Canada and Canadians- a subject dear to my heart, and clearly yours, or you wouldn’t be here. Whatever you want to know – it will be here, all lovingly labelled for easy identification. I know, how Canadian (read: polite) of me. It reminds me of a joke that gets to the heart of the Canadian stereotype as polite to a fault:
Q: How do you get a Canadian to apologize?
A: Step on his foot.
Okay, well — jokes aside, I should note before I get to far that I do borrow liberally from a great book that I have been reading lately, How to Be a Canadian
NAME: CANADA (spelled C, eh … N, eh … D, eh)
LOCATION: We are America’s toque. Located between Greenland, Russia and our neighbours to the south – the U.S. Of course, 90% of huddled around the southern border for warmth.
POPULATION: 30 million or so, I don’t know exactly. Is Google broken or something? Geesh, do I have to do everything around here?
SIZE: We are really big. Like anywhere I suppose, size matters in Canada. It is however considered rude to point out that although the country is indeed huge, more than half of it is frozen year round. This is the ‘I burned your fries so I gave you extra’ school of thought. Gee, thanks God!
CURRENCY: Once the laughing-stock of the currency market, the now mighty Canadian dollar is the pride of well, North America. It does indeed come in a vast array of colours for easy identification, which explains are confusion when visiting the US and facing a pocketful of identical bills. Quite frankly, our way is WAY better when you are drunk, which I assume was the motivation. We no longer have a dollar bill, but a one dollar coin, the ‘loonie’ (it has a loon on the side) and a $2 coin, which of course in known as the ‘twoonie’. There was a recent report that we would be coming out with a $3 coin known as the ‘hat-trick’ which sadly only turned out to be an April Fool’s joke. Yes, I’m serious, our national mint plays jokes on us. Wow – those wacky Canadians!
NATIONAL ANTHEM: Well, officially it is ‘O Canada’ but it is pretty widely recognized to actually be the theme song from ‘HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA‘.
NOTABLE CANADIANS: Well, like many countries I suspect – who is considered famous within Canada does not exactly line up with who is famous outside of Canada. For example, a typical Canadian would likely mention Don Cherry, David Suzuki, the Tragically Hip and Stompin’ Tom, to name a few off the top of my head. However, for the rest of you who have no idea what the hell I am talking about, I’ll submit the following: Pamela Anderson, Dan Akroyd, Nickleback, Jim Carrey, Tommy Chong, William Shatner, Mike Myers, Celine Dion, Michael J. Fox, Avril Lavigne, Peter Jennings, Leslie Neilson, Howie Mandel, Alex Trebek, Norm MacDonald, the Barenaked Ladies, Seth Rogan, Keifer Sutherland, of course I could go on but I think you get the idea.
Well, I think that will do it for this lesson. We have a lot left to get to: history, the provinces, Canadian cuisine, culture, hockey, politics, beer and SO much more. Please keep those questions coming in and I’ll answer them all as we get to the topic. Until then, class dismissed and cheers!
Source: Canucklehead
1 response so far ↓
Chris // June 1, 2008 at 4:25 am
For shame, for shame, you left out one of the biggest Canadian icons there is: not only a former hockey player and a Hall of Famer, but proprietor of one of the greatest chains in restaurant history, one that you can’t go more than a block anywhere in Ontario without finding, including 80 in Hamilton (five years ago, I’m sure it is in triple digits now)…the one, the only…Tim Horton.