Well, it IS shaped like a hockey puck, isn't it?

It is time to take on the most significant cultural artifact in the entire country. No, it is not CBC. It is not the first recording by Celine Dion, or Maurice Richard’s jock strap, or tickets to the Stratford Festival. No, no, no. Canada’s most significant cultural artifact is, without doubt, the donut.

Canadians consume three times as many donuts per capita as Americans. The largest donut franchise in Canada, Tim Hortons, has nearly 3000 stores. Apparently there’s a donut shop in Canada for every 9,700 people (which is, sadly, a better ratio than that of doctors to patients in some countries). Canadians consume more donuts per capita than any other country in the world (which is probably one of the reasons we’ve needed a doctor to inhabitant ratio of about 1:470). Whether this consumption is admirable or pathetic, I will leave to you, Dear Reader, but let there be no doubt that Canada has another claim to being #1, numero uno, top banan, er, I mean, donut. Top donut. That’s us.

The question is why? My first theory is that the lowly donut looks an awful lot like a hockey puck. In Canada, that gives you instant street cred. Looks like a puck—gotta be good! Why else would ex-NHL hockey player Tim Horton have gone into the donut business in the first place except for a deep, unconscious desire to be around edible hockey pucks for the rest of his life. Some cultures go for edible underwear, Canadians follow a different drummer....My second theory is that if you dunk the donut in coffee, it acquires the added capability of warming you up and, because Canada can be f-ing cold, warmth is good. Also, it’s fattening and because, as I said, Canada can be f-ing cold, fat is good. Third theory: because Americans eat less of them, Canadians would naturally want to eat more. Trumping all these, of course, is the possibility of freezing ‘em, painting ‘em black and—voila!—you’re ready for a hockey game.

(Don't tell anybody, but if you look closely at the Canadian flag, embedded in the maple leaf you can notice the faint outline of a donut--honey cruller, honest.)

The American Embassy

I go to the American Embassy to renew my passport. Not having been there since before 9/11, I walk up to the front entrance only to discover a small sign that says Please enter through the Sussex Street entrance. As I start to walk around the building, I notice the amount of barriers present. After 9/11, the Embassy requested that the city put up waist-high cement barriers to eliminate an entire lane of traffic in front of the entrance. Behind the cement barriers are fat posts placed into the sidewalk strong enough to prevent a car from crashing through, and behind that is a high steel fence running around the entire building. If this is what protects the Embassy in Ottawa, I can hardly imagine what protects the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Walking around the building, I can’t help but think the barriers are a wee bit of overkill. I arrive at the back and discover there’s a small entrance where two lines form, one for people needing visas and one for Americans needing Embassy services. No one is in the American line, so I go up and the guard tells me I can’t enter with my shoulder bag. I head back to the car, toss in my shoulder bag and return, ready to be escorted into a small screening area like at an airport. I pass through the screening area no worse for the wear except I’m minus my keys (which they will hold until I come back out), pass through a small courtyard and into the Embassy.

Passport services is down the hall and to the left. A woman who provides the passport services is behind some thick glass at one end of a small waiting area. I go in expecting to see a picture of President Obama, the 44th President of the United States. There isn’t one. Was I mistaken that they had one for Clinton? Against one wall, I notice a framed piece of information. It’s from the U.S. Selective Service from 2001, and is informing its readers that there is no plan to implement a draft at this time. Uh? I hadn’t heard much from the Selective Service since I was in my teens during Vietnam. Then, on a different wall, is another piece of information, from 2002, telling American citizens to be aware of the potential threats against them because they are American. Why are they still up? I begin feeling like I have entered an edifice of fear. The Embassy seems like an homage to a single emotion. I want to tell it to relax a bit, to breath deeply. If I knew where its shoulders were, I’d give it a back rub. Has nothing changed since 9/11? Is the Embassy caught in a time warp from which it can’t escape, or is it there of its own choosing? Or am I--a left-leaning, peace-loving border mongrel--a naive soul not willing to admit we live in a dangerous world?

Days later, I head down to Atlanta on business. I notice again how the Alert Level announcements have stopped. No more Orange threat levels, no more reminders to watch abandoned bags or your fellow passengers. That's a good change. Soldiers en route are still commonplace in the airport, but what’s clearly gripping people is the economy. The TV monitors in the waiting areas are tuned to the news. Are the “green shoots” real? Is housing coming back? My bible, the U.S.A Today, is full of grim economic reports. Same diet, different flavour. What’s the cost of feeding people fear for so long?

Robert McNamara's Gifts to Canada

Though Michael Jackson’s death and funeral have dominated (or should I say obliterated?) the news of late, for many of my generation—who remember Michael when he was but an urchin strutting his stuff on TV—the death of Robert McNamara is a more resonant occasion. McNamara, forever labeled as the architect of the Vietnam War, is a far more complex and historically compelling figure than any entertainer could ever be. Though it was hard to love Robert McNamara--technocrat, rationalist, planner par excellence--he was, in his own unintended fashion, generous to Canada.

A few day ago I got together for coffee with a friend who came north as a Vietnam draft dodger. Canada had a generation of young American men who crossed the border and made their lives here. My friend migrated to Montreal, got a job loading aircraft for Air Canada, learned French, married a francophone, and has published three books of well-respected poetry. He is but one of the 20-30,000 educated youth who came north rather than be shipped to the war McNamara was overseeing.

There’s a long list of draft dodgers who contributed significantly to Canada. They were fortunate to arrive in a different era and a different politics. Soldiers who have recently sought asylum in Canada, so they don’t have to serve in Iraq, have been turned down. In July of ’08 Canada deported a U.S. soldier for the first time. What McNamara bequeathed to Canada many years ago, and Canada courageously accepted, Bush and Rumsfeld bequeathed again albeit in smaller quantities. This time however, Canada’s courage failed.

July 4th and Marvin Gaye's Star Spangled Banner

The hype over July 4th doesn't cross the border much, and that's a good thing. I don't miss it. My way of celebrating is simply to tune out all the noise about Michael Jackson and go to YouTube and type in Marvin Gaye National Anthem. There you can watch and listen as he re-imagines the anthem at the '83 NBA All-Star Game. You can also watch him sing it in '79 at the Ernie Shavers and Larry Holmes title fight. Though Marvin hadn’t fully re-imagined the anthem then, in some ways that video is its own a compelling portrait of America—two black brothers getting ready to pummel one another as a third sings the anthem in front of soldiers holding the flag. Diana Ross—whose duets with him were marvelous—was in the audience along with, of course, a whole bunch of wealthy white folk there to watch the proceedings. Gaye had opened the decade with his groundbreaking album What’s Going On, music overflowing with angst and despair and hard questions. He followed it with Let’s Get It On which became, among other things, the number one college sex aid of its day. He remained a dominant musical icon until his tragic death at the hands of his father in 1984. I can think of no better way to celebrate the holiday than by listening to one of the nation’s great artists discover--in an anthem that marching bands have long since turned into noise--nuance, redemption and soul.

Oh Ca-nadaaa, our home and tra-la-la...

I write on the eve of Canada Day. Earlier in the day a call from a colleague in the States confirmed that Americans don’t know a thing about Canada Day (okay, it's a small sample…but she has lots of friends!). Our informal poll concluded that, while probably 95% of Canadians know about July 4th, maybe 2% of Americans know about Canada Day. That’s so typical of Americans, my friend said, if it’s not about us, we’re not interested. Yes, that might sound like a serious indictment of her fellow citizens, but which is worse: not being interested in other countries or not being interested in your own?

A poll just released about how much Canadians know about Canada reveals we don’t know much. Only 31% of Canadians could name the previous Prime Minister—yikes, that’s not much of a short term memory; only 16% knew the country’s longest river (I assume more Americans would be able to name the Mississippi), and answers varied widely as to when Newfoundland joined confederation. The poll apparently didn't ask what percentage know the words to the National Anthem. While everyone knows Canadians love not-being-American, I’m not sure how wild they are about being Canadian. This isn’t new news, but there’s something a wee bit disheartening to have it reconfirmed so close to Canada Day...

Wait! Hold it, stop the presses--I'm guilty of seeing Canada through my American eyes. Canadians are wild about being Canadian. It's just that they're Canadian, so it doesn't look particularly wild. Now we're on to something! Tomorrow I'll go down to the celebrations on Parliament Hill and, watching the mild-mannered festivities, I'll remind myself this is wild patriotism, Canada-style.

National Canoe Day

National Canoe Day

Tomorrow is National Canoe Day in Canada. That’s right. National Canoe Day. It would be the equivalent, I suppose, of a National Auto Day in the States if there were such a thing, a day for celebrating that mode of transportation most defining one’s national sensibility and aesthetic.

Canada is in some respects a child of the canoe, which opened up its interior long before a rail ever crossed it. Rivers and lakes were the canoe’s highways, and though there may have been no tolls, there were hellacious bugs, bears, weather worth swearing at. The fishing was free, the maps were marginal, solace was an evening fire and some tobacco. It is tempting to wax romantic over that bygone era but then I stop and realize the era may be gone but, for the most part, the rivers and lakes remain.

Those rivers and lakes are, in fact, the reason I first began coming to Canada. No kidding. I’d guided canoe trips in Maine and in northern Minnesota and heard there was a vaster and more remote wilderness north of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Sure enough, I heard the call of that wild and went; it was rugged and empty and gorgeous. Because I wanted to paddle in places not many had paddled before, I’m now a citizen in a country that celebrates the canoe.

It is a quintessential Canadian day. It may seem a bit quirky, a bit quaint, but it is more than just nostalgia. It is a small way to recognize not only those voyageurs and aboriginals of old, but also those young Canadians who are getting ready, even as I write, to head out to summer canoe camps to learn the way of the canoe.

Perhaps they will master the artistry of paddling on a calm lake so it looks elegant and effortless, subtle, if not sublime. Perhaps they’ll learn how to draw the bow into an eddy, fry up some trout or, best of all, sit in absolute silence as the sun sets over the rocky point where they’ve made camp. And then they’ll hear the cry of a loon. And another loon will answer…the sky will darken, revealing its cathedral of stars. As the campfire crackles behind them, they’ll realize there is no place on earth they would rather be. And sitting there, they are brethren to all who’ve gone before.

Balsillie versus Bettman

Up here this is BIG news. Canada’s RIM billionaire, Jim Balsillie, wants to buy the failed Phoenix Coyotes hockey team and move them to southern Ontario. Gary Bettman, NHL Commissioner, is against it.

Let’s get back to basics. Phoenix is in a desert. It is, as I’ve said before (Dec. 21, 08 entry), the hottest city in the world with a population of a million or more. Hockey, last I looked, is played on ice. I, for one, want hockey to fail in Phoenix for the same reason I’d want beach volleyball to fail on Baffin Island: some things just don’t belong together.

Gary Bettman, American businessman raised under the tutelage of David Stern in the NBA, is simply, as most Canadians will tell you, the wrong man for the job. He gets hockey even less than me, who at least grew up in Boston when Bobby Orr was working his magic. Gary Bettman sees markets and tv contracts and dollars in places where there are lots of people but, alas, no hockey fans. It doesn’t take an MBA to know the NBA is no model for expansion.

Listen Gary, you want your dreams of NHL expansion to work? Then look to water when it freezes—that’s expansion. And it happens every winter all across Canada, on ponds and backyards, on the canal running through the nation’s capital. You want real expansion? Bring back the Winnipeg Jets! Bring back the Quebec Nordiques!...Then you'll have fans who actually know the difference between icing and a cake.