Something Canadian

Exactly how big is Canada?  I can't even find the number online to tell me how much it would be from Atlantic to Pacific if someone were to draw a straight line across it! Suffice to say that it is big - 9.85 million square kilometers big.

That sort of abstract number is a bit difficult to wrap one's head around.  Recently I had the chance to travel to the east side of Canada and one day I had a conversation with a foreign visitor where I ruminated on the possibility of driving back to my home in British Columbia. 

"Oh yeah, how many hours will that take?" He asked.

I almost laughed at him. I stopped myself in time. That would not have been very nice of me. But the very fact that he was trying to estimate the journey in hours instead of days proved to me just how naïve he was about the size of Canada.

"Um, it would take three days," I try to break it to him softly  "if I drove almost around the clock." The look of shock on his face was priceless.  I admit I was experiencing that slightly sadistic inner sense of glee that most Canadians get when we get to blow people's expectations out of the water with how awesome Canada is.

 

The discussion of distance came up several times on my journey with the various tourists from other countries.  One girl from Belgium was simply amazed that it took me 4 hours from my hometown to get to the biggest Canadian city nearby (Kelowna BC , which even isn't that big).  It takes less than four hours for her to travel from one end of her country to the other. 

So many of the tourists complained about how expensive it is to travel across Canada.  Yeah it is, I tried to explain it to them, that's what you get when your country is so big and things are so spread out.  It is part of being Canadian.  The sad thing, however, about that fact is that the stereotype that Canadians don't travel to visit their own country is true.  I met more Germans at the places I stayed, than I met Canadians.  In my conversations I found more Australians that had travelled from Pacific to Atlantic Canada than I met Canadians who had accomplished the same feat. 

And yet, despite this divide from east to west of this very, very big country, everywhere I went in Canada felt like home.  Even in the fifth biggest city in North America, Toronto, I found Canadians who were pleasant and polite, bucking the expectation of  self-absorbed and rude big-city-folk that I secretly had (I suppose that wasn't very nice of me).  And even though the landscape was incredibly diverse, everywhere in Canada still had a picturesque beauty to it that I think sings to the souls of Canadians, shaping who we are.

Over the next while I'm going to spend a bit more time blogging about my journey and experiences, and the thoughts I had along the way.  I always figured that if I did a Master's Thesis or PhD it would be on the essence of Canadian Spirituality, which I am fully aware is a currently undefined and esoteric notion.  But having travelled across this country I am convinced now more than ever that it is a thing.  Somehow, Canadians are Canadians and there is something spiritual there that is binding us together, despite the enormous distance it may take to cross this land from sea to sea.