Happy Canada Day, Fellow Canucks

I love the English-French translation in the lower-left corner.

 

Interesting linguistic difference. In America, we call that the lower right corner.

 

From the New York Times.....can't find a link that I can post, so I'm just gonna paste the whole damn thing:

Today, on Canada Day, 11 Canadians living in the United States share what they miss most about home.

UNTIL 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day. I always thought that had more of a ring to it. Beyond the zippy alliteration, it reminded us citizens that our domain of orderly domesticity was graced by the dominant power of our “Dominus.” And the rights granted therein to us by the glorious English crown through her colonial appointee, the right honourable governor general.

There was another problem with Dominion Day. Dominion was the name of a national grocery store chain. It would be like calling the Fourth of July D’Agostino’s Day.

Independence (now there’s a great name for a day!) came slowly to our country. In 1965, we dumped the old, staid British ensign for our own new flag. It's the one with the big red maple leaf in the middle. A simple, sweet leaf! We also have moose and beavers on our coins. And we call our dollars loonies because the coin has an image of a loon. Another old bird, the Queen of England, is on the other side of the coin.

I remember singing “God Save the Queen” every morning in school. “Long live our noble Queen!” we belted, thousands of us tubby little obedient Canadians. I guess it worked. She’s still alive. Now they sing “O Canada” in schools and at most sporting events; usually in French and English. Around the time we were changing anthems, dumping ensigns and renaming holidays, the official use of both languages became mandatory, except in Quebec where the required use of English is a bit fuzzy.

Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn’t bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn’t big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.

Canadians defer. We save our loonies and don’t jaywalk. It’s illegal, eh. We stand on guard at red lights, even when there is no traffic. We wait for clear, green governing lights to signal our turn and lead us on. Then we tuck our heads down, under wooly toques and worn-out scarves, one eye barely open, squinting headlong into the harsh prairie wind, cautiously, quietly, demurely Canadian.

— RICK MORANIS, a writer and actor

There is no contest about what I miss most about Canada. It is universal medical coverage. Just thinking about it, and its absence here, can send me into complete despair. But Canada Day is no time for tears, so instead I offer my First Runner-Up of Things Canadian Most Beloved: After Coffee Peppermints from Second Cup, a national chain of coffee shops not unlike Starbucks. I have no idea if the coffee is any good. I’ve bought only the mints, which come in cunning tin disks that open and close with a satisfying snap.

These mints are, in a word, sublime; they are stronger, mintier and more refreshing than anything else on the market. Some of my (American) friends have to spit them out. Even their dimensions are more pleasing than other peppermints. Thicker than average, with mildly pillowed surfaces on top and bottom, they possess a muscularity bordering on belligerence, befitting their palate-cleansing brawn. And so tiny! More pharmaceutical than confection, they feel (almost) medicinal.

— DAVID RAKOFF, the author, most recently, of “Don’t Get Too Comfortable”

I miss the pride and simplicity of a national literature, which probably wouldn’t exist without government support. We even have a name, CanLit, that people use without fearing they’ll sound like nerds. In America we tend toward novels published specifically for one narrowly interpreted demographic. CanLit is an unassuming place, very welcoming to immigrant writers, and since it doesn’t dice up readership according to profile there is a national conversation about literature, like a big book club.

And I miss Winnipeg’s winters, which any Winnipegger will tell you is ridiculous. Nonetheless, I miss the winter sun on snow and ice, the blue sky too cold for a scrap of cloud, and clear air like a healing draft so strong that too much will kill you. Walking in such weather is necessarily walking meditation, every breath sears with cold, every footfall in the snow crunches and squeaks. My expatriate sorrow is that the weather has become warmer and the government colder since I left.

— SARAH McNALLY, a bookstore owner

Living just south of the border, in Upstate New York, I have easy, regular access to the non-pasteurized cheese, veggie pâté and late nights of my hometown, Montreal. But it’s the Canadian mosaic, which is fundamentally different from the American melting pot, that I treasure most. That mosaic makes the coexistence of Francophone and Anglophone cultures possible — and makes me both a proud Montrealer and a patriotic citizen of Canada, as it is the country that has supported Quebec in remaining so unique.

— MELISSA AUF der MAUR, a musician

Back home, hockey highlights lead off SportsCenter. That is the height of civilization.

— SEAN CULLEN, a comedian

The gourmets say there isn’t a native Canadian food worth remembering after you’ve left the country. The gourmets have never bitten into a Coffee Crisp.

A Coffee Crisp tastes like Canada to anybody who grew up gnawing on that confection, a memorably crisp blend of coffee cream, cookie wafers and milk chocolate as wholesome and satisfying as the Canadian national anthem. It was a square-edged rectangle, like a brick, wrapped in a yellow-going-to-gold paper that seemed to elevate its value above all rival confections. It was unlike other chocolate bars.

I say “was” because no sooner had I left Canada than its originator, Rowntree’s, was absorbed into the giant international food conglomerate Nestlé. Soon enough, factors beyond the ken of the layman led its new owners to “improve on” the faultless original. Coffee Crisps were reshaped to be longer and slimmer and, as the infallible taste buds quickly revealed, reformulated to be less crisp and less coffee-flavored. Nestlé next undertook to expand the brand: Coffee Crisp Orange, Coffee Crisp Raspberry, Coffee Crisp Café Caramel, even Coffee Crisp White and, God save us, Coffee Crisp Yogurt.

But even in its diminished form, the classic Coffee Crisp still ranked superior to all the sticky-sweet American “candy bar” alternatives. I’d snaffle up half a dozen on a Canadian visit and wolf down a couple right away, just to make sure it wasn’t all just nostalgie du chocolat. It wasn’t. Taste memory never fades.

The demands of homesick Canadian expatriates were finally answered, circa 2006, when Coffee Crisp made its debut south of the border. But Nestlé’s efforts at carving a niche in the United States, alas, seemed half-hearted. I never saw an ad, and found only one seedy neighborhood hole-in-the-wall that even sold Coffee Crisps; the single box was all but hidden down on the bottom row of the candy display rack near the dust kittens and lottery-ticket stubs.

A month later the box was still there, its contents by now grayish and moldy and stale with age when the wrapper was torn away. In another month the box was gone. Coffee Crisps slunk back out of the American market in 2008, as quietly as they’d entered.

I suppose the Coffee Crisp debacle proves yet again that Canadian products — with the notable exceptions of Bombardier jets and half the comedians in Hollywood — just can’t compete in the American big time. But all visiting Canadian relatives and friends arrive at my door with pockets mysteriously bulging, or they won’t be let in.

— BRUCE McCALL, a writer and illustrator

In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. And you weren’t very nice to the Loyalists. What I miss most about Canada is getting the truth about the United States.

— MALCOLM GLADWELL, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of “Outliers: The Story of Success”

In Canada’s Pacific Northwest, where I grew up, the beaches were strewn with thousands of fugitive logs that had escaped the water transporters bringing them down toward the prospering lumber sawmills and pulp and paper factories all around Vancouver Island.

On our gray sand shores, those shaved logs became home to insects, birds and small rodents and made great hiding places or impromptu tents. A favorite childhood game was to see who could traverse the most beached logs without ever touching the sand.

As teenagers, we’d drive out to the beaches with our sleeping bags in tow, stack up smaller moveable logs and build bonfires before bedding down to sleep protected by those fallen trees.

— KIM CATTRALL, an actress

I miss the Szechuan Chongqing Restaurant in Vancouver. You can’t get Dai Ching bean curd or bean sprout chow mein anywhere else. I’ve looked far and wide. Nowhere to be found. Vancouver nails the Asian food.

On the other side of the coin: the city has the worst pizza. To be fair, it’s more like a tie for last with every other Canadian city. In fact, I miss how charmingly terrible the pizza is. It’s like watching a preschool ballet recital.

— A. C. NEWMAN, a musician

I miss the “u” in color. — LISA NAFTOLIN, a creative director

I miss the snow. Yes, I know the United States gets snow, but to my Canadian eye, American snow is like American health care: sporadic, unreliable and distributed unevenly among the population. In my hometown, Exeter, in the heart of Ontario’s snow belt, punishing squalls were a fact of life from November through mid-April. One time, 39 inches fell on the town in three days — and school wasn’t even canceled. And it wasn’t just the quantity of snow — it’s the speed with which it arrived.

When I was a child, it wasn’t unusual for my 15-minute walk home from school to begin under clear skies and end in a blizzard. I remember once, when I was 8 years old, stumbling into my house, my hair covered in powder and my eyelashes frozen together, and screaming, “Why do we live here?!” My mother took my face in her warm hands and said, “Because it’s where people love you.”

At the time, that struck me as the lamest statement ever uttered by a human being. But today, as I sit under the California sun, it only strikes me as halfway lame, and maybe even less than that.

— TIM LONG, a writer for “The Simpsons”

 

I miss Coffee Crisp.

 

Was at the game yesterday with Huggy Jr. and one of my buddies. Loved those red jerseys, conveniently available for sale in the Jays Shop for $200+.

Oh yeah, and Coffee Crisp kicks some serious ass.

 

This thread makes me wish I were Canadian, and given my Cajun roots, it's possible I am.

 

Oh holla ... you ain't lived until you've seen apple blossom season in your area of Canadian origin, Frenchie.

 

Sirs, Madames,

If you want to feel like most Canadians, start by trying to hate Toronto.

Funny, had this conversation yesterday (and some on this board will disagree) about Torontonians thinking they were Torontonians first and Canadians a semi-distant second. (I noticed a hell of a difference between, say, Toronto and Ottawa.) And, yeah, when I'm travelling in Canada I generally have to apologize or feel shunned if I say I'm a Torontonian. Exceptions: Newfoundland (if it's your round, you're okay) and off-the-beaten track in Quebec if you make an effort to speak any French.

I'm sure it's comparable to the reception New Yorkers get.

o-<

 

I am so loading up on Coffee Crisp when I am up in Canuckistan next week. Forgot the tasty goodness that is the Crisp.