Barney the Beaver & Canada Day

So, Barney the Beaver and I are going to celebrate Canada Day together. It is not that we are enamoured with each other’s company, but there doesn’t seem to be anybody else around to celebrate with. That is, nobody with an intricate sense of Canadiability, as compared to those who simply try to politely empathize with our Canadian sentiment. The problem, it appears, is that I am way out  here in the desert, and Barney... well Barney made a wrong turn somewhere. I mean, when was the last time you saw a beaver in the desert? And unfortunately, contrary to common belief - and this may surprise you - beavers don’t really know how to party.

I thought balloons would be a nice touch, but Barney vetoed that. Something to do with the death of a family relative. And even though he knows that I don’t like to drink alone, he just wants some wood to chew on. That wouldn’t be all that bad, if it weren’t for the splinters I found in my whiskey.

So, how does one celebrate Canada Day down in the desert? Actually, Canada Day is rather new for me. When growing up, we called it “Dominion Day”, and the real celebration with barbecues and firecrackers was on Victoria Day. We were still struggling for a Canadian identity at the time. But we can see how far we have come now that the newly wed Royal Couple are coming to celebrate Canada Day with us - on their first international visit. (Barney has a secret crush on Kate, but you didn’t hear that from me.)

You do miss out on things in the desert. I’d actually sell out my soul and celebrate the 4th of July here with Americans, if only for the hot dogs and baseball in the park. But all of the Americans seem to be on holiday, and there is no softball sized park. Barney claims that he is known as “homerun Barney” because of the wicked swing of his tail. I don’t think we will be putting this to a test, though, any time soon.

I discovered last year that I could listen in to some of the celebrations live - straight from Canada. The only problem is, these celebrations start late evening - Canadian time - which is the middle of our night. And Barney told me that he is not staying up past 10 p.m. - our time. Something about getting up early to build a dam. I told him to be sure to hurry, for it could rain again in October. That’s another thing about beavers: no sense of humour.

But still, it is good having Barney around to celebrate Canada Day with. He is dressed appropriately with his Canada scarf and Canada tuque. He also knows quite a few Canadian ditties, although his voice does tend to screech, at times. A case of wood indigestion, from what I understand.

I hope the rest of you are getting ready to party.

Just how English are you?

 Don’t you love ambiguous sentences? One of my favourites is “The peasants are revolting.” Interpretation often depends on your point of view. Sometimes we even miss the ambiguity. We can roll these linguistic creations around on our tongue and dissect them, right down to their deep structure. I used to love creating and labeling each structural node, drawing out of it a new branch, or a series of branches. Life made sense then, in first year Linguistics, until we were told that we were studying something which had already been discarded, Chomsky opting out for something much more abstract.

So, what does “English” mean for you? For some, it is just a language. For others, it has also historical and geographical connotations.

Watching the preparations for The Royal Wedding, I was reminded of the early years - my early years, that is. Canadians were just beginning to believe that they deserved a unique identity and culture. No attempt had been made to teach Canadian history before then. We learnt English (British) history and world history. Most of the few TV channels that we could receive were from the American side of the border, and what Canadian channels we did receive showed little Canadian content. Our exposure to literature was the English classics. A successful Canadian artist was regarded as an oddity (“Do you know that Lorne Green and William Shatner are Canadians?”) And even then, they could only reach stardom when they went to the States to live. We didn’t have our own flag, or anthem, and had to stand for the playing of “God Save the Queen” at public events. Which caused endless embarrassment for my parents, as I would slump back into my seat, grab a hold of the arm rests, and refuse to get up. “David, stand up!” my mother would urge in a hushed voice, giving me a gentle nudge with her foot. “She’s not my queen!” I’d mutter in return, sitting proud for Canadians everywhere. I believed, then, that I was a part of an invisible band of Canadian rebels, about to overthrow the monarchy on Canadian soil with such brave acts of defiance. And when, a few years later, our high school introduced an experimental scholastic literature program of “contemporary literature”, including not only Hemmingway and Steinbeck, but also contemporary Canadian authors, I credited this directly to my efforts.

But it was only after I had left Canada that Canadian culture came into its own. Wayne Gretzky, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Second City, the Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour has Sixty Minutes… Suddenly successful Canadian artists, both in Canada and abroad, weren’t such a rarity anymore. Actually, it was often the case that I left a better world behind me after leaving. My parents got their first colour TV and a new washer (and very first) dryer after I left the house. But this was not always the case. The kibbutz was privatized after I left – actually the whole kibbutz movement fell apart. And Toronto never did win the Stanley Cup again. But I already told you that (although it is worth repeating).

So, how does the emergence of a real Canadian culture affect the Canadian perception of The Royal Wedding? After the fairy tale wedding extravaganza of Charles and Diana, a marriage which turned into a disaster, can anyone look at the upcoming wedding without at least a touch of suspicion? And maybe we should even ask ourselves if  the English Monarchy still holds any relevance for Canadians, at all. It appears that the older generation, who watched Elizabeth change from a young, somewhat naive monarch into a stern, yet commanding Queen, feels that the monarchy has exerted a significant influence on Canada as a whole. But for those of us who know the Queen only as a somewhat humourless and dour personality, very similar to a high school English teacher I once had, we see no reason for the monarchy at all, at least not in Canada. And yes, we were among those who were amused by Trudeau’s famous pirouette.

A lot of it is about presentation. Maybe William and Kate can be cute enough as a couple to convince people, not only in Canada, but also in England, that there is a reason for the monarchy to continue: Kate with her fashionable, attractive look and William with his awkward boyish British charm, somewhat similar to Hugh Grant in any one of his many movies. But will any of this matter if Charles is still to become King after his mother’s death, unless she outlives him out of spite for what he put her through with Diana? Neither Charles nor Camilla are about to win anyone over, let alone a nation. Calls are already being heard to appoint William as next in the line of succession, instead of Charles. Follow up on the excitement of The Royal Wedding, they say, as well as the Oscar buzz around “The King’s Speech”.

Otherwise, the monarchy may finally be recognized for the dinosaur it is, and we may be left with only a democratically elected Parliament in England – a scary thought, indeed. Oh, but then we have the House of Lords. So all is not lost.