July 2, 2010

Oh Canada!

Salt Spring Island, BC, 2006

I'm a day late. Happy Belated Birthday, Canada! Now you are 143 years young.

I love Canada. I love its pristine and majestic beauty; its wide open spaces and towering mountains. I love its cultural mosaic and its open society. I sometimes love its more easygoing approach to life, but always its relative lack of anger and hysteria compared to its cousin just south of the border.

And it serves me well to carry a passport from a nation no one hates and many admire. Thanks in part to Norman Bethune and his ilk. I bet more Chinese than Americans know who this great Canadian doctor was.

But I'm a day late because I've been gone so long and needed a friend to remind me.

5 comments:

tapirgal said...

Yes, Happy Birthday, Canada! Your blog looks peaceful and calm. I know you expect it to go through some changes, and why not? It's nice that it's so easy to do. I'll wait to "follow" until you get the e-mail sign-up. It works better for me. I could do both, though. Here goes.

Unknown said...

Wonderful photograph! I want to be there instead of here in the dry dirt of the Arizona desert. Lovely.

Mel Cee said...

Beautiful sunset. It's funny how when you grow up somewhere you take its beauty for granted. I'm starting to realise now how amazing the nature in Canada is!

Lesley said...

Thanks for the birthday greetings!
As for the hysteria, let's just try to forget about the G20 in Toronto, shall we?

Francisca said...

@Sheryl - thanks! (The follow did not work?)
@Kate - Arizona has its special beauty too!!
@MC - You're in the middle of your own stunning beauty, I see! (Did you announce this and I missed it??)
@Lesley - thanks for stopping by and for making me aware of a news event I missed entirely. Sad, sad, triple sad...