Moosejaw Radio: Part 4: Crepes and Cigars and Spiders! Oh MY!

Moosejaw Radio

Chapter 4: Crepes and Cigars and Spiders! Oh My!

• OMG! Ottawa! Am I Right?
• Crepes, Crepes, Crepes
• Amerigo Vespucci Iniates Centuries of Angst
• Stranger, Stranger Things

A lot of folks think that Canadians have a collective chip on their shoulders when it comes to dealing with their neighbours to the south (or north if they live in East Windsor, Ontario), but this is not really true.  Sure, they sew red maple leafs on everything they own so that no one confuses them for Americans when they're traveling.  And it’s true that you can’t have a 5-minute conversation with anyone from Toronto without them bringing up random Canadian pop-stars, or the fact that Canada repelled two invasions from America (including one led by Benedict Arnold – more on this later).  But is this really enough cause to foment national petulance?  I think not, but either way I drove in to Ottawa in the late evening hours to the glorious Chateau Laurier determined to sort it out. 

Our first morning's agenda in Ottawa was brief: 

• Get some Canadian Currency
• Crepes & Poutine
• Checkout the Parliament Building
• Buy Cuban Cigars

OMG! Ottawa! Am I Right?

Ottawa is beautiful.  We explored the neighbourhood around Parliament Hill and Major’s Hill Park, enjoying the lovely river views (and yes, of course I was wearing my Washington Capitals hat!).  We bought a piece of artwork from a man at the edge of the park who employed the heretofore unknown (to me) medium of magnifying glass + sun + balsa board to show his love of sun, country, and humanity.  A kind of benevolent hippie-jingoist if you will, who was not opposed to a pocket full of toonies. 

Crepes, Crepes, Crepes

Then we nailed down the crepe place we would be visiting several times before we left.  One of my daughters has a diet which is 27% nutella, and 33% whatever nutella goes on, with a fruit remainder.  Crepes are an excellent nutella conductor we’ve found, and my daughter would roll with that menu three meals straight all week long if we let her.  After breakfast we strolled down to ByWard Market and bought assorted knick-knackery and some Cohiba Siglo VI cigars.  Lately, I’d been trying to work cigars and jazz into my social repertoire as what I was hoping would be strong maturity indicators – I have not detected any improvements yet.

Engraving of Italian Navigator Amerigo Vespucci

Some of  the tension between Canadians and Americans stems from the perception that people who live below the 49th parallel somehow appropriated the word “America”.  The fact is, that the name was erroneously assigned to all of the lands of the New World by cartographers in the mid 1500s on the strength of the somewhat dubious reports of a Florentine adventurer named Amerigo Vespucci.  Vespucci’s narratives, published in two booklets in the early 1500s, cast himself as an early and frequent navigator of the largely unknown lands to the west.  His exploits were widely accepted on the strength of his publications at the time, but at least two of his self-declared voyages have been strongly controverted by scholars in the years since.  The florid descriptions and detailed accounts within his attributed booklets led map-makers of the age to believe that Vespucci himself was the discoverer of the new lands, hence his name on their maps and 500+ years later, his name on the continents as well.

When Thomas Jefferson et al, declared 13 former British colonies in the Americas, The United States of America in 1776, they were not excluding other entrants.  In fact, it was assumed that many citizens of Canada would readily join the lower colonies in breaking from the Crown.  We all know what happens when you assume though, so rather than join their brethren and light the fire of democracy for the world, they upheld the old world order.  Thus citizens of the 13 colonies left the British Empire, becoming Americans.  Some Canadians call Americans "Usonians" to avoid legitimizing the historically correct term.  I think professionals call that Avoidance Behavior.   

Maman, by Louise Bourgeois Photo: Sheba Farrin 

Stranger, Stranger Things

There’s a great deal of fabulous public art around the city of Ottawa, including a giant spider sculpture we visited, created by artist Louise Bourgeois and titled Maman.  Yup, French for mum, and let's not all run at once for our digital Freud manuals, BUT, I think we can all agree that there is something there.  The sculpture stands more than 30-feet-tall, with spectrally thin, arched legs, and a steely 8-eyed visage angled toward the ground, which makes the spider look like it’s drawing a bead on something.  It seems like it would be a great spot for depositing passed-out fraternity brothers or napping children.  Or anyone with strong attachments to the horror series Stranger Things.

Speaking of the 80s, by far the boldest act of anti-American propaganda put out by the Canadian government in the history of our two nations was a tourism ad run in the early 80s with the tagline: “America Borders on the Magnificent”.  Brilliant really, I loved it.  However, written explicitly in that pithy line the Candians pretty much declared their forfeiture of any use of the word "America" or "American" to describe their part of the continent, didn't they? 

NEXT: Moosejaw Radio PART V: Quebec Has Lots of Water    PREVIOUS