Oh, Canada! - Shirley S. Tye

Canadians have much to cheer about.  Besides being known world-wide for our politeness and friendliness, we have many inventions of which to be proud.  To name a few; the foghorn (1854); basketball (1891); insulin (1922); snow blower (1927); walkie-talkie (1942); pager (1949); electric wheelchair (1952); ski-doo (1959); and the Canadarm (1981). Canada is a vast and beautiful country with many nationalities joined together, working together.   

My father emigrated from Finland in searched of work.  He was on his way to Thunder Bay, Ontario (originally known as Port Arthur and Fort William) because he heard that there was employment and many Finns had already settled there.  But on his way, he stopped in Sudbury and discovered that the mines were hiring.  He landed a job and called for the family to join him.  My mother travelled by ship to Canada with one suitcase and three children to tow; a thirteen-year old girl, a boy of seven, and another boy of five.  It was March 1952.  I like to joke saying that my family arrived by boat in 1952 and I arrived that year as well but not by boat.

If I had been born in Finland, I’d be proud to say I was Finnish.  Finland is a wonderful nation as well; a small but strong and determined nation.  Many Finnish inventions have improved life for others.  A few of their inventions are; Nokia mobile telephones; sauna; heart rate monitors used by athletes, IRC (Internet Relay Chat – chat rooms); and the Finns are world leaders in research and development of water use and purification.

But I am Canadian, living in Sudbury Ontario; a city comprised of many different nationalities.  We have many talents and inventions that we’ve contributed to the world. We have a bridge in the city that is lined by flags which represent the various ethnic groups residing within the City of Greater Sudbury (Ontario).  The bridge is named The Bridge of Nations. 

Oh, Canada!  A great place to live and work!  Thank you, Lord!   

Stars in the Canadian Constellation - Dayna Mazzuca

Don't ask me about Confederation or the CPR. Let's not talk about founding fathers or the famous five. Forget about the inventions (e.g. garbage collection bins) and lack of architecture (Winnipeg and Montreal exempted). I cannot name the wars we've won (or the islands we've lost). I do not know the 2nd and 3rd Prime Minister. Or whose treaty land I occupy.

Ask me instead about trails I've hiked, rivers swam, road trips taken. Ask me about Saskatoon berry pie and hot dogs over an open fire. Ask me about friends and where they live and how they make it work, here in the land we call home after so many generations away from our countries of origin (that we've never seen).

Ask how these points of brilliance make us one. How so many stars shining can make a picture in the sky we are privileged to share. Look up.

Canada, a constellation:

inhabiting the West. prairie mavericks. mountain shadows. coastal lines and northern lights. answered prayer.

blackberries growing wild on the West Coast. stopping to pick some (lots!) on a bike ride with my family. scratching all the way. bursting with joy.

hiking around Emerald Lake. hearing later there was an avalanche. feeling lucky. drinking tea in the outdoor hot tub.

sailing in the Gulf Islands. catching the ferry to Saltspring. listening to the water's wake. and seagulls. feeling free.

walking through a field of rye. knowing it's in the family. rolling wheat between my palms. looking up at the sky. falling in love.

visiting Diefenbaker's grave. at my old stomping grounds at the University of Saskatchewan. on tour.

picking up a green canoe to venture out. finding I can barely lift it. thinking about the voyageurs. paddling. longing for water.

complaining about price spikes at Fort Edmonton, Calgary Zoo and Telus Science Centre. wanting the world to be accessible for everyone. not understanding the attraction of money. being angry.

surviving a downturn. a housing bubble. about to burst. pricing out RVs. the last generation of snowbirds. helping to load the moving truck. feeling distant.

Rev. Rundle's church. imagining him preach. thinking of the people I met up north. in the Arctic. missionaries everywhere they are needed. residential schools. what happened?!

hearing Stuart Maclean died. remembering hearing him tell his stories live and being surprised how much he moved his body. how at home he was in own skin. then the cancer. grateful for voice.

staying in touch with friends across the years. where they live. and call home. Canada.


thinking what to write. I find this is a land of individuality with a shared sense of what it means to explore, discover, enjoy, protect and pass along—as a Canadian writer I trust my voice will find a place, as there lots of room to be and grow together. And so bravely, I write.


www.daynawrites.com

With Glowing Heart ... by Glynis M Belec

"Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds." 

Isaiah 55:8 (NB)

Last week was indeed  a true Canada Day 2017. Not at all like I had planned, but a fabulous one, nonetheless. 

A month ago, I had my agenda tidily filled in and my plans were in place. I had been asked to help organize, or at least participate in a local Art in the Park event for Canada Day. I thought that would be fun and I could perhaps help some of our local writers promote their work too, so I jumped in. The plan was also for me to have a book table decorated to the nines with my newest publishing hurrah - a story in Chicken Soup for the Soul Spirit of Canada. Perfect timing for my new Canadian title. I was excited and hoped to sell a lot of books.

Shortly after I had said 'sure thing,' though, I found out my daughter was going to be moving that very day. So I had to break it to the organizers that I was backing out. I felt bad but it was a case of priorities and I had to help. 

However, my plan was to pop by and enjoy Art in the Park later in the day, and help out if I got back in time. So all seemed well, all things considered. 

Then, wouldn't you know it, things switched again. Plans fell through for my daughter. I felt badly but then I thought perhaps I could recommit to helping out on Canada Day. I didn't jump in head first this time. I merely mentioned I might be able to come to help out on the day, in case things turned around for my daughter. The gal who had contacted me was so kind and told me to come if I was able. She would save a spot. So I planned again. 

But I shouldn't have bothered. 

It's not that things turned around for my daughter. 

It was my Dad this time. He had a bit of a turn - well a succession of turns and the short story is he ended up being put on a heart monitor. So there went any plans of my own. This was just prior to Canada Day. And I knew that I couldn't leave Dad for any extended time so it looked like I had to cancel everything. I did. 

As we did our devotions that morning, I remarked to Happy Hubby, who was also heading out to do some catch up on some work of his own, how differently the day turned out to what I had planned. 

"That's sometimes how God works," he said, kissing me farewell and leaving me contemplating. 

It was a good thing I stayed home, too. Dad ended up having a dizzy spell and his heart was racing just as I was helping him up. Right away I had to get him to lie in bed for a while and follow the doctor's instructions. Eventually things settled down and all was quiet in paradise. 

Later, once Dad seemed okay and I had given him breakfast and got a few things done in the kitchen, I went to the back patio door and stood quietly for a minute looking at my garden and the impending black clouds that loomed near. I was feeling a little frustrated and thinking about how my plans didn't work at all. I didn't get to help my daughter move. I didn't help with Art in the Park. I didn't get to set up my table and sell all those books that I had planned on selling. I didn't get to partake in typical Canada Day celebrations. And it looked like rain. 

Then I heard it. At first I thought I was imagining it. 

It started out soft and low. A solitary sound of a trumpet playing O Canada - and it drifted across our subdivision to my back porch. I opened the screen door and stepped outside, still in my pjs.  My heart stood to attention. My body followed suit as O Canada got progressively louder. Three times the distant trumpeter played it. For three minutes I stayed still. Smiling. Listening. Appreciating. 

I thanked God for sending me that special gift Canada Day morning. It seemed to focus me. Reminding me about my glowing heart and how God keeps our land glorious and free! 

The rest of my day was not at all as I had originally planned. I did the laundry. I wrote a little bit. I cleaned our bedroom, and sorted through things I had kept putting off. I cleaned the pantry. Wrote some more. Ran an online Oh Canada Trivia Challenge. Made some muffins. Smiled a lot. Counted Blessings. 

Not a day that I had planned. But it was such a peaceful, fulfilling, relaxing kind of day that I had not experienced in a long time. I kept thinking about the trumpeter. And O Canada. And the way God's plans are not our plans. Gratitude. 

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

                                     Glynis

My Home and Native Land by Susan Barclay

Point Pelee

I don't know what it's like to grow up as a First Nations Canadian, but I know what it's like for a white Anglo-Saxon protestant whose family has been here two to three hundred years. My maternal grandmother's ancestors arrived from Londonderry, Ireland in 1768, while my grandfather's predecessors emigrated at least as early from Cork. They settled in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland respectively, pioneered the land and fished the sea. We can well imagine, looking from the position of all our modern conveniences, that the hardships were many and life fragile. Most of us take their perseverance for granted, but we stand on the shoulders of their labour.

Grand Pre, Nova Scotia

My grandmother's parents were farmers. Of their eight surviving children, only three were boys and as young men all were keen to relocate to Ontario for work. After a time, they persuaded their parents to move as well. My grandmother, the youngest child, was seven then. When she was twelve, her father succumbed to influenza. Her mother remarried but developed stomach cancer, and by fifteen my grandmother was an orphan. She went to work as a seamstress in one of Toronto's infamous sewing factories.

Heart's Delight, Newfoundland

My grandfather also lost his father at a young age. He too was the baby of the family. His older siblings left the "rock" for Toronto and he and his mother followed when he was fifteen. But my grandfather didn't like it and they returned to Newfoundland for two more years. When he was seventeen, they came back to Toronto for good, but it would be another 25 years before Newfoundland joined with Canada. For years Grandpa worked for the iconic Canadian company Massey-Ferguson.  

At the New Brunswick border

During my growing-up years summer vacations included only a few destinations, and unless we were camping in Ontario they all began with the letter N: Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and New Jersey (where my aunt lived with her husband and family after marrying an American). No one in my family traveled by air and it was a long drive to the east coast, but we entertained ourselves with I Spy, the Alphabet Game, and I Packed My Grandmother's Trunk. And thank goodness for the radio, though it wasn't much help in Quebec when you only had grade school French!

Quebec City

These were the years that included the grade 6 class trip to Ottawa and the grade 8 trip to Quebec City. Memories were made indeed! I have a photo of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau just after he emerged from his limousine on Parliament Hill, and I'll always remember my first taste of tourtiere and the visit to Ste Anne de Beaupre. 

Pre- Confederation Bridge days

After university, and as my grandparents aged out of long car trips, my Canadian travels expanded. My mother and I drove to Prince Edward Island one year and took the Ontario Northland Railway to Moosonee another. I took my first plane trip and went to Vancouver alone. Several years later my husband and I took our children to Alberta. We drove through the northern United States, then up through Lethbridge and Calgary to Banff and Lake Louise. We came back to Ontario through the prairies and Manitoba. All of it was beautiful and very different. We are blessed to live in a country with such diversity.
 

Capilano Suspension Bridge, British Columbia

Alberta badlands

At the RCMP Headquarters in Regina, Saskatchewan

Margaret Laurence House, Neepawa, Manitoba

I am proud to be a Canadian through and through, born and bred. I am fortunate, I know, to have visited all ten provinces, though there is so much yet to see. My bucket list doesn't include the territories and Nunavut - I don't expect I'll ever make it there. But my husband has never been to British Columbia and I wish I'd gone as far as Vancouver Island when I was so close. This summer I get to go back to Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, then up to the Viking settlement and across to Labrador which I've never seen before.

Moosonee, northern Ontario

I could go on and on about my love for this great country, all that it represents and all that I've been privileged to see. Instead I'll conclude with this final thought: it's so easy to take what we have for granted. Let's do something different in honour of Canada's 150th birthday this year. Every person has a voice. Every Inscribe member has a gift for words. Let's take up our pens (or whatever tool you prefer) and make a stand for what we believe is required to keep Canada one of the best places in the world to live. Write articles, blog posts, letters to the editor, your member of parliament, your MPP or MLA. Canada has a great past. Let's do our part to shape its future, that God's hand of blessing would continue to rest here.

God keep our land glorious and free.  
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In addition to her posts here Susan maintains a website at www.susanbarclay.blogspot.com