From the Globe and Mail: The villages beneath the city.
When construction workers expanding Teston Road in Vaughan turned up the jumbled remains of at least 15 people this month, they may have been surprised. But the bones -- which were 500 to 700 years old -- weren't a shock to archeologists or aboriginal people. They were just the latest in a number of significant finds that have turned up all over the Greater Toronto Area, from a massive Iroquois village discovered under a Stouffville subdivision to the remains of a Seneca settlement by the Humber River that still reveals traces of its past when construction crews dig in the area. [continue]
Happy Canada Day! From the Canadian Encyclopedia, here's an article on Calixa Lavallée and the Origins of "O Canada".
Canada's national anthem was first heard one fine June evening in 1880, on the campus of Laval University in Quebec City. Joseph Keaney Foran and some fellow law students were relaxing in one of the buildings when they heard a commotion at the front door. They saw Father Pierre Rouselle, the university secretary, and three other men enter the building and head straight for the piano. In the lead was a small man with a halo of black hair around his balding dome. "He was very excited," Foran later wrote of the little man, "and kept tapping his hands and saying 'I've got it! I've finally found it; I've succeeded; come, listen." He arranged himself at the piano and the others perched on a nearby dais. "Throwing back his head he played for us, for the first time, the masterpiece of his genius - it was Calixa Lavallée; he played O Canada." [continue]
So go read the rest, then sing with us! Should you need help with the tune or lyrics, see Sing for Canada.
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
The Maple Leaf Forever!
Elsewhere:
National Anthem: O Canada - Canadian Heritage
Canada Day - Canadian Heritage
From Canada.com: Baker has archeologists hot on trail of Ville Marie fort.
One of Montreal's first settlers might have been a careless and messy baker.
After he made bread for the settlers, he raked the coals out of the oven and onto the floor.
Those quickly forgotten remains are part of archeologist Brad Loewen's set of clues to the location of Montreal's first settlement, Ville Marie fort.
"Thank goodness for sloppy bakers," he said.
In 1642, Montreal's first European inhabitants arrived. Their settlement, Ville Marie fort, would become the first on the island.
While historians and archeologists presume it was located on the Pointe a Calliere, where the museum of the same name now stands, the fort's exact location has remained a mystery.
Until now. [continue]
Related:
Ville-Marie -montreal.qu.ca
Montréal - Wikipedia
I blogged about the Nuuchahnulth dictionary a few days ago. Here's more about the project from The Guardian: A snootful of Nootka ... pithiest language gets first dictionary.
The world's pithiest language, which combines a lavish vocabulary with a terseness that would have made the Spartans jealous, has been cracked for the first time by a British university project. (...)
Also known as Nuuchahnulth, which means "along the mountains" - a reference to the speakers' homeland - Nootka's telescoping of words is unparalleled in other languages. The range of alternatives means that a sentence as long as "to wipe the tears from one's eyes with the back of one's hand" is rendered simply "fib". [continue]
From the University of Toronto Magazine's New & Notable page:
Chesterfields have gone missing in Canada. Curiously, couches are everywhere. Though the piece of furniture is identical, the word Canadians use to describe it has changed. "Chesterfield was so distinctive that it was used by, I think, 100 per cent of Canadians in the 1950s," says Jack Chambers, a longtime linguistics professor at U of T known to his colleagues as "Mister Canadian English." (...)
Chambers, who still teaches at U of T, is best known for describing how Canadians pronounce "ou" in words such as out and about. He identified the phenomenon in 1973 as "Canadian Raising," because Canadians raise the height of the onset vowel in the diphthong, allowing them to say the word more quickly. Out ends up sounding more like oat, about more like aboot. "It is the most characteristic feature of our speech," says Chambers.
Canadian speech is unique in other ways. The establishment of the railroad early in our history has kept regional differences to a minimum. "We sound more like one another from coast to coast than any other nation in the world," says Chambers. While some people worry Canada's English is being Americanized, Chambers says that isn't the case. "There are big changes going on, but they're going on in both directions," he says.
Chambers expects differences in how English is spoken around the world to diminish over time, as globalization continues. "The more mobile people become, the more mixing there will be of language forms," he says. Chambers believes the least mobile people in Canada, farmers and blue-collar workers, will retain distinct Canadian varieties. "That's where the idiosyncrasies of Canadian English will last the longest."
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Canadian English
From WFMU's Beware of the Blog: She Be She Strike.
Eskimo Radio MP3s: Ayatollah Khomeini, You Are My Sunshine, Labatt's Beer Ad, Heart of Stone, Marijuana Humor.
The story and the tapes began circulating around the cassette underground in the early-eighties: an Inuit Radio station operated in Northern Canada by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was vacated by its regular staff due to a CBC strike, and the station was temporarily programmed by its Eskimo janitor and his buddies. The phrase "She Be She Strike" (CBC Strike) can be heard repeatedly on portions of the tape which are not excerpted here, but the truth may never be known until the language can be identified and a native speaker translates the entire recording, hint hint.
The story isn't too far-fetched though; the CBC operates dozens of Inuit radio stations through it's Northern Service, and the record shows that they've had their fair share of strikes over the years. [continue]
Some of this is just hilarious. And anyway, how often do you get a chance to hear Inuktitut?
Link found here at Metafilter.
From scotsman.com: A harrowing voyage to Canada for early Scots.
Spirits were already low when they ran into the gale off Newfoundland. The frail wooden ship struggled against the high winds and breaking Atlantic surf. For 14 days the passengers were rocked and shaken right back to where they had started - no nearer their destination and beginning to sicken.
There were more than 200 passengers on board the New World-bound Hector; they had enough supplies to last six weeks. As days became weeks and weeks turned to months, water began to run out. The only food left was mouldy oatcakes and salted meat, which mocked their thirst. (...)
Earlier that year - March 1773 - an advert in the Edinburgh Advertiser offered passage to Pictou, the Hector's destination. The ship's owner, Dr Witherspoon, and a Greenock merchant, Mr Pagan, had commissioned an agent to find people to bring to the new territory in Nova Scotia.
The agent, John Ross, painted a picture of a land of plenty with a good living for all. He promised passengers a farm and provisions for a year. Many crofters, made homeless by landlords freeing up pasture for sheep, took the voyage. As the ship weighed anchor, a castaway carrying his pipes, begged to be allowed to travel. The captain relented after passengers offered to share their provisions with him. [continue]
From Canadian Geographic: It's about time.
We are a country of chronic lawbreakers. From east to west, Canada is neatly divided into six time zones. But many Canadians choose to make their own time and ignore the time zone boundaries. And the rule that clocks spring forward on the first Sunday in April and fall back on the last Sunday in October? In some parts of Canada, the times are never a-changin': we all know that Saskatchewan doesn't use daylight savings, but other pockets of the country don't bother with it either. And while Alberta's time-abiding citizens strictly follow Mountain Time - violators can be slapped with a $25 fine - these maps illustrate Canada's time zone anomalies. [continue, see maps]
An article on the Parliament of Canada website explains that only seven Ministers of Finance have worn new shoes on budget day. From The Minister of Finance's New Shoes:
The Reference Branch of the Library of Parliament is frequently asked the origins of the "tradition" according to which the Finance Minister wears new shoes on budget day.
Hoping to solve the riddle once and for all we undertook a systematic search with the following results: [continue]
From Northern Polemics:
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O'Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk." [continue]
The Battle of Crysler's Farm, fought on muddy ploughed fields beside the St. Lawrence River on November 11, 1813, was a crucial moment in the history of Upper Canada and marked the end of the most serious attempt to that time to invade Canada.
The campaign of 1813 focused on the St. Lawrence frontier with two powerful American armies poised to meet at Montreal and cut British lines of communications on this lifeline into the heart of the continent. [continue]
That's from From CryslersFarm.com, where you'll find more information about the battle and the site.
From the CBC: No trick-or-treating for Churchill polar bears.
Trick-or-treaters in the northern Manitoba town of Churchill will get street protection worthy of a visiting head of state this Halloween.
Come Sunday night, the town of 1,000 will be ringed by about a dozen fire trucks and ambulances, all revving engines and shining spotlights on goblin-filled streets to keep curious polar bears from getting a little too close to roaming children.
Overhead, a helicopter will circle, while a crew armed with immobilizing darts will be stationed around town, just in case the bears don't get the point.
Halloween's polar bear patrol has been a feature of Churchill for 20 years. Bears are regularly spotted in the community from early summer to the end of November, depending on ice conditions. They lope into town because of Churchill's proximity to the world's largest denning area. [continue]
From The Globe and Mail: Giving thanks with chilies and basmati.
The turkey stuffing is made with green chilies and curry spices. Hold the bacon. Dessert isn't pumpkin pie, but kulfi, homemade Indian ice cream. The extended family gathers around a tablecloth rolled out on the living room floor, with a Bollywood movie playing in the background.
Welcome to the new Canadian Thanksgiving in which an influx of newcomers from abroad is spicing up an old and much-loved holiday. Some still think of it as a Christian tradition and take a pass altogether, while others embrace it as a time to reflect on their new lives in a new land. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Canadian Thanksgiving history
Unusual turkey-cooking methods
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!
From the BBC: Arctic team finds ship remains.
A British team who are retracing the route taken by a group of Victorian Arctic explorers have found the remains of their ship, the Victory.
The Royal Navy team found parts of the ship's engine and anchor in Felix Harbour, deep in Canada's Arctic.
The Victory was carrying Sir John Ross and Sir James Clark Ross, during their search for the North West Passage.
The crew became stranded in the Arctic wilderness and had to endure three cruel winters before being rescued.
Their faithful ship was abandoned in 1832 after it became paralysed in ice. Until now, no trace of it has ever been recovered.[continue]
Related:
Northwest Passage - Wikipedia
Well, how's this for an immigration story?
One foggy July morning on the south shore of Nova Scotia, a Sikh gentleman walked out of the sea carrying nothing but a briefcase and asked the first startled fisherman he met how to hail a taxi to Toronto.
Dropped into the surf by a Costa Rican freighter out of Rotterdam, neither he nor any of his 174 refugee compatriots managed such a direct onward connection in their journey that day in 1987.
But like millions before them, they made it eventually. As they had dreamed when they first set out, almost all the refugees who returned to Nova Scotia this summer for a reunion had become hard-working, taxpaying Torontonians.
That excerpt is from an article in the Globe and Mail, And you thought our two solitudes were all about language.
Wowza! I've got to learn to scuba dive so I can go find shipwrecks, too. From the Globe and Mail: Basque galleon found off Labrador coast.
Red Bay Harbour, Nfld. — A 16th-century Basque galleon has been discovered at Red Bay Harbour off the coast of Labrador.
The ship is the fourth of its kind to be found in the area, a government news release said Tuesday.
The latest discovery was found about nine metres below the surface by Parks Canada's underwater archeology unit during a dive last month.
The two divers were looking for whale bones, and checking on the condition of previously uncovered wrecks.
Over the past few weeks, photographs have been taken and compared with the earlier wrecks to confirm the timbers as those of a Basque ship.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Basque ships carried out a large-scale whale fishery in the Strait of Belle Isle, establishing at least 16 shore stations along the coast of Labrador. [continue]
Related:
Sunken Basque galleon found off Red Bay - CBC
Basque Whaling in Red Bay, Labrador - Newfoundland Heritage
Basque Whaling at Red Bay - LabradorStraights.net
From the CBC: 17th-century coin found in Newfoundland.
FERRYLAND, NFLD. - An archeologist in Newfoundland has unearthed what's believed to be the oldest coin struck for use in what is now Canada.
Aaron Miller was brushing away centuries-old dirt in the former Colony of Avalon when he saw something shiny.
It turned out to be a small coin made of lead, which Miller's team says probably dates back to the 1640s."It's a pretty big deal," he said. "We washed it off and right away you could see the initials D.K. on it."
It's thought those initials belong to David Kirke, Newfoundland's governor at the time, according to chief archeologist Jim Tuck. Kirke ran a tavern and had a licence from the king to make his own money. [continue]
Related:
Colony of Avalon - Newfoundland Heritage
Canadian Currency Museum
David Kirke - Wikipedia
Avalon Peninsula - Wikipedia
From the CBC: Old cemetery found under Quebec city street.
TROIS-RIVIERES, QUE. - An archeological dig sparked by a Hydro-Québec project in downtown Trois-Rivières has turned up 10 human skeletons from a cemetery dating back to 1650. (...)
As well as the skeletons from the cemetery, they found more than 10,000 artifacts, including buttons, bullets and belt buckles.
"It's going to give us a lot of information about the people of that time and the way of life of those people," said Simon Otis, one of the archeologists working on the project.
He said tests performed on the bones can reveal what people in Rivières ate three centuries ago, as well as the illnesses they had and the kind of work they did. [continue]
From the Globe and Mail: Researchers uncover ancient marine fossils in Newfoundland.
Canadian fossil hunters have made a rare find of exquisitely preserved marine animals in Newfoundland, remnants of the first complex organisms to evolve on Earth and unlike anything alive today.
The fossils look like delicate miniature ferns, although the researchers believe they were animals and not plants.
They would have lived deep on the ocean floor, out of reach of the sun's rays, about 575 million years ago.
That was the start of a period of dramatic evolutionary change on the planet, when, after four billion years of microbial life, more complex organisms began to appear, says Guy Narbonne, a researcher at Queen's University in Kingston. [continue]
From canoe.ca: Archeologists visit mysterious locked box buried near unmarked Arctic graves.
Three unmarked graves, their age and inhabitants unknown. Buried carefully nearby under precisely stacked rocks, a weathered old wooden chest sealed with a rusty padlock, its contents just as mysterious.
A seafaring yarn of Caribbean pirates? No. An Arctic mystery near Baker Lake, Nunavut — one that a team of archeologists hope to solve this summer.
"We really don't know what's in this box," says Doug Stenton, Nunavut's head archeologist who will lead the expedition.
"People love a mystery. It should be fun and exciting to go see what's in there." [continue]
Related:
Nunavut - Wikipedia
Nunavut Tourism - NunavutTourism.com
Government of Nunavut - gov.nu.ca
Baker Lake, Nunavut - BakerLake.org
Happy Canada Day! Go sing our national anthem. When you've done that, maybe you'd like to learn about The Maple Leaf Forever — the song that served as Canada's unofficial anthem for many years before we had O Canada. Here's the first verse:
In days of yore,
From Britain's shore
Wolfe the dauntless hero came
And planted firm Britannia's flag
On Canada's fair domain.
Here may it wave,
Our boast, our pride
And joined in love together,
The thistle, shamrock, rose entwined,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
(The rest of lyrics are here. The Virtual Grammaphone has some sound files.)
Of course it's not politically correct enough for today, and that bit about "Wolfe the dauntless hero" wouldn't go over well in Quebec, and ....
So the lyrics have been re-written. A page at CanadaInfo offers the old and new lyrics, and explains:
Alexander Muir's 1867 up-the-Empire standard, which was Canada's unofficial national anthem until the arrival of O Canada, has new lyrics. The updated, politically sensitive The Maple Leaf Forever, with lyrics by Romanian émigré Vladimir Radian, received its first full orchestral treatment on June 27, 1997 at a free concert by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Radian, a mathematician turned songwriter/actor/poet, came to Canada a decade ago, completely unaware of The Maple Leaf Forever and its crowing lyrics. He discovered the song while listening to CBC Radio's Metro Morning show in Toronto when it ran a contest to replace the old lyrics, which were distasteful to some ears and merely comical to others.
Other Canada Day content on Mirabilis.ca:
Happy Canada Day - July 1st, 2003
Well now, this is fun. If you're Canadian and wondering which party you should vote for in the upcoming federal election, check out the VoteSelector Quiz. Answer 19 questions, press the "select candidate" button, and the site shows which candidate best matches your political views.
So yes, fun. You'll find things to quibble about (well, I did) but it's entertaining nonetheless.
Link found at Metafilter.
Happy Victoria Day! From the official Canadian Heritage website:
The Sovereign's birthday has been celebrated in Canada since the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901).
May 24, Queen Victoria's birthday, was declared a holiday by the Legislature of the Province of Canada in 1845.
After Confederation, the Queen's birthday was celebrated every year on May 24 unless that date was a Sunday, in which case a proclamation was issued providing for the celebration on May 25.
After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, an Act was passed by the Parliament of Canada establishing a legal holiday on May 24 in each year (or May 25 if May 24 fell on a Sunday) under the name Victoria Day. [continue]
Related:
Victoria Day - Wikipedia
Canadian Geographic's Historical maps of Canada pages invite you to "Wander through the history of Canada and watch the map of the country transform." The site's timeline ranges from 1700 to 1999; clicking on a date brings up the associated map and historical information. (Requires Flash.)
From Sable Island: A Story of Survival:
Sable Island, 300 km south-east of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, is renowned for its wild horses and shipwrecks. It is also an island with a fascinating geology and natural history that reflect the challenge of surviving wind, waves and isolation.
The site includes information on the island's history, nature, and other stuff, too. There's even a fun section for kids, which includes a Morse Code translation thing.
The Sable Island Preservation Trust offers more information about the island, and SableIsland.info has photos.
From the Globe and Mail: Treasure seekers set sail for Nova Scotia.
A group of investors from Syracuse are helping raise a 242-year-old shipwreck off the northern coast of Nova Scotia, a find that's yielded gold and silver coins, jewelry and silverware.
More importantly, says Norman Miles, a dramatic episode in North American history is being fleshed out.
"Our duty is to teach the world what happened there," Mr. Miles said. "And as we teach the world, this collection will grow in value because it will become sought after by those that have an interest in this time and place in history."
The sinking of the Auguste de Bordeaux during a vicious November storm in 1761 was the starting point for one survivor's remarkable journey.
St. Luc de la Corne, a French military hero and one of the wealthiest men in Canada, was one of only seven people to survive the wreck that claimed 114 lives. He then walked hundreds of kilometres during the worst of winter back to Quebec City. [continue]
From the Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons site:
Sainte-Marie was the 17th century fortress and headquarters for the French Jesuit mission to the Huron nation and was Ontario's first European community. In 1639 the Jesuits, along with lay workers, began construction of this palisaded community that would include barracks, a church, workshops, residences, and a sheltered area for Native visitors. By 1648, Sainte-Marie was a wilderness home to 66 Frenchmen, representing one-fifth of the entire population of New France. Sainte-Marie's history culminated in 1649 when a dramatic turn of events forced the community to abandon and burn their home of 10 years.
After extensive archaeological and historical research, Sainte-Marie among the Hurons now stands recreated on the original site where its compelling story is brought to life once again.
Now that sounds interesting, doesn't it? Here's more about the history of Sainte-Marie.
Related:
Father Jean de Brébeuf's Instructions for missionaries, 1637.
From CBC Nova Scotia: Old print a score for Nova Scotia hockey historians.
HALIFAX — A 137-year-old lithograph is being heralded as definitive proof that Dartmouth is the birthplace of hockey.
On Thursday, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia unveiled an original lithograph print from 1870 of people playing hockey. The print is based on a sketch by the British artist Henry Buckton Laurence, who was in Dartmouth in the winter of 1867.
"This the earliest image of hockey being played," says Jeffrey Spalding, the gallery's chief curator.
Montreal is generally credited with hosting the first hockey game in 1875. Several other communities also claim to be the birthplace of hockey, including Halifax and Windsor, N.S. The Hockey Heritage Centre in Windsor cites a written reference in 1844 to "hurley on the long pond."
"We're just saying, all of you guys are arguing about something, at least move the argument to here. The game of hockey was played in winter 1867 in Halifax⁄Dartmouth. End of story," Spalding says. [continue].
Father Jean de Brébeuf was an incredibly impressive guy. He was a Jesuit missionary to the Huron, and served in what is now Quebec (but was then New France).
Canada Info notes that "In 1637, Father Jean de Brébeuf drew up a list of instructions for Jesuit missionaries destined to work among the Huron." The list is very lovely, I think. Here it is:
In 1649 Fr Brébeuf was captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois. He was canonized in 1930, and is the patron saint of Canada.
Related:
Fr Jean de Brébeuf - Catholic Encyclopedia
Jean de Brébeuf - Wikipedia
The Huron Carol (Canada's first Christmas Carol, written by Jean de Brébeuf in 1643.) - Mirabilis.ca
Patron Saints Index: St Jean de Brébeuf - Catholic-forum.com
Short sketches of the Jesuit Martyr-Saints (Jean de Brébeuf was one of the 8 Canadian martyrs killed by the Iroquois.) - Jesuits.ca
Jean de Brébeuf - Canadian Encyclopedia
Canadian Martyrs - wikipedia.org
Canadian Martyrs And Huronia - athabascau.ca
Quebec City too cold in February? Fredericton frosty in December? Nunavut November not for you? Fear not, there may be help: at least one member of Parliament and a handful of interest groups are asking the Canadian government to annex a little slice of sun-splashed heaven: the Turks and Caicos, a Caribbean gem with an average wintertime temperature hovering between 28 and 29 C.
Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring (Edmonton Centre-East) thinks it's a wonderful idea. He's drafted a motion to ask the government to look into the issue, and plans to introduce it in the fall. "I think around 100 per cent of people (in Canada, and Turks and Caicos) like the idea," he told CBC News Online in July 2003. [continue]
That excerpt is from a CBC background page about the Turks and Caicos. (The topic is in a couple of newspapers again, although not in their web versions.)
Considering the odd story of the igloos that were on the Turks and Caicos' flag and crest for so many years, perhaps it would be fitting for the Turks and Caicos to have an alliance with a northern nation like Canada. You know we'd share our igloos.
Related:
A Place in the Sun - aplaceinthesun.ca
Turks & Caicos: Canada's Caribbean paradise? - carribbeannetnews.com
Home and native sand - canoe.ca
Do you know about Nellie McClung? She was a Canadian suffragette, and led a remarkable life. I read her biography, Our Nell, years ago, and so my commonplace book has a number of quotations from Nellie.
The other day the Vancouver Sun published an article entitled She lives in no one's shadow. [Update: article no longer available. Sorry, the Vancouver Sun is like that.] It's about Nellie McClung's granddaughter (also named Nellie McClung) who is 74 and lives in Vancouver. The part I like best is Nellie the granddaughter's story about her famous grandma:
I was in Grade 2, and she was on stage in Edmonton giving a speech, wearing a velvet dress, and a man in the audience shouted out to her: ‘Don't you wish you were a man!’ And she shouted back: ‘Don't you wish you were!’
Nellie always had good answers for rude people.
Related:
Nellie Letitia (Mooney) McClung - CollectionsCanada.ca
Nellie McClung 1873-1951 - mta.ca
Nellie McClung - Wikipedia
Nellie McClung - Wikiquote
Nellie McClung: The Sculpting of Angels - CBC: Life and Times
From Canada.com: Private journal documenting Battle of the Plains of Abraham to be auctioned.
TORONTO (CP) - An eyewitness account of a pivotal conflict in Canadian history will be auctioned Thursday in New York but whether the journal documenting the Battle of the Plains of Abraham becomes a public document depends on the buyer.
The handwritten remembrances of Capt. Gordon Skelly, a British naval officer who took part in the 1759 conflict which essentially ended French rule in Canada, was previously held in a private collection in Europe. "It's essentially unknown to historians to the best of our knowledge," said Chris Coover of Christie's auction house in New York. "We don't believe any part of it has ever been published."
A posting on Christie's website suggests the 157-page journal could sell for $10,000, an estimate Coover calls conservative.
"It's a very vivid, very readable account of the whole campaign really and Skelly's participation in it." [continue]
Related:
Battles of 1759-1760 -from the Canadian Government's Plains of Abraham site
Plains of Abraham - From Wikipedia
letter from the Plains of Abraham (Written by Rear-Admiral Charles Holmes, Sept. 18, 1759)
From the Globe and Mail: Bison to roam the prairies again.
It's been more than 150 years since wild bison thundered across the Saskatchewan grasslands, but a sort of homecoming is scheduled for the legendary animals next week as a small herd will be reintroduced to the prairie.
Millions of the enormous, shaggy herbivores roamed North America when European settlers arrived. Excessive hunting nearly wiped them out, and only two known herds of pure-blooded bison remain in Canada.
A third herd will get its start on Dec. 12, when conservationists load 50 young bison into oversized trailers at Elk Island National Park in Alberta. They plan to drive non-stop for about eight hours and release them into a grassland preserve located in southwest Saskatchewan.
The herd's new home will be the Old Man on His Back Prairie and Heritage Conservation Area, about 5,300 hectares of native prairie near Eastend, jointly owned by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Saskatchewan government.
Relocating bison is a tricky job, said Sue Michalsky, a director of land conservation for the NCC. [continue]
Related:
Where the Buffalo Roam - Saskatchewan Environment
Prairie photographs help preserve heritage land - CBC
Canada.com has an article about the time when Canadians repelled an American invasion - November 11th, 1813.
"That battle spelled the end of the most serious American attempt to conquer Canada during the War of 1812," says Donald Graves, a military historian whose 1999 book Field of Glory is the definitive account of the fight at John and Nancy Crysler's farm near Cornwall. " (...)
The Battle of Crysler's Farm, fought exactly 190 years ago yesterday on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Montreal, resulted in a crucial and resounding victory over 4,000 Americans by an Anglo-Canadian force of just 800. The defeat halted a planned American assault on Montreal, by far the largest and most important city in British North America at the time.
Notably, the winning side included French- and English-Canadian militiamen who fought alongside Mohawk warriors and professional British soldiers under the direction of Lt.-Col. Joseph Morrison.
The triumph of the underdog thanks to those key alliances -- French and English, mother country and colony, white man and First Nation -- makes the battle "particularly significant in terms of the mythology of Canada," says Mr. Graves. [continue]
Related book:
Field of Glory: The Battle of Crysler's Farm, 1813
In the "beyond fascinating" category, we have Stephen Hume's recent article from the Vancouver Sun, Science chases legends to secret of clam gardens. It's about John Harper's discovery of rocks placed along the low tide line on a whole lot of BC beaches, and his subsequent research into the topic.
"If you saw just one, you might not even notice," he said. "But these were all over the place. The light clicked on. I said, ‘Stop the helicopter.’ "
He examined a line of stones that curved across the mouth of a small cove in a near-perfect arc. The barrier trapped sediments thrown up by wave action, creating a terrace of sand and shell hash between two rocky promontories. The sand flat teemed with bivalves. The more he looked, the more astonishment he felt.
"I was pretty sure they were man-made," he said. "There's evidence that whole beaches were actually engineered."
When Harper got back to Victoria and reported his findings, the province put up research funds for a field reconnaissance survey and he went to work analysing the data that he'd unknowingly collected already. [continue]
Link found at Parking Lot.
This story from Spider Robinson always makes me smile, and now I've found it online:
I've known since the day I first set foot on Canadian soil that I was home at last. I knew it when I discovered that the old friend I'd come to visit in Nova Scotia literally had no way to lock his home from the outside.
"Lock my door?" he said, astounded. "Suppose somebody came by while I was away: how would they get in?"
The article (After all these years, suddenly I'm Citizen Keen) goes on, of course, but the quoted bit above is the story I like.
Happy Thanksgiving! This is from the Government of Canada's Canadian Heritage website: Proclamation and Observance of General Thanksgiving Days and reasons therefore. If you've ever wondered what the dates and reasons for Canadian Thanksgiving used to be, this is the site for you.
It starts off with:
Date of Observance: Thursday, 10 Jan. 1799
Reasons: In signal victory over our enemy and for the manifold and inestimable blessings which our Kingdoms and Provinces have received and daily continue to receive.
and goes on from there. Who knew that Thanksgiving in Lower Canada was once celebrated in January?
Related Thanksgiving content:
Unusual turkey-cooking methods
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!
From Reuters: Ancient River Found Flowing Beneath Toronto.
TORONTO (Reuters) - A river runs through it -- wide, deep, cold and ancient -- and few people in Toronto suspect it's even there.
There's an ice-age river flowing deep under Canada's largest city. There has been for at least a million years but it wasn't until last month that anyone saw any real evidence of it.
The discovery of the glacial river happened when workers were trying to cap two artesian wells, part of a stormwater runoff project in High Park, one of the city's largest parks, near the shore of Lake Ontario.
One well was capped, and then, as the other was being capped, the first well blew off like a broken water main, spewing water 15 feet into the air.
As that cap was being repaired, the second blew off, shooting up water and gravel.
Consultation with experts confirmed the workers had siphoned into the rumored, yet still largely unknown, Laurentian River system running underneath the city.
"We've discovered where it probably comes out into Lake Ontario," said an elated Bill Snodgrass, senior engineer responsible for groundwater quality management for the city of Toronto. "What we never really knew before was where it connected to Lake Ontario." [continue]
From Canoe.com: DNA study to settle ancient mystery about mingling of Inuit, Vikings. [Update: article no longer available.]
A centuries-old Arctic mystery may be weeks away from resolution as an Icelandic anthropologist prepares to release his findings on the so-called "Blond Eskimos" of the Canadian North.
"It's an old story," says Gisli Palsson of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. "We want to try to throw new light on the history of the Inuit." Stories about Inuit with distinct European features - blue eyes, fair hair, beards - living in the central Arctic have their roots in ancient tales of Norse settlements and explorations.
"The Icelandic sagas, at several points, mention the Norse in Greenland meeting people who belong to other cultures," Palsson said.
Although those settlements pushed ever westward from Greenland as early as the 9th and 10th century, they had mysteriously disappeared by the 15th. The fate of settlers - did they simply disappear into the local population? - is unknown.
The Inuit tell legends of long-ago meetings with people from a strange culture.
Tantalizing accounts of European-looking Inuit surface in the accounts of some of the earliest western Arctic explorers, including Sir John Franklin, who was later to lead the doomed Franklin Expedition. [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
DNA test to tackle Arctic mystery
Viking DNA in England
Update, October 28th, 3003:
DNA tests debunk blond Inuit legend - from the CBC
Hmmm! Look what I found about matrimony cake over at the Oxford English Dictionary website:
‘Matrimonial cake’. The classic 4" x 6" OED dictionary slip sitting on the table in the slip-filing room at the OED's offices one day in 1992 was duly catchworded. The slip, however, came not with the customary quotation but rather with a confection: a dessert, made with my very own hands, consisting of two layers of a crumbly sweet oat mixture with a date filling in the middle. Home baking was admittedly a somewhat unorthodox method for getting a Canadianism into the OED, but it was apparently not unappreciated by the OED lexicographers, who perhaps were too busy eating to complain about the lack of a proper citation. Known in most of Canada as ‘date squares’, this dessert has acquired this matrimonial moniker in Western Canada (where I grew up), for reasons that even the OED has alas been unable to determine. For my efforts were successful, and ‘matrimonial cake’ is one of the new Canadian entries that have appeared in OED Online. The word is now properly exemplified by quotations, the sources being a 1944 Canadian cookbook unearthed by our Canadian library researcher, Alice Munro's 1971 collection of short stories Lives of Girls and Women, and the Hamilton Spectator newspaper that I found on one of our newspaper CD-ROMs when an OED lexicographer emailed me for a postdating. [continue]
It was always called "matrimony cake" in our family. I didn't know that the term is a Canadianism, much less a Western Canadianism.
Anyway, one of my grandma's cookbooks has a recipe for matrimony cake in it, and the publication date is 1938. Will the OED give me a prize for finding an earlier recipe than the one they have?
See also:
Buttertarts. Because I can't think about Canadian baking without making some of these.
A "heads up" to Canadian bloggers, and those who like to read Canadian blogs: BlogsCanada.ca looks like it's going to be pretty cool.
From their home page:
Here at BlogsCan, we are about all things blog - with a decidedly Canadian flavour. We wax poetic about multiculturalism and the colours in our neighbourhoods. We consume hydro and we take our shoes off at the door, eh?
We're gun-hating, Celsius-loving, maple-leaf-on-our-backpacks, standing on guard Canadians. We know we're a lot better off than you-know-who but we're just too darned polite to crow about it.
BlogsCanada's purpose is to provide a place where Canadians and those interested in Canada (isn't everyone?) can find links to Canadian bloggers' sites.
If you're a Canadian blogger, you can add your site to the directory.
There are just ten questions in Canada.com's Canada Trivia quiz - how many can you get right? Here's the rest of Canada.com's Canada Day coverage, and here's the Canadian national anthem, courtesy of singforcanada.ca. Sing, sing, sing!
From the Canadian Currency Musuem site:
Take a step back in time and explore the evolution of money around the world and through the ages at the Bank of Canada's Currency Museum. A fascinating variety of media of exchange including shells, teeth, and cocoa beans, as well as today's currency, tells us about the societies where they originated.
Some of the stuff on this site requires plugins. There's a virtual tour of the musuem (you'll need Quicktime for that) and a history of money timeline which requires Flash.
That glitzy stuff is lovely, but the plain, older pages have some pretty cool stuff, too. They've got thumbnail photos of Canada's first bank notes!
From an article in the print version of today's Vancouver Sun:
About 100 Inuit from the Nunavut town of Cambridge Bay have given saliva samples to genetic researchers from Iceland who are trying to solve one of the enduring mysteries of the New World: Did Viking voyagers who settled in Greenland and Nefoundland 1,000 years ago — but whose descendants inexplicably vanished by the 1400s — disappear because they intermarried with and were eventually absorbed the the Inuit?
The study, University of Iceland anthropologist Gisli Palsson says, aims to resolve the debate surrounding the fate of the Norse colony as well as the controversy sparked by Canadian explorer Vilhjamur Stefansson's alleged discovery of "Blond Eskimos" on Victoria Islan in 1911.
Stefannson's claim caused an international sensation but eventually tarnished his reputation in scientific circles.
"It's still one of the mysteries of the archeology of the north," says Palsson. The last thing we hear of the Norse colony is in the early 15th century, when there was an invitation to a wedding in western Greenland. After that, not a word. When a Scandinavian missionary arrived in 1721, the colony is gone; all that's left is the physical remains." (...)
Theories about the collapse of the Norse settlements abound. Did the colonists — who numbered about 5,000 at their peak — succumb to a plague or an attack by hostile Inuit? Did they stareve to death in an era when climactic change made farming impossible and Viking pride prevented them from acquiring survival skills from their native trading partners?
"They didn't adopt harpoons, they didn't adopt skin clothing and they didn't adopt skin boats," U.S. archeologist Thomas McGovern told Discover magazine in 1997. "The extinction of the Norse in Greenland, aided certainly as it was by climactic change, could have been avoided if they had [taken] more of these adaptations from the Inuit."
Palsson, who is writing a biography of Stefansson, doesn't rule out the possibility Norse expeditions to Newfoundland, Labrador and Baffin Island led gradually to peaceful intermingling with the Inuit, abandonment of the Greenland settlements and, finally, assimilation.
Related links:
Nunavut - from wikipedia.org
About Cambridge Bay - from polarnet.ca
Gisli Palsson's home page
The excellent Portage blog points us to the CN Images of Canada Gallery. What fun! Here are some of my favourite photos:
Grey Own in a canoe with a beaver (ca. 1931)
Ancient fire fighting equipment (1924)
Driving through an ancient cedar in Stanley Park (ca. 1937)
Streetcars on Granville Street in Vancouver (ca. 1927)
The site includes a search feature, so you can plug in the name of your (Canadian) city and see what comes up.
From Canada Newswire, Federal government helps make biodiesel viable.
The federal government has taken a big stride towards increasing the viability of biodiesel production and use in Canada with yesterday's budgetary announcement of the removal of the 4-cent-per-litre federal excise tax on biodiesel.
Biodiesel is a non-toxic, cleaner burning, renewable diesel fuel derived from agricultural commodities such as vegetable oils or animal fats. The Ontario Soybean Growers sees biodiesel as an opportunity to create new markets for Ontario soybean oil, while providing a cleaner burning alternative to fossil fuels. In addition, the use of biodiesel fuel is an excellent opportunity for Canada to meet obligations agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol.
Related links:
Canada's on the road to marketing friendlier fuel - University of Guelph
Biodiesel Information Centre - Canadian Renewable Fuels Association
From the CBC, Ancient feathers bring clues to Yukon's past.
Scientists say ancient artifacts from Yukon's melting glaciers are giving them new insights into the lifestyles of North America's first people.
They have identified feathers in ancient arrows that tell them about hunting practices of Yukoners 8,000 years ago. (. . .) Archeologists found the feathers on ancient arrows and hunting darts over the past few summers. They've been combing high mountain ice patches for evidence of ancient hunters. [continue]
Related info:
Thawing artifacts - Mirabilis.ca entry from January 17th, 2003.
Tour Yukon
From the CBC, Montreal English called a 'linguistic laboratory'.
Charles Boberg, who teaches linguistics at McGill University, has just finished a study on English spoken in various parts of Canada. Many of the regional differences are unsurprising to those who travel from sea to sea. On the Prairies, for instance, "chesterfield" is more common than "couch" or "sofa." In the East, "see- saw" rides above "teeter-totter."
Some people prefer "sneakers" to "running shoes," others "soda" to "pop." But it's in Montreal – where many people use "soft drink", perhaps because it is a literal translation of the the French "liqueur douce" – that some Canadian language scholars are really bubbling with enthusiasm over the nature of English. "It's so special because it's the only major city in North America where English is a minority language," says Boberg. A Montrealer, for instance, might say she's looking for "a three-and-a-half close to a dépanneur" instead of a "one bedroom apartment near a corner store."
"You had the same sort of intimate contact between English and French in 11th century England as you do today in Montreal," according to Boberg. "And that was responsible in the 11th century for the conversion of English from a basically pure Germanic language to a kind of a hybrid language."
In the early nineteenth century, when the Hudson's Bay Company sent men to its furthest posts along the coast of North America's Pacific Northwest, the letters of those who cared for those men followed them in the Company's supply ships. Sometimes, these letters missed their objects: the men had returned to Britain, or deserted their ships, or died. The Company returned the correspondence to its London office and over the years amassed a file of "undelivered letters." Many of these remained sealed for 150 years and until they were opened by archivist Judith Hudson Beattie, when the Company archives were moved to Canada.
These letters tell the fascinating stories of ordinary people whose lives are rarely recounted in traditional histories. Beattie and Helen M. Buss skilfully introduce us to both the lives of the letter writers and their would-be recipients. Their commentaries frame, for contemporary readers, the words of early nineteenth century working and middle class British folk as well as letters to "voyageurs" from Quebec. The stories of their lives - fathers struggling to support a family, widowed mothers yearning to see their sons, bereft sweethearts left behind, and wives raising their children alone - reach out over two centuries to offer rare insight into the varied worlds of men and women in the early nineteenth century, many of whom became settlers in Washington, Oregon, and the new British colony of Vancouver Island.
That's from a the UBC Press page about the book they've published, Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57, by Helen M. Buss Judith Hudson Beattie. One more for the reading list!
Related links:
Trading places - excellent article from scotsman.com
Explorers' manuscripts and dead letter office offer deeper peek into Canada's past -from University of Calgary
List of intended recipients - from Gordon Innes
Hudson's Bay Company Museum Collection - Manitoba Museum
Hudson's Bay Company Archives - from the Provincial Archives of Manitoba
Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57 - Amazon.com's page for this book
From canoe.ca, NASA trainees use Canadian winter to simulate gruelling space environment.
Space travel can shrink the human skeleton, cause muscular atrophy and play havoc with a central-nervous system unsuited to microgravity.
NASA needed a training area to simulate that kind of mental and physical anguish - so they chose Canada. More precisely, it saw Canada's harsh winter as an ideal way to push astronauts to the end of their psychological rope, simulating the stress of living isolated and gravity-starved on the international space station. [continue]
From the Mummering in Newfoundland page:
Sometime during the twelve days of Christmas, usually on the night of the "Old Twelfth", People would disguise themselves with old articles of clothing and visit the homes of their friends and neighbours. They would even cover their faces with a hood, scarf, mask or pillowcase to keep their identity hidden. Men would sometimes dress as women and women as men. They would go from house to house. They usually carried their own musical instruments to play, sing and dance in every house they visited. The host and hostess of these 'mummers parties' would serve a small lunch of Christmas cake with a glass of syrup or blueberry or dogberry wine. All mummers usually drink a Christmas "grog" before they leave each house. (A grog is a drink of an alcoholic beverage such as rum or whiskey.)
When mummers visit everyone in the house starts playing a guessing game. They try to guess the identity of each mummer. As each one is identified they uncover their faces, but if their true identity is not guessed they do not have to unmask.
For a time the old tradition of "Mummering", or "Jannying" as it is sometimes called, seemed to fade, especially in the larger centers of Newfoundland. But in recent years, thanks to the popular musical duo, Simini, who wrote and recorded "The Mummer's Song" in 1982, mummering has been revived. It is just as prevalent and popular as it was years ago and young and old look forward to dressing up this Christmas, knocking on a friend's door and calling out "ANY MUMMERS ALLOWED IN?" [continue]
Lyrics to Any Mummers 'Lowed In song, by Simani.
Simani has a .wav sound clip of Any Mummers 'Lowed In
Mummering in François, south coast of Newfoundland
From the Charlotte Observer, Glacial melt turns up treasure:
Biologist Gerry Kuzyk was hiking with his wife in the remote reaches of the Yukon when he caught the putrid scent of caribou dung wafting through the chill air.
Then he saw it -- the biggest pile of animal droppings he had ever seen, 8 feet high and stretching over a half-mile of mountainside.
Kuzyk, a researcher with the Yukon Department of Renewable Resources, knew there weren't enough caribou in the entire territory to create such an epic mound. Odder yet, there hadn't been caribou in the area for nearly a century.
"It was like being in the `Twilight Zone,' " said Rick Farnell, a colleague who helped investigate the find. "You could see them from a distance -- big, black bands of feces. I'm talking tons of it."
The mystery was solved by lab analysis: The dung, the product of innumerable migrating caribou herds, had been frozen for thousands of years and only recently exposed by melting ice.
Along with the dung, the scientists soon discovered an arsenal of Stone Age darts, arrows and spears.
For most scientists, from ecologists to climate experts, the warming of the planet is a disturbing trend that could radically alter the environment. But for archaeologists, it has prompted a breathtaking treasure hunt.
Without doing any digging, the scientists are scooping up artifacts, mummies and fossils long hidden in the depths of monstrous glaciers.
"We walk right up and pull arrows and animals out of the ice," Farnell said. [continue]
Other pages about this story:
History Emerging from the Ice - from npr.org. Iincludes photo gallery.
Droppings are a storehouse of knowledge
Ancient secrets on ice
Scientific Gold Is Where You Find It
Treasures from Icy Tombs
Background info:
Yukon Mammal Series: Caribou
Historic caribou herd returns to Yukon
Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre: Ancient Caribou
Tour Yukon, Canada's True North
James Evans (1801-1846) was a very determined fellow. Often called the Apostle of the North, he was the missionary who invented a new orthography for native languages. When he wanted to do his own printing, James melted down scraps of lead to make his own metal type, then mixed fish oil and soot to make ink. Goodness! Syllabic writing systems are now used by Ojibwa, and Cree, and Inuktitut.
Here are some excerpts from a biography of James Evans at tiro.com:
In 1827, James Evans received the responsibility of the mission post at Rice Lake. After a year there were some 40 native students, half of whom could read English. Evans himself was becoming familiar with the local languages, and wrote in Ojibwa, and in 1830 was preaching sermons in the local Ojibwa language. By 1831, Evans had produced an original orthography and the beginnings of a writing system for the native languages to replace the only current representation for the language which was in the Latin script. As the Ojibwa were being taught both in English and in their own tongue, it was confusing for them to use the same script, especially as English.
Through his study of the language, Evans realized that the Ojibwa language could best be represented through just nine sounds, which are: a, ch, k, m, n, p, t, s, and y all of which can be combined with the basic vowels in four variations: ai, chi, ki, mi, ni, pi, ti, si, yi and so on for the vowels e, i, o, u. It was probably also around this time that Evans first considered a new syllabic writing system as being the ideal way to render the Algonkian languages.
and later:
Evan's educated himself in the customs and language of the Cree. Evans determined that the language had 36 principal sounds and a few affixes for which he adapted a syllabic writing system he originally devised for Ojibway, of nine basic shapes which when rotated on their axis could be used to represent each syllable.
The biography of James Evans page has lots more information, including some good photos.
Writing Inuktitut: Syllabics or Roman Orthography - from the Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut
Learning Inuktitut - excellent resources from the Office of the Languages Commissioner of Nunavut
the Pigiarniq and Uqammaq syllabic fonts, available for download
James Evans -from Canadian Heritage at the Victoria University Library
The Apostle of the North, Rev. James Evans - from anglican.org
From the Nunatsiaq News, an article about Taming Nunavut’s addiction to fossil fuels.
Most Canadians who live north of 60 depend on imported diesel power. Generating stations are as much a part of life today as seal-oil lamps and dog sleds were a half-century ago.
They burn undying in communities across the Arctic like a vast terrestrial constellation: ungainly, utterly vital shrines to Canada’s fossil-fuel addiction.
In Nunavut, the addiction is total. Nunavut’s 27,000 inhabitants burned a staggering 36 million litres of imported fuel last year to brighten homes, chill food, cook meals, wash dishes, launder clothes, surf the Net and watch television. Even more was burned — 58 million litres — keeping warm. And that’s not counting the three million litres of gasoline used to power the growing numbers of boats, snowmobiles and cars.
In a land of harsh extremes — long, dark winters and brief, brilliant summers — petroleum is like sunshine in a bottle, the great energy equalizer in a nation of uneven strengths. But at what price?
. . .
Some analysts believe that wind energy, a centuries-old source of mechanical power now converted to electricity in many parts of the world, holds much promise in Nunavut, though it has been slow to fire the imagination of public-utility managers. [continue]
From the Halifax Daily News, an article about the first settlement in Nova Scotia.
The snow is undisturbed on a frozen clearing in Debert, Colchester Co. It’s not marked on maps and there are no signs drawing cars off the main road. It’s a little known site. But historically, it has massive significance.
About 12,600 years ago this was a village, the first known settlement in Nova Scotia. And starting next spring, the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq will be encouraging people to see one of the oldest archaeological sites in North America. [continue]
In 1643 Fr Jean de Brébeuf, Jesuit missionary to the Huron, wrote the first Canadian Christmas carol. In Huron it's Jesous Ahatonhia; the English version is called the Huron Carol or 'Twas in the moon of wintertime'.
First Nation Help Desk has a Huron carol page which features an .mp3 of the song being sung in the Huron language. Excellent! I've wanted to hear that for years.
Here's the story of Jean de Brébeuf, his mission to Huronia, and his martrydom.
Related links:
harp version of the Huron carol
Huron carol guitar chords
Iesus Ahatonnia⁄The Huron Carol - lyrics, translations, and notes from Bruce Cockburn's website.
On the rugged northwest tip of Newfoundland, an important archeological site tells the story of the first known European settlement in North America. L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Viking explorers called this area Vinland. Remains of their presence, as much as one thousand years ago, were discovered in 1960. Today, full-scale replicas of Norse sod huts provide glimpses into life in a Viking colony in the New World.
From the virtual tours page of the Parks Canada L'Anse aux Meadows site. The website has more about the history of L'anse aux Meadows and a few photos as well. Some of these sites have better photos, though, and some more information, too:
Discovering Vikings at L'anse aux Meadows
Vinland Archeology
photo, Viking landing craft
L'anse Aux Meadows - panoramic view
some good photos of L'anse Aux Meadows, mixed in with some other stuff.
From the Globe and Mail, Icelanders add a leaf to Viking mystery tale:
Here on this remote northern edge of Iceland, buried under a thousand years of volcanic ash and drifting soil, the second half of one of Canada's most ancient human mysteries finally is being dug up.
It is, they say, the home of Snorri Thorfinnson, famed in Viking lore as the first European born in the New World and a key family member in Eric the Red's legendary clan.
Thorfinnson's birthplace is thought to be in Newfoundland, at l'Anse aux Meadows. Discovered 40 years ago, it has been made a United Nations World Heritage Site and is considered one of the world's major archeological finds.
Besides being the only authenticated settlement of Norse Vikings in North America, l'Anse aux Meadows is the earliest mark of the sweeping role Europeans were fated to play on the North American stage.
But the question always has been: Where did Thorfinnson go from there?
The answer, it seems, is right here, to this farmer's field in Glaumbaer. At the moment, a few dozen of Iceland's shaggy sheep are grazing over what would have been Thorfinnson's sleeping quarters. [continue]
Buttertarts are right at the top of my favourite delectables list, and I was so pleased to learn (via CBC Radio, a few years ago) that buttertarts seem to be a uniquely Canadian thing. If we're going to have any food represent Canada in a national cuisine kind of way, it might as well be something scrumptious, I think, and buttertarts are certainly that.
So a few days ago I decided to do some baking, but didn't feel like making pastry for tarts. It seemed a good time to try this recipe for buttertart squares. Yum! They're easy, dangerously delicious, and there's no messing about with pastry and tart tins.
Oh, look. The (US) National Catholic Register has an article on Catholicism in Canada: The World Youth Day Inspires Surge of Orthodoxy North of the Border.
Archbishop Gervais himself said on Sept. 20 that signs of renewal "are numerous enough to give me hope that things are going to get better."
Well, cool.
From the Inukshuk entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Inukshuk (singular), meaning "likeness of a person" in Inuktitut (the Inuit language) is a stone figure made by the Inuit. The plural is inuksuit. The Inuit make inuksuit in different forms and for different purposes: to show directions to travellers, to warn of impending danger, to mark a place of respect, or to act as helpers in the hunting of caribou. Similar stone figures were made all over the world in ancient times, but the Arctic is one of the few places where they still stand. An inukshuk can be small or large, a single rock, several rocks balanced on each other, round boulders or flat. Inuit tradition forbids the destruction of inuksuit.
The Inukshuk Creator will let you build your own inukshuk. (Flash required.) Whee!
Did you know that Canada's official date for Thanksgiving wasn't proclaimed by Parliament until 1957? HistoryTelevision.ca [update: page no longer available] notes:
Like so many Canadian historical events, Thanksgiving was largely determined by the weather. Or, at least that's what E.C. Drury (the premier of Ontario between 1919 and 1923) claimed after Parliament proclaimed in 1957 that Thanksgiving Day would be on the second Monday in October. Before then it was celebrated later in the year.
The site includes other interesting tidbits, too, like:
Before settlers came to Canada the Ojibwa Indians celebrated two thanksgivings. The first was in the spring to mark the rising of the sap and in appreciation for their deliverance from winter and the other to celebrate the fall harvest. The first time Thanksgiving was celebrated in Canada by early settlers was in 1578. English explorer Martin Frobisher, while trying to find a northern passage to the Orient, observed a day of Thanksgiving in the Eastern Arctic.
(This Thanksgiving posting brought to you by thoughts of tonight's scrumptious dinner.)
Thanksgiving links:
Canadian Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving recipes
2learn.ca's Thanksgiving page
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Unusual turkey-cooking methods
A web developer in Toronto registered canadian.biz. Good for him, eh? First come, first serve. You'd think that would be that. But no, now the Molson beer company is taking the web developer to court over this domain name. Molson wants it, you see.
I suppose it might be a surprise to Molson, but there are actually - gasp! - a number of Canadian businesses in this teensy little country of ours.
Related:
ICANN Watch article about this dispute
Happy Canada Day! The whole area near Vancouver's main Canada Day celebration is insanely busy, and there are an awful lot of temporary Canadian flag tatoos on faces, biceps, and tummies. It will be even more crowded downtown for the fireworks tonight.
Feel like singing? The Government of Canada has a web page that outlines the history of the Canadian national anthem, and gives words to the various versions. The anthem is available in .mp3 format at Sing For Canada.ca.