My first visit to Canada was in 1957 (I was 12). In Toronto I remember two very attractive teenage girls boarding a streetcar I was riding with a beaver (the kind with a flat tail) on a leash. I remember asking them if I could pet their beaver. Ah, the innoncence of youth!
A few years later I visited Quebec City and was awed at the historic city. Having just studied the French & Indian War, as the Seven Years War is known in the States, I was amazed at the cliffs and the Plains of Abraham where one of ancestors fought to make Canada British.
In the devastating year of 1968, a friend and myself sat staring across the river from Detroit at a huge neon sign that said "Come to Canada! Friendly, Foreign, and Near." Many Americans of draft age were doing that. My VW had just seized and my friend and I had something like $1.95 between us. Believe me, we gave it some thought. I have often wondered...
During our centennial year of 1976 I fulfilled a lifelong ambition and took VIA from Montreal, to Toronto, and all the way to Vancouver. Among my many pervasions, I love railroading. When I was in Montreal, I blundered into a (largely American) Shriners convetion. Not a whole helluva lot of Shriners in Catholic Montreal. Hundreds of Montreal's citizens, enjoying the wonderful summer evening, were treated to drunk Americans in funny red hats, waving bottles of booze and yelling across the streets to each other, "Hey, Frank, look at all the f**king Frogs!' Merde!
I loved the trains. I got to meet Canadians from all over and see the country roll past my bedroom window seemingly forever. The second night out a wash out stopped the train in Nakina, Ontario in the middle of the night. Ever resourceful, the town's 3 school buses were mobilized to tarnsport 20 carloads of passengers from the westbound train to the eastbound train. By the way, did they ever get that crater in the main street repaired? It doesn't get much better than riding in a full length dome car, rolling through Jasper National Park in the Rocky Mountains sipping a Molson's. On this trip I heard two Canadian journalists (one French one English) discussing Canada's potential. "One would hope we would have British government, French culture, and American know-how. Unfortunately, sometimes we seem to have British Know-How, French government, and American culture."
In 1776, the American Revolution almost took Quebec City, and with it Canada. Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery attacked on New Years Eve during a blizzard and almost pulled it off. A single cannon blast killed Montgomery, stopping his column and making Arnolds attack fail.
Our two countries both have multi-racial and multi-cultural peoples. Our histories have been radically different. When the last page is written, who will be seen as having taken the better course?