My recent trip to Canada filled me with joy. Here’s why …
Lakes, mountains and Indigenous wisdom
I was gobsmacked by the natural beauty of Waterton National Park, the Rockies and Algonquin Provincial Park and, despite it being the height of the tourist season, I felt blessed by their serenity. One of the best interpretive centres was at the UNESCO site Head-Smashed-In at Buffalo Jump where I learned that the First Nations people drove buffalo into “drive lanes”, dressing up as coyotes and wolves. The Blackfoot tribe also understood and respected the earth and its abundance, wasting little.
Wildlife
From the tiniest northern cardinal to the biggest grizzly bear, there is a lot to love about Canada’s wildlife. I was lucky enough to see a grizzly and two black bears (separate sightings), beavers dragging branches to build their dam, snapping turtles, a moose, several loons, woodpeckers, chipmunks and hundreds of mozzies. I’m grateful to the people who’ve safeguarded the ecosystems that support these creatures. Not so grateful to the woman whose supersized bun of brown hair made me sing nervously and fumble for the bear spray!
Authors
Everyone knows Margaret Atwood because of The Handmaid’s Tale – but Canada has a truckload of other marvellous authors as well. In fact, it was Elizabeth Hay’s novel Late Nights on Air that inspired this trip – giving me the desire to paddle a canoe on a Canadian waterway (which I’ve now done). Local writers whose works I read while travelling included David Vann, Nina Riggs, Elinor Florence, Lorna Crozier and Cecily Nicholson. You might also want to check out Anne Michaels, Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Esi Edugyan and Dionne Brand. Powerful stuff.
Maple syrup and poutine
Maple bacon, maple biscuits, maple syrup … all things maple got my thumbs up. The Canadian cousins told me years ago that maple syrup is graded according to scales based on its density and translucency, and that the grade makes a real difference. Yep! Poutine combines French fries with cheese curds and brown gravy and, while many Canadians adore this junk food, I think it should be sequestered for the loggers of times past who worked in sub-zero temperatures and needed the calories.
Trees
So … Many … Trees. White Spruce, Rocky Mountain Fir, Yellow Birch, Sugar Maple, Trembling Aspen. Massive and magical, I loved the sound of wind in their branches, the textures of their bark, and the luminosity of their leaves. Most of the old-growth White Pine trees I expressed thanks for in Algonquin Provincial Park were between 250 and 300 years old. They’re threatened by fungus and logging but I’m hoping local conservation groups can convince the powers-that-be that these ancient wonders should be saved.
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