashobi women entered the hall to the sound of Sierra Leone’s vibrating and pulsating goombay music. The atmosphere was absolutely electric. Goombay music is undoubtedly the best music in the world for weddings. Non-Sierra Leoneans reading this can check it out on YouTube.
We returned to St. Clement’s Church the following day to crown the celebrations with an awujo—an endless feast, comprising of mostly Sierra Leonean and Jamaican food: jolof rice, chicken stew, foo foo, crain crain, oxtail stew, salt fish and aki, chickpeas, white rice, and smoked turkey. Before the awujo, the groom’s younger sister and her husband invited close friends and relations to their house for an aperitif. Our Sierra Leonean women looked resplendent in their intricately designed and colourful *kabaslots*—a formal dress, invented by the Krio, worn by women at ceremonies.
*The mighty Niagara Falls*
Although we had listed Niagara Falls as one of the sites we wanted to visit before we left Switzerland, we didn’t draw up a post-wedding schedule. However, we were in such high spirits the day after the wedding that we decided to do something exciting to sustain the momentum. Niagara Falls perfectly fit the bill.
We hired an Uber car to take us to Niagara after discovering that the train and bus service was complicated for first time users and would take about three hours from the main station. Uber cuts the time by half. Furthermore, since we wanted to have lunch at Niagara’s revolving tower, we weren’t sure that a train journey would have facilitated this. The Canadian dollar has also lost much of its value to the Swiss franc, making an Uber ride a less costly proposition.
There are many thrilling things to do at Niagara Falls, including dining at the revolving Skylon Tower and enjoying a panoramic view of the falls, riding antique cable cars over the Niagara river, riding a giant Niagara skywheel, walking alongside powerful rapids, flying over the falls by helicopter, and cruising close to the falls.
We opted for the revolving Skylon Tower and boat cruise. I visited the falls in 1980 when I taught at Dalhousie University in Halifax. I had gone to the University of Guelph (which wasn’t far from Niagara) with a Ugandan doctoral student to attend the annual conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies. We decided to visit the falls after the conference. The Skylon Tower restaurant was very expensive at the time. We didn’t have enough money to pay for a three or two course meal. We only asked for a starter and bread, which we ate for one hour—the time it took for the restaurant to make a complete revolution.
This time we treated ourselves to a three course meal, although the food wasn’t that great. We were lucky to have a very clear day. This allowed us to not only enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the falls, but also see large parts of the US, including Buffalo in Upstate New York.
Kadie almost lost her glasses. She mistakenly placed them on the outer rim of the tower, which held the revolving restaurant. But the rim doesn’t revolve with the restaurant. She had to walk back about ten metres and several rows of seats before she could retrieve them. The tower provides short, factual and interesting stories about the falls on the outer rim, which guests can read as the restaurant revolves.
The biggest attraction at Niagara is the boat cruise. We queued for 50 minutes before we could get on the boat. The panoramic view of the falls from the top of the revolving tower was awesome. However, getting close to the falls and observing their magnificent heights and widths was a totally different experience. It truly was a sight behold. The sound, volume and power of the water was otherworldly. We felt completely immersed in the mist of the Canadian falls. Droplets from the falls generated a beautiful rainbow, making the experience truly magical or heavenly.
Our captain was a highly skilled ferry glider. When we got to the Canadian falls, which were really imposing, we thought he was going to take us right into the falls. He toyed with the falls by gliding forward, backward and sideways, to give us an awesome view. He manoeuvred the boat very close to falls to let us feel the currents, wind and water unleashed by the falls. We felt we were approaching a storm on the high seas.
We’re currently in Kingston, a small city on Lake Ontario, halfway between Toronto and Ottawa.
Yusuf Bangura
Kingston, Ontario
25 July, 2025
Bangura.ym@gmail.com
