Some of us have the good fortune of being born in a nice place, others have the wisdom to find it.
Today I'm reflecting on a famous TV commercial I am Canadian that was much loved, and spoofed. Sadly Molson's has since been sold to the extreme right-wing American company, Coors, and "Joe" is an out-of-work actor in Los Angeles.
Hey, I'm not a lumberjack:
But one of my great grandfathers was. His logging rights were on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. When I was a child I walked the log booms out into the river. One day I sat dangling my feet in the water while fishing. I watched a muskie follow my lure in then swerve to take a snap at my toes
Nowadays a company recovers the logs that sunk about 100 years ago
Logs End Someday I'd like to purchase the lumber from one of my great grandfather's logs and have some nice piece of furniture made from it. I'm especially interested in getting the mark that identified the log as his.
My grandmother's eldest brother worked as a lumberjack all his life. He fought WW1 in France. I only knew him as a broken old man suffering Alzheimer's disease. He'd sit by the radio listening to the news over and over again. In his youth he and his brother blew the entire fortune their father had made on crazy schemes like raising cattle in BC. Oh that idea might have been fine in general, but they put their money into a place near 100 Mile House. As a young man I visited there. I was unprepared for what I saw. Tumbleweeds blew across the road as I stepped out of the bus. Their cattle starved and died for lack of water. No one had ever told them there were deserts in Canada.
or a fur trader....
This is something Bridget Bardot and Paul McCarthy's ex will never understand. The North is a cruel land. The original peoples and early Europeans depended upon hunting and trapping. It is part of our heritage. Not that we should just look to the past. In the North and wild places it is part of the way of life. And our national animal, the beaver, got on the coat of arms because of its fur.
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled....
But the Poodagoos do. There are about 100,000 Inuit who live scattered across the Arctic regions of Canada. Many still live on the land. I recommend the award winning film Atanarjuat (the fast runner) When my sister-in-law taught in the Arctic she once had to be rescued from her house when her front door froze solid. My brother met his wife in Yellowknife. They swear there was a private party at someone's home but I like to say they met at the Malamute Saloon.
The Cremation of Sam McGee is still one of my favourite poems. (And I like that it rhymes! Take that you modern poets.) It begins
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell"...
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really really nice.
Of Course! But I once worked with a very nice man named Sam McGee from Grimsby.
I have a Prime Minister, not a president.
Kossacks know this. But it is a bit more than troubling that Stephen Harper would like to be more Presidential.
I speak English and French, not American.
These days we're speaking more languages than just the official two. The archaic "ou" in neighbour is being dropped more frequently do to the default in MS Word. There is a Canadian English spellchecker though. My father-in-law has offered his grandchildren free tuition to take Mandarin lessons. (Americans note your "owe you" , as in IOU these days is to the Chinese, neighbour.)
And I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'.
We don't really believe this is the only difference between Canadian and American, eh?
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
And we would have put our decal on the exterior of the bus if we'd made the World Cup. We are 86th ! We are 86th!
I believe in peace keeping, not policing, diversity, not assimilation,
It is a kind of post-modern notion of nation. Basically I'm in agreement with these statements. Harper seems to think we have some vital national interest in Afghanistan and is swaggering around like his hero George. Let's just get in there. Do the Mountie thing. Keep the peace baby! And get the hell out.
and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
for a broad tailed swamp rat. I loved those Hinterland Moments and SCTV's spoof of them. Here's to you woodchuck! Americans could have had the Turkey as their national symbol if Benjamin Franklin's suggestion had been followed.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, and it is pronounced 'zed' not 'zee', 'zed' !!!!
These truths we hold to be self evident.
Canada is the second largest landmass!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America
Oh, oh. Now this guy is going all rangy on us. Tone it down. What happened to our self-assured modesty? Nice, remember Really Nice?
My name is Joe!!
And I am Canadian!!!
Actually, Paul.
I am Canadian.
Gidday eh.
Check out Douglas Coupland's A Souvenir of Canada
Thank you.
And Happy Birthday to You too, our American neighbours!