The weather was blue when we left Toronto, east on the 401.

In Canada we take long distances in stride, raised on the notion of vastness. The wilderness is still out there. In spite of all our scraping and cutting – it’s still bigger than we are – and we know it.

I remember a mercator projection of Canada in grade two, six years old. My anchor was that map, five feet wide, hanging in a roll above the chalkboard. I remember my teacher, spring, 1974, pulling the plastic ring at the end of a cord, unfurling the map, four feet deep. I remember the short, sharp tug needed to stop/start the map rolling itself back up.

We sang O’Canada every morning. Our teacher said;
“This is a map of Canada. There are ten provinces and two territories.”
She told us Canada was the second largest country in the world.

She wanted to get across to us the scope of it all.
I had already tasted the distances involved. We moved regularly.
West coast. Prairie. Upper Canada. East coast…

We hit the snow somewhere near Kingston and came out the other side, 400 kilometres East.

We tripped East again to Ville Marie.

Nous avons marché vers le haut sur la montagne
et nous sommes rappelés Jésus de Montréal.

What strangers in a strange land we all are.

United in our identity crisis’, landed here by our ancestors,
brought by histories and circumstances, we are all one and the same.

Je me souviens aussi.
Que vous rappelez-vous ?