IN PHOTOS Northern lights dance across the night sky in southern Ont.
From London, to Mildmay, Collingwood and St. Thomas, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
Penny Oleksiak cemented herself as Canada's ultimate summer Olympic Games competitor with an unexpected medal in the pool Wednesday.
Her bronze in the 200-metre freestyle for a sixth career medal makes the 21-year-old from Toronto her country's most decorated summer Olympian.
"I just love the Olympics," Oleksiak said. "I think they're so fun. Just knowing the whole world is watching is super crazy."
She surpassed the five medals of rowing's Lesley Thompson-Willie and track and field's Phil Edwards.
One more medal and Oleksiak would move ahead of speedskater Cindy Klassen and speedskater/cyclist Clara Hughes into Canadian sport pre-eminence.
With more races to come in Tokyo, Oleksiak didn't have time to think about her place in history.
Defending a gold medal in the women's 100-metre freestyle and two more relays will keep her on the hop at the pool.
After claiming her bronze in the morning, Oleksiak swam the 100 heats in the evening and advanced to the semifinal.
A 16-year-old Oleksiak won gold in the 100-metre freestyle, silver in the 100-metre butterfly and a pair of freestyle relay bronze five years ago in Rio de Janeiro.
She anchored the women's 4 x 100 freestyle relay team to silver Sunday for a fifth medal.
"I don't think I'm here by chance," Oleksiak said. "I think every time in Rio I got a medal I was like 'I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky' but I think now I have a lot of confidence in my training and I know that I've put in a lot of work."
She didn't race the individual 200-metre freestyle in Rio, although she anchored Canada to bronze in the 4 x 200 relay.
Wednesday's final in Tokyo was just her second internationally after placing sixth in the 2019 world championship. What Oleksiak has discovered about the distance is it hurts, a lot.
"My legs are killing me right now," Oleksiak said afterwards.
Gold medallist Ariarne Titmus of Australia set an Olympic record of one minute 53.3 seconds ahead of silver medallist Siobhan Bernadette of Hong Kong in 1:53.92
Oleksiak led at the first turn, but was fourth at 150 metres. She clawed her way back into podium position and held off a late push by China's Junxuan Yang to touch the wall in 1:54.7.
"I knew it was going to be a dogfight and I was just happy to be a part of it, as weird as that sounds," Oleksiak said.
Oleksiak's medal was the fourth produced by the Canadian women's swim team in as many days following the relay silver, Maggie Mac Neil's butterfly gold and Kylie Masse's backstroke silver.
The Canadians are discovering they haven't lost ground to their competitors during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though they were out of the water longer than any other top-10 swim country in the world in the spring of 2020.
"Every country dealt with it differently and Ontario did not deal with it in the most ideal way for us, but for Team Canada, it's insane how many of our athletes, pretty much all of them, are coming in every single day positive, ready to race," Oleksiak said.
"I love that. It's really motivating for me."
Tokyo's Olympics were postponed from 2020 to 2021 because of the pandemic. June's domestic trials were Oleksiak's first real races in 15 months.
While she learned to appreciate huge volumes of training at Toronto's Pan Am Sports Centre in the absence of competition, racing gets her blood going.
"I'm just really happy to finally be here and get to race and get medals," Oleksiak said. "I love pressure a little bit, I guess. When I know it counts, I know I'm able to kind of show up for it."
Oleksiak posted the sixth-fastest time in the 100-metre preliminaries. Toronto's Kayla Sanchez also qualified for the semifinals in 10th.
Oleksiak sat out the 4 x 200 freestyle relay heats Wednesday, but she's expected to be inserted for the final Thursday morning (Wednesday evening in Canada).
Katerine Savard of Pont-Rouge, Que., Rebecca Smith of Red Deer, Alta., Marie-Sophie Harvey, of Trois-Rivieres, Que., and Sydney Pickrem of Clearwater, Fla., qualified Canada by finishing fourth in the heats.
The women's 100-metre freestyle final is Friday and Sunday's final swim session includes the medley relay.
Pickrem, who is a dual citizen with parents from Halifax, was sixth in the 200-metre individual medley Wednesday.
Markus Thormeyer of Delta, B.C., qualified for the men's 200-metre backstroke semifinal.
Toronto's Josh Liendo and Calgary's Yuri Kisil placed 14th and 15th respectively in the men's 100-metre freestyle semifinals.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 27, 2021.
From London, to Mildmay, Collingwood and St. Thomas, here are some highlights of Friday night and Saturday morning's northern lights display.
A cyclist turned herself in and received a fine after striking a four-year-old girl who was crossing the street to catch a school bus.
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
The Netherlands' contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest was dramatically expelled from competition hours before Saturday's final of the pan-continental pop competition, which has been rattled by protests over the participation of Israel.
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
In the quiet and leafy Vancouver neighbourhood of South Cambie, best known for its botanical garden, playoff fever is about to set in.
Evan Bouchard scored 5:38 into overtime and the Edmonton Oilers bounced back for a 4-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Friday.
Biden wants the 2024 election to be a referendum on Trump's record and plans, but he also wants voters to look favourably on his own policies and actions
Irresponsibly using a credit card can land you in financial trouble, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew says when used properly, it can be a powerful wealth-building tool that can help grow your credit profile and create new opportunities.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.