Street scene in old Quebec City.
Ron Dobson sounded hurried when he answered my phone call July 1. It was Canada Day, and like our Fourth of July, the celebration was keeping him busy as owner, publisher, editor, reporter, and probably ad sales too, of the Flin Flon, Manitoba Reminder.
I had called to find out how our Canadian neighbors were doing during this summer’s fire season, for a news story in MinnPost. A week later I called back and we had a nice chat. He sent some photos to help illustrate the news story. In typical Canadian fashion, he said to identify him only as a reporter.
In reporting the news story, I learned about Flin Flon, a mining town of about 5,000-plus, straddling the border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan about 460 miles north-northwest of Winnipeg. If we thought last summer was bad for smoke and air quality, they nearly lost their town. Another small town about 20 miles away, Denari Beach, was destroyed. A year later residents are still trying to rebuild.
Last summer, wind and dry weather caused smaller fires to combine, and limited roads in remote areas can be cut off, hampering both evacuations and firefighting efforts. This summer, fires farther north forced evacuation of Lynn Lake, called the ‘sport fishing capital of Manitoba’. By Wednesday more than 800 wildfires were burning in Canada.
In recent years the U.S. has been very neighborly in sending much aid, including equipment and personnel, to Canada to fight wildfires. Another neighborly act would be for the U.S. to restore its efforts and participation in addressing climate change. Weather is a primary factor in causing wildfires, lack of rain and too much wind. We can only hope that our political leaders in the near future will restore weather forecasting resources, and respect for science.
Northern neighbors
Last week’s Substack post about ‘Land of Neighbors’ could be broadened to include Canada. When we are complaining about the smoke from Canadian wildfires, let’s also remind ourselves about the good things from Canada, except maybe for poutine. Soggy French fries and cheese curds covered in gravy remains on the questionable list.
Some of our most memorable travel experiences occurred in Canada, as much for the people as for the natural scenery and historic sites. Taking a ferry from Port Angeles, WA, to Victoria, driving through British Columbia, enjoying the charm of Banff, learning the history of Moose Jaw or Quebec, or standing on the border somewhere in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
Visiting Quebec, the service at our hotel came with cultured class, and the breakfast crepes delicious. At a roadside stand along the King’s Road (Chemin du Roy) from Montreal to Quebec, we bought the best strawberries, attended by a young girl happy to practice her English on some tourists.
Art and culture, too. I have been reading some of Alice Munro (d. 2024), a 2013 Nobel Laurate in Literature. And who can forget Gordon Lightfoot? The story of his ballad about the Edmund Fitzgerald is well-told in a recent book by John U. Bacon, The Gales of November – The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The book is about much more than the Fitz. Its extensive background about Great Lakes shipping and its history would enlighten anyone who enjoys seeing the ‘lakers’ enter the Duluth harbor. The ballad plays constantly at the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI.
If Britain had prevailed
Canada Day, July 1, ‘celebrates the anniversary of the 1867 Canadian Confederation, uniting the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a single dominion. Formerly known as Dominion Day, it marks the British North America Act establishing Canada as a self-governing entity within the British Empire’. The holiday was officially renamed Canada Day in 1982, the same year Canada gained full legislative independence from the British Parliament.
So, early on even if Canada did not immediately escape the clutches of Great Britain, things seem to have worked out okay. The parliamentary form of government is much more efficient. They don’t have almost continuous and expensive election campaigns. They have a king in Great Britain, but one with no real political power. They have universal health care, and a much nicer national anthem.
Like the TV series, “The Man in the High Castle,” where the Nazis won World War II, what if we could imagine a similar outcome of the Revolutionary War.? If the British had prevailed, what might have been the consequences for the colonial states? Less dystopian than ‘high castle’, today perhaps we would benefit from the aforesaid, especially, having a king with no real power.
We may have avoided the Civil War. In 1833 Britain passed the Slavery Abolition Act. Today we muddle along, still dealing with racism. We have created an imperial presidency where the current occupant wants to be king, a privatized health care system designed to enrich corporations and billionaires, dysfunctional political parties, and long election campaigns spending billions seeking to manipulate voters instead of informing them.
While Canadians also have their political differences, they seem to remain cordial and even deferential. Driving across Ontario we stopped at a small café looking for some take-out sandwiches. Since they did not take cards for payment, we had to pay in U.S. dollars and take the exchange rate hit. A man standing behind us in line, a local real estate agent and also the mayor, offered to pay for our sandwiches. We declined the offer but thought it was very neighborly.
