Pay attention: There will be a quiz!
This Sunday, July 1, is an important day for America’s northern neighbor. It’s Canada Day. Happy Canada Day, everybody!
I wish I could tell you how Canadians actually celebrate this, but it’s one of many things about Canada that Americans know nothing aboot — I mean, about. Aside from a few clichés about beer, ice hockey, tar sands and the metric system, Canada appears to us as a vast, uncharted land mass. Most of the time, it’s simply invisible to us.
Canada is almost never mentioned in our news. It is almost never mentioned in school. We don’t get Canadian TV unless we live in a border town. Most Americans have never been there, and we rarely, if ever, meet any actual Canadians in our country.
We have, at least, heard of Canada — and having been there myself, I can confirm that Canada exists. But I had to go there to find that out. I grew up less than 300 kilometers from the border, without the slightest idea of what was up there.
Our own ignorance is only part of the problem. The other part is that Canadians have mastered the art of camouflage.
They walk among us
Canadian actors have lived among us for generations. Some, like William Shatner and “Jawbone” Sutherland, are best known for playing characters with a strong American identity. In films, the Canadian city of Vancouver regularly pretends to be Los Angeles, while Toronto often masquerades as New York City.
This is absurd. Why can’t a story be set in Vancouver? Why doesn’t Toronto market itself to US tourists? No Canadian I know would ever want to be mistaken for an American, so why do they disguise their cities?
Canadian films and TV series do exist. I’ve seen them; they comprise at least a third of the on-board entertainment on Air Canada. Wikipedia names hundreds of Canadian actors and actresses. Yet the only Canadian TV series I can remember seeing in the US was SCTV, which in this segment was basically a parody of rural Canada:
It would be so educational for Americans to learn more about this mysterious country. It has a different system of government; more colorful money; exotic sports, like curling and lacrosse; two official languages; a single-payer health-care system; and a very different history. We don’t have to copy any of it if we don’t want to. But it helps just to have a comparison.
Are Canadians afraid of us? We did march in and burn down their capital 200 years ago, but we haven’t really bothered them since then. Do they find us overbearing? The Canadians I’ve met are all polite, not pushy or attention-seeking. Are we envious of them? A study done this year shows that Canadians are among the world’s happiest people. They’ve also avoided national traumas like our Civil War, Vietnam War and 9/11.
Song parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic seems to have put his finger on things when wondering how anyone could be as nice, all the time, as Canadians seem to be. In “Canadian Idiot” (a parody of Green Day’s “American Idiot”), he suggests Americans might be the ones who are afraid.
“See the map? They’re hovering right over us!
To tell you the truth, it makes me kind of nervous.
[We] always hear the same kind of story:
[You] break their nose and they’ll just say ‘Sorry!’
Tell me, what kind of freaks are that polite?
It’s got to be they’re all up to something. …”
How much do you know about Canada? Take this quiz.
1. How many people live in Canada?
12 million
35 million
67 million
2. Which of these actors is not Canadian?
Pamela Anderson (Baywatch)
Jim Carrey (The Mask)
Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City)
Harrison Ford (Air Force One)
Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future)
3. Which of these films was not shot in Canada?
American Psycho
Brokeback Mountain
Chicago
New York Stories
Rumble in the Bronx
4. Which of these Canadian words is also used in the United States?
First Nations
governor general
toonie
toque
zamboni
5. Which singer is not Canadian?
Justin Bieber
Alicia Keys
Avril Lavigne
Alanis Morissette
Neil Young
6. What does Canada Day recognize?
Canada’s independence from Britain
the union of Canadian provinces under the British
victory after the US invasion
Answers
1. 35 million
2. Harrison Ford
3. New York Stories
4. zamboni
5. Alicia Keys
6. the union of Canadian provinces under the British
Notes
- The story of Brokeback Mountain took place in the US state of Wyoming, but filming was done in the Canadian province of Alberta.
- Jackie Chan’s Rumble in the Bronx was filmed not in the Bronx, but in Vancouver. You can see mountains in it that New York does not have.
- A zamboni is a machine that refreshes the ice surface on a hockey rink. It is named for its inventor, who is from California.
- First Nations are Canada’s native peoples.
- The governor general is Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada.
- A “toonie” is a two-dollar coin.
- A toque is a knit hat.
- Alicia Keys is American. She was born in New York City.
- Canada Day refers to July 1, 1867, when the provinces of Canada were formally united within the British Empire.
