Oh Canada!
The Source
I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about Canada. I’m fairly certain that it sits on top of the United States and that its residents enjoy hockey. Like many visitors to the U.S., I’ve only visited the east and west ends of their country. Vancouver Island and Niagara Falls are probably as piddly a sampling of their country as those described by European visitors to our country who tell us, “Yes, I’ve been the States. I saw California and New York.” So when two busloads of Canadians climbed aboard our riverboat at Peoria last week I was a bit out of my zone of knowledge. They seemed to walk normally and they dressed just like us. They came from the second-largest country in the world so felt as if should be able to show some knowledge of these northern neighbors. Long story short, Canadians know a heck of a lot more about us than we know about them. This particular group had traveled down from the Ontario area (wherever that is), visited Chicago then traversed Interstate 55 downstate to hop aboard the boat, eager to explore the Illinois and Mississippi rivers on an authentic paddle wheeler. Before I get into the gory details, let me say that in my three years of helping host groups on the river cruise, I’ve never met a more delightful group of folks. It’s not fair to generalize about a nation of 34 million people from my sampling of 140 vacationers, but I’ll do it anyway. I loved the Canadians. They look upon decaf coffee as some sort of aberrant deviation from normal sipping One lady even asked me, “What’s in the orange pot?” I guess that the colder winters and longer nights require a stiffer quaff. These folks were at aghast that recycling wasn’t a federal requirement. Sadly, we don’t recycle on the Spirit of Peoria and I spent three days telling folks to throw their plastic cups in the regular trash bins. Frankly, I could never come up with a good reason for our lack of concern for the environment. Telling them that over half the nation regard recycling as some sort of liberal/communist conspiracy didn’t quite seem the proper tact. They were a bit amazed at the friendliness of the Americans they encountered on their journey…even in Chicago! No media give a true account of our nation, but the TV shows that come wafting over the border to Canada had somehow led them to believe that we were a bit more crass, a great deal louder, and definitely less hospitable than the flesh and blood Yankees they’d run into. Believe me, there was not a hint of snobbishness in this discovery, just delighted amazement. Okay, I must admit that the peculiarities of their language and pronunciation did tickle me. I spent three fruitless days trying to get them to say the word “about” instead of “aboot,” and it became a running joke among us. Perhaps the funniest moment of their three day cruise was one warm morning I spent on the top deck chatting with three ladies about the rivers they’d seen. I felt I was in the middle of a Ping-Pong match, but instead of a plastic ball, the Canadian ladies were using the expression “Eh?” “The Saint Lawrence is a big one, eh?” “Eh!” “Eh!” “And the Ottawa? Wild, eh?” “Eh! Yeah it is! Eh?” “Eh?” I thought for a moment that they were doing a parody of their own northern speech patterns…a Maple Leaf version of Saturday Night Live, but these ladies were for real, and quite hilarious. Eh? Again, generalization is a dangerous game to play, but I must admit that although most of the group was aged sixty and upward, their penchant for whiskey began shortly after breakfast and lasted all the way to St. Louis. Remarkably, no matter how many Canadian Club and Cokes I served, I never saw one of the group the least bit tipsy. Perhaps the large quantities of caffeinated coffee served as some sort of antidote. Travel should be an education for the journeyer, and this time it was me who did the learning. Among my new list of facts: The term “American” should not be used to describe only residents of the U.S., you can exist in a bilingual country quite nicely, we tend to worry our northern neighbors a bit, and whiskey can be the perfect compliment to a morning omelet.