h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This thread arises out of the flurry of Human National Treasure threads on Ask . . .


To me, the idea of calling a mere human a National Treasure is a little unseemly and perhaps even unCanadian.


So, *What* would you say are some of the absolute Treasures of this little country?

I would suggest off the top of my head and in no particular order:


The Rocky Mountains and their Parks
Nunavut -- both the landscape and the political experiment
The Canadian Shield and all it entails
The Canadian Railroad Trilogy
The CBC, warts and all
Quebec's Distinct Society
All the thousands of other distinct societies
The crazy impossible country itself, which keeps carrying on in remarkably contentment if not always joy despite the manifest absurdity of its very existence.

Let's get Loius Real in there too before anyone complains.
And a few of your beloved aboriginals.

Maple syrup, cod, potatoes, the Canadian Wheat Board,
the Avro Arrow, penicillin, Chalk River...

And, lessee, hmm..

Tommy Douglas
Tommy Hunter
Tommy Common
Stompin' Tom


~jwf~

Thompson Highway.



But there are no end o' the people.


The Candu reactor!



I'm going to walk away from the `puter now. I gots tuff tod o.

With reference to your recent `post on one of those other threads ~ jwf ~, I think Tommy Douglas may be one of those great unifying characters for us. As for contemporary, living ones . . .




Paul Martin because of the fairly sound financial house he left behind?

Jack Layton if he'd somehow stayed alive despite his death (which was necessary to elevate him to a truly great unifier).

David Suzuki.

(And god forgive me, because all of these
have had some impact on all Canadians

Wayne & Shuster
Don Cherry
The Eaton family.
Paul Anka
Celine Dion
James Cameron
Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Berton

..the beat goes on!


~jwf~

I was asking for things, not people!

If you can't stay on topic just go away!








We're just to darn happy as a (bunch of really mixed up different) people. Everybody has a thirty million heroes and ten million square kilometres of favourite places.

Rick Mercer.

Yeah, listing people is proving fatal on the other threads.

(Know Accounting Fore-taste)

Things and places, eh.

Last I heard the Bay of Fundy was still in the running
as one the final Seven Wonders of the Whirled run-offs
being held by the UN. Must say, living 20 miles inshore
from it I can take it or leave it. 50 foot tides, eh. (meh)
Billions of gallons going up and down every 12 hours.
And they still burn imported coal here for the lecky.

~jwf~

I put two s in so you'd know I wasn't really mad.






I thought the Bay of Fundy got bumped.



Yep: http://www.new7wonders.com/

>>..so you'd know I wasn't really mad. <<

Wouldn't matter if you were; I'd forgive ya.

>>..the Bay of Fundy got bumped <<

So it did.
Thanks for that.
Bad news travels slower round here.
As it should be really, eh.

Had it been good news I'da heard about it.
Bad news is best ignored; it's nought to shout about.
And I'm deif in one ear y'know. Bad case of
itsalloverbuttheshouting.

Now comes rationalisation:
Of course, as I said, it's more of a failed science
and technology Wonder than a natural wonder. Boats
float up, boats sit on mud, boats float up, boats sit
in the mud. Every day, day after day. Will it never
stop! Or even be turned into some useful energy.

Now I'm mad.

Good night sir.


~jwf~

I'm hoping to get away from this innerweave so I can finish up book # four of this year's Canada Reads --

Now that's what I'd call a treasure! Canada Reads! Warts and all.

Are we safe from fkf's kerfluffling here?


Oh yes, Canada reads. I hear the guy who did
The Golden Spruce is up again for The Tiger.

Heard him chatting with whatserface on the Chapters
show t'other day. He gave away the whole plot. This (me)
Canadian is currently reading ALL of Isaac Asimov's
short stories again. God, that guy was so far into
the future as we have come to know it.

In 'What if?' he had clear plexy tablets used as phones
and info sources and images of alternate behaviors and
outcomes. That was in 1950 when TV was still B&W and
Marshall McLuhan was still teaching Eng Lit somewhere
in the US.

~jwf~

I reread his short stories not long ago as well. I just finished Bradbury's Illustrated Man the other day. Asimov ages much better, I think.

As for The Tiger's plot ... it's a true story! I hope Dryden doesn't give away the plot of The Game.




Spoiler alert.





Montreal wins a lot.

Believe it or not, I've seen enough of Canada to have some ideas about its national treasures:

The historic part of Quebec City. (I thought it was the most beautiful city I had ever seen when I was there)

The lighthouse in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

Here's one I haven't been to, but it richly deserves to be considered a treasure: the taiga, or boreal forest. This is responsible for releasing a lot of oxygen in the summer months.

'Believe it or not, I've seen enough of Canada to have some ideas about its national treasures'


I believe it absolutely, Paul. You'll get no kerfuffle about that here.

My family used to drive to Detroit from the Boston area. The most direct route led across upstate New York into southern Ontario. I was fairly young at the time, but I remember stopping at a restaurant in Ontario. The soup they served us was gold, but very salty. I can't help wondering whether the saltiness was part of some tradition, or a quirk of the restaurant itself.

Sorry, the soup was "good," not "gold."

I'm not sure about at the time of your childhood, but Canadians do consume more salt than their southern neighbours: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special-reports/hard-to-shake/how-canada-is-losing-the-war-on-salt/article1194422/

~ jwf ~, Effers asked me to let you know that she sent you an email at the address to which you link on your PS.

Gotcha.
Got it.

~jwf~