With a little technical help from my friends (thanks Brad, Josh and Rebecca), I’m back into my boots again.

Someone messaged me to say that being hacked was a form of flattery. Whatever: next time just send chocolate…

I just got back from Whistler where things are ramping up like crazy. Steve Podborski was bringing the torch down the mountain and you could feel the electricity in the air.

This little video by Classified–someone sent me the link via Twitter–says it all: Oh Canada. Go Canada.

Enjoy!

(Oh, and can anyone tell me: is that As It Happens’ Mary-Lou or Barbara narrating?)

Until then I hadn’t realized that in North America, the tradition of wearing a poppy as a remembrance of the horrors of war was unique to Canada.

Since 1921, the Royal Canadian Legion has sold tens of millions of velveteen poppies in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day on November 11. Every year, more than half of all Canadians pin one to their lapels.

It was only by reading the Legion’s online history of the poppy campaign that I learned it was in fact an American teacher, Moina Michael, who first proposed wearing a poppy as an act of remembrance.

She had been inspired by Canadian medic John McCrae’s 1915 poem In Flanders Fields, a haunting tribute to his fallen WWI comrades buried in the poppy-strewn fields of Flanders, Belgium.

At my children’s high school, one teacher made it his job every year to tape poppies to the grad photos of all the young people who had died in service to their country. That particular field of poppies made the vague concept of war very real to me.

In my small community–and in communities across Canada–Remembrance Day is solemnly observed with a minute or two of silence at the cenotaph but also in shops and schools and airports.

Nova Scotian Terry Kelly’s beautiful song, A Pittance of Time, conveys the intensely respectful mood of those impromptu memorials. I cannot watch his video without tearing up.

Do you wear a poppy? Why or why not?

Those who, like me, fall into the latter category do not heed the siren call of those bags of little chocolate bars that seem to be everywhere at this time of year.

We are not tempted to tiptoe into our sleeping children’s rooms and steal from their trick-or-treat bags. Unless…unless there is a small bag of Hawkins Cheezies in there among all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Glosette Raisins. Then the gloves are off.

Made in Belleville, Ontario, with “real Canadian cheddar cheese” and without preservatives, these venerable and delicious neon-orange sticks of crunchy corn meal bear all the hallmarks of genuine comfort food: carbs, crunch and calories.

In fact, they are so incredibly lacking in nutritional merit–a small 45-gram bag contains 25% of your daily fat allowance and 16% of your sodium allowance–that I’m a little surprised they are still so popular.

I eat them anyway and comfort myself that they are so filling I can’t eat too many.

So keep your mere candy. Give me food that schmecks and bring on the Canadian Cheezies.

Only in Canada, eh?

(Disclosure: Sadly, the Hawkins Cheezies people did not give me free Cheezies. But if they did, I’d take them and wouldn’t share.)

It turned up in a gentle piece by Intelligent Travel blogger Andrew Evans, who wrote “The Cutest Kingdom in Canada” about one of those villages–a charming little place called L’Anse-Saint-Jean that was once featured on Canada’s $1,000 bills. In his post, Evans reflects on how the once-struggling town has artfully reinvented itself as a tourist destination and muses:

“Somewhere between total economic devastation and hideous tourist trap, there is a sustainable balance to be struck. The small towns that get there are fortunate–those who aim for that authenticity should be encouraged by [L'Anse-Saint-Jean's] example.”

This notion of the “sustainable balance” between economic devastation and tourist trap hit me hard: I live in one of those rural Canadian towns–Bowen Island, BC–where the angel of cultural tourism is currently locked in mortal battle with the devil of commercial exploitation.

The community is bitterly divided about whether and how it should embrace the tourist hordes. We will lose our authentic rural roots, claims one side. Without a strong, sustainable local economy, we will become a charmless bedroom community, argues the other.

I think both sides are right–and wrong. Witness L’Anse-Saint-Jean: with a strong and shared community vision, it is possible to have your touristic cake and eat it too.

My fear is that like so many other issues on Bowen Island, the question of sustainable tourism will become so polarized that no movement toward the middle will be possible. It would be a shame, since I believe we could challenge our Quebec friends as one of Canada’s Most Beautiful Villages. But we’re not there yet.

Have you visited Bowen Island recently? Do you have an opinion about what we’re doing well–and badly–as a tourist destination?

Do you live in or have you visited other Canadian small towns that have achieved that sustainable balance? What does that look like and how did they get there? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

I remember.

My kids were born in the ’80s and ’90s when cabooses were all but gone from Canada’s train fleets, but that did not stop my son, Adam, from falling into a train fetish that began with Thomas the Tank Engine at age two and ended–well, it has never really ended–with a trip through the Rockies on the Rocky Mountaineer at age 14.

I wish I’d known about James LeFresne’s Train Station Inn in Tatamagouche, on Nova Scotia’s “forgotten” north shore, a little earlier in my parenting career. When I climbed up into the cupola in my own vintage caboose–CN Number 79815—earlier this spring, my first thought was, “I am bringing the grandchildren here.” (This is significant in that I don’t yet have any grandchildren, nor the prospect of some anytime soon.)

This is a great rest stop for train buffs of any age. The carefully restored cars–seven cabooses and a boxcar–are clean, spacious and can sleep up to four people comfortably. And the breakfast room in the century-old Tatamagouche train station (James bought it in 1974 when he was just 18 to save it from demolition) is a veritable shrine to Canadian train history. If you have a Thomas fan in tow–or you used to be one–this is the place to pause on the drive from Halifax to New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island.

You might have seen Tatamagouche recently on TV–star of CBC TV’s The Week the Women Went. The community dock and playground the men built for their absent women–just a 10-minute walk along the tracks from the Train Station Inn–is a great place for a summer picnic…

Enjoy et bon weekend tout le monde!

(And about time, too, given that Calgary, Ottawa and Newfoundland have already weighed in! Who’s next then,  hmmm?)

Three names I go by:
1. Hogtown
2. T-dot
3. The Big Smoke

Three places I have worked:
1. Ontario Legislature
2. Canadian National Exhibition
3. Toronto Transit Commission

Three places I have lived:
1. Casa Loma
2. Campbell House
3. Laurier House
Three TV shows I watch:
1. Hockey Night in Canada
2. reruns of Street Legal
3. Flashpoint
Three places I have been:
1. To the top of the CN Tower for cocktails.
2. Hanlan’s Point for nude sunbathing.
3. Chinatown for hot and sour soup.

Three people who e-mail me:
1. Neil Young
2. Mike Myers
3. Frank Gehry

Three of my favourite foods:
1. Souvlaki from any place that smells like garlic on the Danforth.
2. Hot sausage on a bun from the Carousel Bakery in the St. Lawrence Market
3. Dim sum at the Metropolitan Hotel

Three things I would like to do:
1. Stop listening to other cities whine about how they are bigger and better.
2. Clear up the traffic snarls that effect the city’s streets and highways continuously
3. Win the Stanley Cup

Three things I am looking forward to:
1. Hosting the Olympics one day
2. Being home to many, new luxury hotels
3. An improved and expanded public transit system

C’mon: someone’s gotta do Montreal now…

It means we are either massively overconfident or profoundly insecure–or likely a bit of both.

Sure we’ve grown up in the shadow of a bigger, more confident relation and are desperate to carve out our own identity and territory. But we’ve also learned from the cradle how to get along with the big kids and how to charm the bullies to our point of view. Like little brothers and sisters everywhere, we want to be noticed for who we are. And who we’re not. 

But maybe it’s time to ease up on the aggressive leaf-waving. Because according to a recent BBC poll, Canada is second only to Germany when it comes to having a positive influence on the world.

After interviewing more than 13,500 people from 21 countries, the BBC World Service poll concluded that 57 per cent of respondents viewed Canada positively, while only 14 per cent saw Canada in a negative light–the lowest percentage of any country. (Germany’s equivalent numbers were 61/15.)

So relax with the leaf already.

They know who we are and they like us. They really, really like us.