Here’s an impossible question: is life especially hard for you because you don’t have access to technologies you’ve never even conceived of? An early episode of CBC’s Canada: The Story of Us included some Canadian celebrities talking about how hard life was hundreds of years ago. The examples cited were that “we’re very lucky… because we … Continue reading Are you better off than you were 400 years ago?
As I’ve mentioned, I recently moved to California from New York. As a goodbye gift, some of my New York friends compiled a document called “A List of the Things We Learned About Canada From Chris Tindal.” It was a really special and thoughtful gift, especially now that I am able to use it as … Continue reading Weird things I apparently taught my American friends about Canada
So it’s November 13, 1838, and 182 members of the Hunters Lodge, a United States-based secret society dedicated to the liberation of Canada, are stranded on the Canadian side of the Saint Lawrence River in Newport, near present-day Prescott, Ontario, after executing an ill-advised invasion. * record scratch * * freeze frame * If you’re … Continue reading The Hunters become the hunted
When we last left off, the refugee rebel mayor of Toronto, William Lyon Mackenzie, had just been driven from his declared Republic of Canada on Navy Island, which helped rally Americans to his side and started a year-long series of battles and invasions known as the Patriot War. Violence begets violence, often in ways that … Continue reading The Battle of the Windmill
Because my current interest in history began with the American Revolution, one of the first questions I asked was: why didn’t Canadians fight for independence like Americans did? One answer is that they did. Violent rebellions in present day Ontario and Quebec happened within living memory of and were influenced by the American Revolution and, … Continue reading The Republic of Canada
Early this morning I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I now suddenly live, having moved from New York City for a new job. One of the implications for this blog is I now have to decide if my weekly post deadline is still midnight Sunday Eastern Time, or if I’ll give myself … Continue reading The French Canadian Mayor of Los Angeles
Ironically, I’m not able to do a standard post about Canada this week because I am away from home, in Canada. Specifically, I am in a part of Canada that has very little internet access, and where, in fact, use of the internet is regulated and discouraged. That’s because I’m at a kids’ summer camp, … Continue reading Camping
Ironically, the further we get from the distant past, the more we understand it. We learn more about recent historical events as we gain perspective on them, we learn more about ancient civilizations as we discover new archeological artifacts, and we learn more about the origins of life itself through similar discoveries and scientific research. … Continue reading Canada is home to the oldest evidence of life on Earth
As Canada celebrates 150 years, it’s worthwhile to think back to an earlier time when southwestern Ontario was a collection of villages. The population of just the area between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron was around 20,000 or 30,000, spread out over about 20 small communities. The economy was different than it is today, but still … Continue reading Ontario
It would be difficult, should the American experiment fail, for the rest of the world not to gloat. After all, Americans had so often held themselves up as the ideal republic, to be emulated by lesser nations. That was at least the feeling in much of Britain and Canada as southern states began to secede … Continue reading Canada vs. The Union
