Downshifting
We're off to Canada next week to kayak in southern Ontario, a trip we haven't made for several years. Various recollections rattle around in my head as I try to remember everything we have to bring.
At Ithaca College they had an Erie Canal display that observed that In New York state, seven out of every eight people live within something like ten miles of the Erie Canal route (if one includes the Port of New York in that calculation). In Ontario, a similar ratio lives a similar distance from Lake Ontario, the St Lawrence, and their chief tributaries. Step beyond this and you are truly in the boondocks.
When we made our third trip in three years up I-81 and over the bridge at Wellesley Island, we were greeted like regulars. The inspector, while welcoming, knew where we were from and in general where we were going almost before we presented our papers. I'm prepared to say we never saw the same Canadian border person twice, so the only explanation is (gasp) metadata. Bite me, Edward Snowden! The chief difference isn't whether nations collect information, but how sunk in paranoia a given nation is. Canada is a nice country, and understandably they'd like to keep it that way.
That recalls another comparison that eludes Americans, who generally approach Canada with the same dewy-eyed sentimentality they apply to many other foreign countries. This is a top-down government, to an extent most Americans would never tolerate. It is less so than most European nations, but there's a distinct difference when compared with the US of A. The result is when something really needs to get done, it usually gets done, and with far less sturm und drang. Most Americans bleat and whine about that sort of thing being an infringement on their rights, but I put it to you that Canadians are possibly freer, and certainly less anxious about their rights, than Americans. Government there seems better able to learn from its mistakes. That I think comes in part from a parliamentary form of government, run by the direct political descendants of the people who invented it. That and having a country without discernable imperial ambitions. (We may get onto Keystone as an exception to that rule some time.)
(Any time I have come back to the US from Canada in this new century, I experience a wet-blanket feeling that begins at the border, with immigration inspectors who have raised paranoia to an art form as much as has the TSA. No wonder the new agency acronym is ICE.)
Other things. Where we stay, one has to remember that people don't "Goh Owt," but "Ga Oot:" a lot like "Uncle" Lyn from Glasgow. Yes, they say "eh." Don't try to imitate it, though: I don't think short-term American visitors can manage the offhandedness, eh? Southeast Ontario is Loyalist country, and American flag-wavers get the same bored, scant tolerance that your oversize idiot cousin gets when he tries to start a food fight at the family reunion.
We were last at the place we're staying in 2006, the depth of the Bush years. That tolerance was rubbed pretty raw here and there. I hope that's gotten better, if only because we're behaving better.
One can get poutine there, also pizza, and often from the same places.
Ontario has provincial liquor stores, called LCBOs, like New Hampshire's. Unlike New Hampshire, LCBOs also have a beer monopoly, and fairly short hours. I learned during the first of these trips to bring a six-pack to tide me over until my schedule matched the local LCBOs. When we arrived for the second trip, I had a six-pack of craft IPA and declared it. The Canadian inspector seemed pained that I didn't select the local product, and since then I've been careful to protect my thirst without offending local sensibilities.*
The chief thing one has to remember is not to be in such a goddam hurry. Impatience, not accent, is what distinguishes Americans from Canadians.
The cabin reportedly has Wi-fi now, so I may be able to keep up.
-----------------------------
*Speaking of learning from mistakes, craft beer is appearing in Ontario and finally is in LCBOs at various locations. We can but hope we'll be near some.
At Ithaca College they had an Erie Canal display that observed that In New York state, seven out of every eight people live within something like ten miles of the Erie Canal route (if one includes the Port of New York in that calculation). In Ontario, a similar ratio lives a similar distance from Lake Ontario, the St Lawrence, and their chief tributaries. Step beyond this and you are truly in the boondocks.
When we made our third trip in three years up I-81 and over the bridge at Wellesley Island, we were greeted like regulars. The inspector, while welcoming, knew where we were from and in general where we were going almost before we presented our papers. I'm prepared to say we never saw the same Canadian border person twice, so the only explanation is (gasp) metadata. Bite me, Edward Snowden! The chief difference isn't whether nations collect information, but how sunk in paranoia a given nation is. Canada is a nice country, and understandably they'd like to keep it that way.
That recalls another comparison that eludes Americans, who generally approach Canada with the same dewy-eyed sentimentality they apply to many other foreign countries. This is a top-down government, to an extent most Americans would never tolerate. It is less so than most European nations, but there's a distinct difference when compared with the US of A. The result is when something really needs to get done, it usually gets done, and with far less sturm und drang. Most Americans bleat and whine about that sort of thing being an infringement on their rights, but I put it to you that Canadians are possibly freer, and certainly less anxious about their rights, than Americans. Government there seems better able to learn from its mistakes. That I think comes in part from a parliamentary form of government, run by the direct political descendants of the people who invented it. That and having a country without discernable imperial ambitions. (We may get onto Keystone as an exception to that rule some time.)
(Any time I have come back to the US from Canada in this new century, I experience a wet-blanket feeling that begins at the border, with immigration inspectors who have raised paranoia to an art form as much as has the TSA. No wonder the new agency acronym is ICE.)
Other things. Where we stay, one has to remember that people don't "Goh Owt," but "Ga Oot:" a lot like "Uncle" Lyn from Glasgow. Yes, they say "eh." Don't try to imitate it, though: I don't think short-term American visitors can manage the offhandedness, eh? Southeast Ontario is Loyalist country, and American flag-wavers get the same bored, scant tolerance that your oversize idiot cousin gets when he tries to start a food fight at the family reunion.
We were last at the place we're staying in 2006, the depth of the Bush years. That tolerance was rubbed pretty raw here and there. I hope that's gotten better, if only because we're behaving better.
One can get poutine there, also pizza, and often from the same places.
Ontario has provincial liquor stores, called LCBOs, like New Hampshire's. Unlike New Hampshire, LCBOs also have a beer monopoly, and fairly short hours. I learned during the first of these trips to bring a six-pack to tide me over until my schedule matched the local LCBOs. When we arrived for the second trip, I had a six-pack of craft IPA and declared it. The Canadian inspector seemed pained that I didn't select the local product, and since then I've been careful to protect my thirst without offending local sensibilities.*
The chief thing one has to remember is not to be in such a goddam hurry. Impatience, not accent, is what distinguishes Americans from Canadians.
The cabin reportedly has Wi-fi now, so I may be able to keep up.
-----------------------------
*Speaking of learning from mistakes, craft beer is appearing in Ontario and finally is in LCBOs at various locations. We can but hope we'll be near some.
posted by Uncle | 00:52
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