Canada Day

Canada Day is coming in two days. On July 1^st, 1867, the British North America act took effect. There had been prior incarnations and political reorganizations of Canada, of course. For forty years, discontent had rumbled through Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) as the citizenry called for “responsible government.” And even after 1867, much reorganizing of what Canada was would take place.

But when July 1 comes and I think about what I like about my home country, politics rarely comes into it, even though I live in Ottawa. What do I love about Canada?

• The wide open prairie – I was born there. I can't tell you how cool it is to watch a thunderstorm punishing the ground seventy kilometers away, while you stand in total sunshine. Or to watch a blood red moon rise over the grain.

• Growing up in Orleans ...but I grew up here, in a small town (now part of Ottawa) that was then still very francophone. Learning to make taffee on the snow, skiing down the straight drop behind our house (my brother and I made ski jumps)... all things that contribute to who I am, even though they are long past.

• The Great Lakes – probably Canada's longest coastline. I have so many memories of driving the great lakes' shores to Saskatchewan as a boy, and finding cool rocks for my rock collection. They aren't really lakes at all, truth to tell, but freshwater seas. They look like the ocean, with pounding waves and water to the horizon. My parents live on Lake Ontario, and I thrill at every chance we get to visit them.

• The Gatineau Hills in the fall – there are the Stonehenge-like ruins on the McKenzie King Estates, there is the steam-train to Wakefield, the bike-paths, but above all the red and orange fire of the turning oaks and maples, up, down, all around you.

• The mountains of Vancouver Island – big stone peaks rising high into the sky, taller than any office tower (and far more impressive.)

• The highlands of Cape Breton Island – up and down the Cabot trail, the highlands afford you every varied Ocean vista you can imagine, and a few you can't. I remember staring down, waaaay down at a tiny, tiny whale watching boat surrounded by even tinier Pilot whales. The sea dwarfs everything.

• Hopewell rocks – in the Bay of Fundy are the world's biggest tides, rising and falling up to sixty feet. At low tide, you can walk between the mushroom rocks on the ocean floor and count the hermit crabs and urchins.

• The St. Lawrence River – a mighty, mighty river, so wide east of Quebec city that it might as well be one of the Great Lakes – you cannot see the other side. A river with Islands so big (in the Thousand Islands) that there are towns and farming communities on them. A river where the Belugas swim and whale watching boats go out.

• Flying over the rocky mountains – there aren't words for it, other than maybe 'Wow!'

• Endless wilderness – I remember flying over Britain on a trip home years ago, and seeing how every shred of land was parceled up into squares. We passed over the whole country in about a half hour. Then when we hit our shores, there was forest.... and more forest, and more forest. There were a few logged patches and a few roads carved through the trees, but these were tiny compared to the endless miles of unspoilt green.

People speak of national pride when they talk of their countries. I can only think of humility, for to be blessed with living in a land of such abundant beauty there can only be great gratitude to God for allowing me to be born and live in such a place. Pride would only apply if I had something to do with it!