Thanksgiving – Giving Thanks

"For food for friends for loving care,
for gifts to give, for gifts to share,
for all that makes live sweet and good
Dear God…(something something something)"

This was the preamble to a grace that my family used to say prior to eating and prior to Dad becoming vehemently anti-religion. I don’t remember when that happened exactly. But this thanksgiving day, it all applies.
We are truly blessed as individuals and as a nation to live in the fashion to which we've become accustomed. For this year's Thanksgiving, called Action de Grace in French (or as Peter says, Inaction de Grace, since the Quebequois do not recognize the day in any way other than another day off from work), we had the good fortune to have 3 thanksgiving dinners. One in the Laurentians, one near Pointe Au Chene, near the Ottawa river, and one in Ottawa (on the other side of the river). Actually there was a fourth too, in a place called Echo Lake with the brother and sister-in-law of a close friend.

For all of these dinners the hippy west-coast vegetarians had to suck it up and eat meat. Oh so difficult when it's succulent duck breast with a maple cranberry sauce. Or a tender chicken raised there on the property. Or beef raised there on the property served with veggies also raised there, all with views over a lovely river valley, or lake. At all of these dinners we had thought-provoking conversation, often about the food we were eating.

Real vegetarians

At Lac Saint Jean in the Saguenay valley, we came upon a view of the lake and in the distance the wind was creating whitecaps all across the lake. Then Jack said, "those aren't waves, they're birds.” Sure enough, thousands of Snow Geese (not snowbirds, those are a different breed altogether) had descended onto the lake and surrounding fields. At one point a few began to take off and then a few more and then a continuous stream of V's and W's began to fly overhead.

not snow...snow geese

They were close and beautiful in striking white and black and I was relishing the joy of flight, and then…POP POP POP. And a goose began to tumble, catch itself and glide painfully down to the field where a hunter ran towards it. It could only run away on goose feet, and I was imagining trying to run in a hayfield while shot and wearing a pair of snorkeling flippers.

finding the beauty in catching your dinner

We’ve seen a lot of dead animals, moose, geese, caribou, and the people who feel remarkable pride in killing them. And I can appreciate the pride, while at the same time I'm feeling the pain of the animal and sadness at the whole affair.

As in my last blog, I'm still a bit "unhinged" as one of you so eloquently put it. And I continue to be so. The complexities around a simple thing like eating could only have been invented in North America. Perhaps not something for which to be thankful. But the trip has given me a new perspective on my idealistic ideals, and for that I am thankful.

yeah..more beauty...yada yada yada

Now after these wonderful meals with the hospitality of friends old and new, we’ve tried to pay it forward by giving a good long ride (700 km) to a young hitchhiker. But since we've since ditched the hitch-hiker (literally I think he is spending the night in a ditch) I'm feeling somewhat guilty being warm in a lodge while he is under a tree somewhere. and it's snowing.

So yes, unhinged is a good word.

a hard frost or snow every morning now

not house-proud

Becoming Higher Caliber People

We have come across so many ironies in our travels, that I am considering just making a list of them all. Maybe that will be a future blog. The one that’s been on my mind for a while is about food.

We have just spent a delightful few days with friends at their “cottage” in the Laurentians in Quebec. They are foodies and the experience was delicious. Crêpes, Montreal bagels and baguettes, cheeses to die for (including one called “Anglo Saxon” - I don't even want to know why), local wine, beer and cider, espresso, homemade gazpacho, and throughout it all, glorious fresh fruits and vegetables. We had a similar experience with friends in Toronto and again in Ottawa. Actually in Ottawa, as I gazed up agape at the chalkboard menu of a funky organic restaurant, my friend Lisa said I looked like I was seeing a DaVinci painting for the first time.

This was because we have spent a lot of time in small rural Canadian towns, and here comes the irony. In small farming communities, you won’t be served fresh fruits or vegetables. There will be lot’s of fried options, there will be both kinds of bread (“white or brown?”) there will be Coca Cola, but the only thing vaguely green will be a pale piece of iceberg lettuce. I finally realized that places that advertise themselves as serving “homestyle cooking” don’t bear any resemblance to what my friends or I would cook at home.

Picture Perfect Montreal Lunch

I’ve read that a low income is a strong indicator for an unhealthy weight. And while I have found that restaurant prices may be slightly higher in high rent areas, the difference really hasn’t been significant. That may be because the deveggified restaurant food tends to come in huge portions. The rural restaurant portion sizes assume that I will be spending my afternoon tossing around 50 pound bales of hay or pulling a plow through rocky prairie soil. The result of this kind of eating, along with all the sitting involved with driving across the country, is a couple of British Columbians who are having more difficulty fitting into their trousers.

Do vertical photos make my butt look fat?

But it’s not just us. As we have travelled across the country, the experience has been quite similar everywhere. There are a lot of fat people in the country and a lot of slim people in the cities. Part may be fashion consciousness, but as I witness people using their ATV to get down their driveway to empty their mailbox, I can’t but come to the conclusion that the whole rural work-hard ethic doesn’t really result in getting physical activity. It’s just too easy to jump into the car. And in the cities, it’s a pain in the ass to jump in the car. Just try to find parking, and when you do it’s expensive.


Toronto - I counted 16 lanes







A Toronto dirt-filled sedan – a use for cars in the future?














an Ottawa artist gets his exercise balancing heavy rocks

Or is all this just my own snobbishness? Is expecting greenery beyond coleslaw at a meal just another form of elitism? A woman told me she was a “coffee snob too” when I asked if espresso was available anywhere in town.


We've just headed into a more rural Quebec, so I'll be able to see if the theory holds. After all, everything sounds better in French.

"Saskatchewan - Hard to Spell - Easy to Draw"

I wish I had thought of that saying, but as soon as you've been here you get it. I was hoping to be less wordy, but I'll try to include a few images with my wordiness this time. (Just a few, since the term "highspeed" internet, seems to have a different meaning in the prairies.)

Saskatchewan Traffic Jam:

We spent 3 days living on the rodeo grounds at Shaunavon, SK during their "Boomtown Days." We were without running water, but were with wild horses, cowboys, dust, trailers, bulls and more dust. The water gave me a bellyache, but at least during the rodeo itself, they had both kinds of beer: Bud and Bud Light. Each day without a shower, my skin and hair would be covered by another layer of find amber dust, to which I'd add another layer of sunscreen.
The people have been welcoming everywhere. Even the cowboys in their shy way. They have no trouble walking up to a bull and pushing it around, but they needed company and a beer (at 9:00 am "to wash down the coffee") to get the nerve to come up to us and politely ask us to move to a more appropriate location on the rodeo grounds. [Read: you're in the way.]
We went to a pancake breakfast and I'm looking forward to sending a postcard to one of my alternative healthcare providers that I'm living on white flour, refined sugar and meat. (It's hard to be vegetarian when you're living on the rodeo grounds.)



We visited Old Man on His Back, the Nature Conservancy short grass prairie preserve set up by Sharon and Peter Butala. The caretaker at the visitors centre was practically part of the Butala family and has an adjacent farm that is currently growing organic feed grain. Her husband custom farmed the Butala property for 25 years before the Nature Conservancy purchased it, and for several years after as well as they discovered how to replant the indigenous grasses.

Dark Green Ocean ("Oatsean"?):
We and woke up this morning in Grasslands National Park. The wind has been wonderfully incessant. The oat fields really do look like dark green oceans.
(please excuse the poor video quality from my pocket camera, and the poor videography from being battered by the wind)



Saskatchewan Butterfly Collection:


And I must add, yesterday we went through a small community called "Climax". As you enter the town there is a sign saying, "Welcome to Climax" and as you leave (I'm not making this up) it says, "Please come again."