Oh! Canada..

Imagine seeing a place like this

turned into this.

Stephen Harper has decided it's a good idea to build a 10 storey Colossus memorializing Canada's military history along the rugged, windswept coastline of the Cabot Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The statue will be part of a proposed "Never Forgotten National Memorial" inside the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

The plans for the memorial, brilliantly conceived by food-packaging baron and "enthusiastic patriot" Tony Trigiani were described to the Globe and Mail:

Mr. Trigiani is planning to place a "We See Thee Rise Observation Deck" in front of the Mother Canada statue, and behind it "The Commemorative Ring of True Patriot Love," a low wall featuring metal plaques naming the international cemeteries where Canadian soldiers are buried. He's also planning a "With Glowing Hearts National Sanctuary," as well as a restaurant, souvenir shop and interpretive centre.

Siting any structure in a National Park sets a precedent that calls into question the very reason to even have National Parks. If a consortium of wealthy individuals can ride roughshod over the Parks' legal protections, then the Parks are no longer safe.

The names of the fallen will not be commemorated by this monument - only those of the sponsors will appear, carved in stone. That is, after all, the incentive for getting them to contribute in the first place - it is there, for all to see, on the official website. They are paying to have their name and/or brand immortalised on this so-called 'monument', while the names of those it is meant to honour will not be. That isn't patriotism, it's marketing, and to use the dead to sell stuff is an insult to their sacrifice. A monument should remember those who sacrificed their lives for their country, not those who sacrificed a small proportion of their disposable income for brand awareness.

 Finally - it's really, REALLY ugly.

Just in case you need to know more about this project there's more news here. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with just a few of the hundreds of comments made to the Guardian:

* Not to mention the I-Love-Me Harper Hall! Plus, what names! What grandiose, egocentric, egotistical megalomaniacal names! What typical of tyrannical regimes names! Amazing the approach is not being named the Avenue of Glorious Leader Harper!

* Sitting Bull and other Lakota described Queen Victoria as 'Grandmother England' and thought of Canada as a place of sanctuary - just stick a big statue of Victoria facing the US.

* They should build a statue of a giant oil sands truck and call it "mother of all fuck ups".

* Not so much "Mother Canada" as "The Mummy" Canada".....

* Perhaps instead a statue of Pierre Trudeau doing his pirouette? A monument to the last Canadian prime minister with any real character or brains.

* War already does a pretty good job of eradicating natural beauty, so yeah, let's commemorate that by eradicating some natural beauty.

* Interesting to compare the triumphantly open-armed Mother Canada with the bowed and grieving Canada Bereft Vimy memorial, which at least makes the point that war is a desperately sad business. An example of a new mood of sentimental jingoism, now that WW2 is more than half a century away.

* Meanwhile about 120 First Nations communities in Canada are on boil water advisories, some for as long as 20 years. Typically the Harper government would rather spend our tax dollars on self congratulatory projects like this than improving the third world conditions of Canadian First Nations living in one of the richest countries in the world.

* A final insult to the east coast before Harper goes. To sell out national parkland to a private enterprise for such a stupid idea is just plain wrong. You're not allowed to pick a single flower in these parks and he wants to pour concrete all over Green Cove. The gratitude we have to our fallen soldiers is felt by all, but to use our sentiments to sell this piece of tacky schlock is pathetic.

* The bigger-is-better approach to art is best left to Stalinist tyrants, theme park entrepreneurs and insecure municipalities.

* This is not the only oversized piece of controversial memorial "art" that Harper's Conservative government is working on. They are going to build a massive "Monument for the Victims of Communism" outside the Supreme Court building on Parliament Hill.
No indication where the "Monument for the Aboriginal Victims of Canada" is going to be located, thus proving that it is much easier to commemorate other people's victims.


* I think Cape Breton needs a 100' statue of the McKenzie brothers, hockey sticks draped over their shoulders, a beer in the other hand of course, and big smiles showing the requisite 3 or 4 missing teeth. Now that says everything about the Canadian psyche that needs to be said...eh?


Happy Canada Day on the 1st of July
Happy Independence Day on the 4th

We'll try to be back sooner next time :)
♡

spring rocks Halifax park

One day a few weeks ago, shortly after the last snow melted, we came across a rock maze that had been carefully laid out on the grass of Point Pleasant Park. It was probably 30 feet across and twenty deep. While my husband walked along its convolutions to the centre where there was a little rock shrine, I watched and wished I'd brought my camera - not to take a photo of him, but to record the result of the anonymous artist's effort. The maze hadn't been there the day before and by the next day the park maintenance crew had bulldozed its stones back to the rocky beach. After all, it will soon be time to cut the grass and you can't send lawn mowers over loose rocks. As Jer stooped to leave the last of our peanuts on the shrine he discovered a tiny red plastic frog another maze walker had left.

More recently we found the results of yet another spontaneous installation made from the rocks on that shore - yes, it's a very rocky shore. Today I took my camera.

There's something wonderful about artwork made from the materials contained in natural surroundings that shows what's best in us. That days can go by with nobody knocking down these precariously balanced sculptures is one of the things I love most about Halifax.

♡

oh cadnana, when will it be spring?

As far as doing anything is concerned it appears I've spent almost the entire month of May making small beaded objects. I have no idea how this happened  but when you're either fogged or rained in for long periods, well beyond the time that spring was supposed to have arrived and settled in, things can get a little crazy. Just to show you how silly I've become this past month I'll share with you a list of the benefits of living in the Canadian provinces sent to me by a friend who left Canada and moved to Arizona.

 TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

1. Vancouver has 2 million people and two bridges. You do the math.
2. Your $500,000 Vancouver home is just 5 hours from downtown.
3. There's always some sort of deforestation protest going on.
4. "Weed".

 TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ALBERTA

1. There are big rocks between you and B.C.
2. Tax is 5% instead of the approximately 200% as it is for the rest of the country.
3. You can exploit almost any natural resource you can think of.
4. You live in the only province that could actually afford to be its own country.
5. The Americans below you are all in anti-government militia groups.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN SASKATCHEWAN

1. You never run out of wheat.
2. Your province is really easy to draw.
3. You can watch the dog run away from home for hours.
4. People will assume you live on a farm.
5. Daylight savings time? Who the hell needs that!

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA
 
1. You wake up one morning to find that you suddenly have a beachfront property..
2. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes.
3. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter.
4. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood.
5. You can pass the time watching trucks and barns float by.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN ONTARIO

1. You live in the centre of the universe.
2. Your $500,000 Toronto home is actually a dump.
3. You and you alone decide who will win the federal election.
4. The only province with hard-core American-style crime.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN QUEBEC

This is a tough one.
1. You can take bets with your friends on which English neighbour will move out next.
2. Other provinces basically bribe you to stay in Canada
3. You can blame all your problems on the "Anglo A*#!%!" ?

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK

1. One way or another, the government gets 98% of your income.
2. No one ever blames anything on New Brunswick ...
3. Everybody has a grandfather who runs a lighthouse.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NOVA SCOTIA

1. Everyone can play the fiddle.. The ones who can't, think they can.
2. You can pretend to have Scottish heritage as an excuse to get drunk and wear a kilt.
3. You are the only reason Anne Murray ever made money.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

1. Even though more people live on Vancouver Island , you still have the big new bridge.
2. You can walk across the province in half an hour.
3. You can drive across the province in two minutes.
4. It's where all those tiny, red potatoes come from..
6. You can confuse ships by turning your porch lights on and off at night.

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN NEWFOUNDLAND

1. If Quebec separates, you will float off to sea.
2. The workday is about two hours long.
3. It is socially acceptable to wear hip waders to your wedding.

All this followed by a film about the real Canada:



Now that I seemed to have developed a case of carpal elbow syndrome I'm packing up the beads and will return to normal drawing activity in the very near future.

Happy Memorial Day to my American friends and good wishes to all for better weather.
♡

ps: I've also been working on a website gallery page since it's in the nature of blogs that everything disappears faster than I'd prefer. Hmm, reminds me of life.

haligonian cliff dwellers

Unlike the neighbors we won't have to look at this place while we're living there. A couple of weeks ago we got word from the attorney in Nova Scotia that it was time to prove our intention to live in Canada by being able to show a lease or mortgage agreement to the authorities reviewing our file. Our first thought was to go there and look but that didn't seem either cheap or very convenient so what we did was use the handy google satellite maps based on rentals advertised by the bigger property management companies.

We spent hours looking at buildings in Halifax and taking virtual walks around the neighborhoods that interest us and around the city in general. I got headaches from all the swooping and zooming past houses, buildings, parks and docks that matched up smoothly in the sense that we could walk through entire areas but disconcertingly through different seasons. Winter, summer, spring and fall viewed in the course of a mile or two was almost too much for my equilibrium even though I was sitting on the couch.

Eventually we settled on an apartment in the tallest building east of Montreal and described as an excellent example of brutalist architecture by wikipedia (hah!). Fenwick Tower does look to be quite the eyesore and we wondered how they'd got building permission in the first place until we read it was erected back in 1970 as student housing for Dalhousie University. That explained it. It's inarguably ugly but it does give us a place to live while we get to know the city and besides, our 18th floor place overlooks the harbor and is close to lots of interesting stuff downtown. I guess it's even possible we might grow to like living there. I know I'm looking forward to seeing the Tall Ships sail in some summer morning and we can always pretend we live in a lighthouse.



I resigned from my job yesterday as of mid-August; we plan to fly sometime in September. Hello, I must be going :-)

☃ ☃

If you ever happen by to read this you should really check the follow-up post.

mystery solved

Okay, it's no big secret or anything but the other day I ran out of room talking about the reasons we're feeling ready to leave Portland. After that come the reasons why we're ready to leave the US. Maybe it's enough to say I arrived in this country during the Carter administration thinking now that Nixon was gone everything would be okay. Fooled me, eh? We're not rich but we can afford the rent and food somewhere else. (You didn't guess I was that old, did you?) What we can't afford is paying for medical insurance. Hmmm. Where to go?

To tell the truth I was very interested in Chile - nice climate, beautiful scenery, ancient architecture and friendly people all sounded pretty good. Numb, on the other hand, was leaning more towards Tahiti or its tiny neighbor, Moorea (a heart shaped island surrounded by a heart shaped reef). It looks lovely but I'm averse to living in the South Pacific with the oceans rising. You can keep moving to higher ground for just so long on a little island and I'm not convinced the talks in Copenhagen are going to change things.

So we decided to move to Canada. Okay, country chosen but where there?

Toronto is a large and comfortable city much like a version of LA North but I grew up there - so no. Vancouver and Victoria are beautiful and very modern but they're also very expensive - so no. Cities in central Canada like Calgary, Regina (as well as everywhere in the Far North) are all too too cold in winter and often in summer too - so no. Montreal and Quebec are wonderful cities but totally French speaking and neither of us is quite ready for that - no again. Where else? Finally. the answer struck us - Nova Scotia!

We spent 16 years in New England but neither of us have ever lived in Nova Scotia so it will be a new adventure. I did visit the Maritime provinces long ago and visions of blue green waves exploding into white spray against rocky shores has remained a powerful memory. I see dunes and gorse in my dreams. Then too we're pretty much settled on continuing to be urban dwellers but like older cities - places with enough old buildings that nobody would dare pull down to build a shopping mall or insurance office. It sounds a lot like Halifax which isn't that far from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Providence. I've promised our son not to make a nuisance of myself.

If all goes well that's where we'll be by the end of next summer. Why do I hedge that statement? It's simply because the documentation required by the Canadian government in regard to sponsoring someone is so complicated we decided to hire an attorney to help us through the process. No more, 'Hi, I just ran away from the US Army and I want to live here now' to which they used to say, 'Welcome, we feel the same way about your endless wars of aggression'.


There'll be more to tell you as time goes by and I'll even talk about many of the wonderful people I've known as well as the things I'll miss. For now I just wanted to clear a minor mystery.

At least I won't have to knit Crow a new umbrella for that winter. Besides, he loves dancing to Celtic music and knows Pema Chodren quite well :-)

I used to be disgusted

now I try to be amused. My wings have gotten rusted and the angels have stolen my red shoes. Elvis Costello is surely one of the best song writers of our generation and his "Shipbuilding' explains much about our common history. I thought about posting a link to it but it's easily found on youtube if you're interested.

The picture posted here is part of our collection and was found during the last presidential election. It seemed pretty apt then and perhaps even more so now since a lot of my American friends have expressed interest in moving to Canada - including us considering moving back someday. The problem for us and for some among our Canadian friends is that most of the country - global warming or not - is so damn cold most of the year. The islands of British Columbia are lovely and the weather is milder there than anywhere else but it's not Orange County. Toronto is huge and has spread like a fungal infection of housing developments and strip malls across the remembered farmland and woods of my childhood. Imagine, if you can, Los Angeles with snow and ice seven months of the year and you'll have a close approximation. Montreal is great and even has underground access to most of the downtown buildings but the only French speakers most Quebecois will converse with are native born ones. I don't even want to think about living in any of the Prairie provinces since winters there make Minnesota and N. Dakota look balmy. The Maritimes can be compared to Vermont and New Hampshire but colder, damper and darker by the time November rolls around and the ice doesn't break til May. Brrrrr

Therefore, I think we should start a petition to switch around some of the unnatural lines drawn on political maps. After all, a map is not a landscape. The problems of having an Electoral College decide the presidency would be moot since we'd have a parliament and as many 3rd, 4th and 5th party candidates who felt like climbing on a soapbox (what's a soapbox?). The Canadians could enjoy a warmer retirement and we could all use some free health care. Anybody feel like contacting Michael Moore?