The Real Canada

I spent the morning in the city, banging up hard against incoherent rules and regulations designed for an infantilized public.  Two hours wasted, and nothing accomplished.

To make up for that, this afternoon I took Sybil out for a slow burn around some of the smaller towns outside of the city’s cultural sway.  Bragg Creek: off the beaten path, it’s full of well-built homes and good people.  I can’t get enough of this town, and I’ll drive out there whenever I have the chance.  It’s got one of the best bars in the country, filled with friendly staff and regulars who aren’t scared of some bylaw officer’s guillotine hanging over their necks.  They’ve got a used bookstore full of old tomes, and a gas station full of camping supplies.  It’s about an hour out of Calgary, butting up against Kananaskis Country, surrounded by evergreens.

After that I rode the beast up to Cochrane.  That town’s a bit too civilized, some might say, as it undergoes the slow morph into a bedroom suburb, but despite that it’s still an honest place to live.  As I sat there sipping my Tim Hortons coffee, leaning back on Sybil’s fuel tank, I watched the different folks hanging out there in the parking lot with me; smoking, sitting on the bed of their trucks, or just passing through.  Their clothing was clean and low-cut, to take advantage of the week-long burst of sunshine we’ve had, but it was practical not flashy.  Even the pair of sports-bikers who pulled up had the dignity not to dress like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.  This is the Real Canada, I thought to myself.

And it got me thinking on where our culture comes from.  Not from Pierre Trudeau or Hockey, as some might suppose; the one is a historically-recent political development, the other a contemporary pass time.  No, the true wellspring of our culture is the Hudson Bay Company – it’s trappers and traders surviving in Northern Ontario’s hostile climate, the shrewd Natives exchanging pelts for a hundred times what the original trapper had asked, upping the price at each juncture along their continent-spanning trade route.  It’s Winter, and Railroads, it’s stalwart Acadians and the passionate Québécois.  It’s faithful service to the Empire during two World Wars, and it’s a people who’ve always judged a person by the product of their trade, not the vagueries of their past.

The Americans have their cowboys and entrepreneurs; risking it all on land speculation and Adventure Capitalism.  In Canada we work as a team, offering a hand up when needed, and paying back the debts we owe.  No Socialism for us, no petty laws and bureaucrats.  We live off a land that is starkly beautiful, but harsh to the unprepared.  We live in far-flung towns, outside the purview of law enforcement but confidant in our neighbour’s sense of Honour.

We’re Canadians: we stick by our kin, deal fairly with others, and if need be we’ll take up arms and be the first into battle.  And when the struggle’s won we’ll retire back to our homesteads, for there’s work to be done.

Here’s hoping all of you spent the day somewhere warm and safe, surrounded by your people.

Happy Canada Day.