Going through the many and varied challenges, successes and failures that create each individual life, there is one constant, one unbreakable thread that binds us together and to a common whole - we are Canadian. When you ask someone to define this intangible concept that we fall back upon as a reliable and non-judgmental “clique” of sorts, they will pause, flounder and most likely merely throw up their hands in bafflement. What will follow is a personal collection of either seemingly trivial or overwhelmingly stereotypical responses. However, as this is a personal essay, we'll skip past the thoughts of everyone else and focus on my own ideas of what defines me as a Canadian.
After spending the last week thinking on the topic, trying to come up with a particular memory, a certain landscape that has given me a true sense of Canadian-ness, I have come up empty. Instead, I will be concentrating on my own tiny and seemingly trivial details in an attempt to create at least a basic image of being Canadian. If one were to begin with the grandly obvious, it would be such things as the startling contrast between the thirty degree summers and the minus thirty degree winters. I'm certain that we, as Canadians, have some of the most diverse wardrobes in North America. Another monumentally Canadian staple is hockey. Being the national winter sport of our country, it is a great pastime for many Canadian citizens, be they playing or watching. There are also such blatantly Canadian symbols as the maple leaf, beaver and flag, which are recognized internationally as being representations of our country. And of course, there are also more commercial Canadian points of interest - Tim Horton's and Canadian beer.
Being Canadian is being able to live without fear of the government; being able to marry whomever you want; being educated and informed in a manner that promotes free thought and the ability to express those thoughts without the threat of retribution. It is living without the threat of bombs, without a constant concern creeping down one's spine in regards to the safety of your loved ones. It is the ability to share land with a variety of cultures, being accepting of the differences amongst us and respecting said differences.
We have gained a reputation with the rest of the world as a kind, polite and innocent country. One would go as far as to hypothesize that there are those who consider Canada and its people to be naïve. This image of "soft power" blankets Canada in a golden glow, especially when brought up in association with our neighbours to the south, the dazzling, commercialized war machine that is the United States. This comparison can often be misleading, casting the US -- a national metropolis -- in a harsher light while Canada basks in the halo of peace and societal acceptance. It is this strange (and often untrue) elevated moral status that those from other countries seem to stereotype all Canadians with, that contributes to the many factors that is, for me, being Canadian.
Yes, there are mountain ranges to astound, and oceans to mystify and endless prairies to stun and entrance. And yet to those of us who have lived here all our lives, it is simply Canada. Home. All too frequently we go through life never taking time out to appreciate the natural beauty with which we are surrounded every day. Great forests, thick with leafy green foliage and filled with the scampering of small animals; majestically calm lakes dotted with the silvery shimmer of fish into which we are all too eager to dump tanks of toxic waste; vast prairies that seem to go on forever, now being paved and dug up in order to build even more skyscrapers. Canada is slowly losing that which so many travelers find appealing.
So it is that I find it impossible to break down what makes me Canadian into a clinical dictionary definition. Be it something as well-known as the maple leaf or something as indefinable as our un-American identity, there are a multitude of things that I believe contribute to my personal identity as a citizen of this country.