Here is mine.

I sit in my backyard with my friends on a warm spring night, not troubled by anything in particular and feeling good as I look at my company one by one and think how lucky I am to know them.

These people share no common heritage, indeed some do not have a clear idea of what their heritage is.

Some of us are in the backyard, listening to a CD from Serbia, Goran Bregovic, they are discussing issues... as usual.

Some folks are in the kitchen, ravenous latecomers who are gorging on the remaining Sashimi.

In the family room, a gathering of anxious looking people sit ...stare...suddenly... he shoots...HE SCORES!!! wild cheering ensues form all corners of the house.

I am so lucky I live in a country where this is possible. I love Canada (Insert face thingy with tears of pride and joy)

The students flooding into my university's student union building, brown, black, white, beautiful girls in hijabs, boys loudly conversing in Chinese, everyone waiting to buy schoolbooks, milling around in a sort of happy chaos.

My boyfriend's father got cancer, had to have chemotherapy, and he never for a minute had to worry about how much money it would cost.

When Italy or Portugal or Korea wins the world cup, downtown Toronto fills with cheering, honking, flag-waving Italians or Portuguese or Koreans, and I laugh.

The memory of little girls in frilly pink and white dresses, like flowers, coming out of the little synagogue on my street on Saturday mornings in spring, when I was very small. And all I knew about them as a group, or needed to know at that time, was that they were beautiful.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes recommending that Stockwell Day change his name to Doris, and getting a million people(!) to pledge their "support." Political humour so vicious that some Americans can't believe we get away with it.

It's okay to be a lefty here, and people don't blanch at the word "communist."

Stan Rogers. I think he captured a little bit of every Canadian soul, or maybe just a lot of mine.

Comparing the English and the French on cereal boxes, peanut butter jars, museum exhibits. Being able to go to a foreign city without crossing a national border.

Red leaves in autumn, loons on the Muskoka lakes, the Halifax harbour in wintertime; the cathedrals and cafés and coat shops in Montreal, the museum exhibit that cheerfully brags about the number of "erotic shows" available in Montreal theatres.

The mythology and poetry and reality of the True North, the wilderness, and knowing that wilderness is mine to explore.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]

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OK I know this is so corny, but I also cried every time I would watch that commercial for the Canadian Olympic Hockey Team - the one with the kicking Acadian music.

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Hey, don't feel bad. I felt slightly teary-eyed the first time I saw that "I am...you know I am...I am Canadian!" commercial.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Why must we rely on Wal-mart for support for the Juno Beach memorial? I know a D-Day vet who has been trying for years to get the government and the Legion to help put up a memorial at Juno Beach, but nobody comes through.

The two styles of living are vastly different. But when push comes to shove, neighbors are still relatively neighborly - especially in hard times.

Things like the hay donations from the East to the West - distinctly Canadian. Sports Bars nation wide come NHL season hold fans of a variety of teams yet the cheers are the same. Flag waving on Canada Day is a national occurence. Pride in any celebrity, be they entertainment or sport, literary or art is something we all have in common. Poking fun at our govenment, regardless of which party is in power, is a national pastime. Complaining of too hot or too cold, also a national pastime.

My husband works teaching English to students from abroad, he asks a lot of questions to get them talking... what do you like about Canada? is a typical one.

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My husband works teaching English to students from abroad, he asks a lot of questions to get them talking... what do you like about Canada? is a typical one. Best and most common answer: "Everyone thinks I'm Canadian"

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This is my favourite time of year, for alot of reasons. I love the crisp air that carries the scent of frost and woodsmoke. I love the colour explosion that dazzles even the most jaded eye. I love the rustling sounds I make when I walk (jump!) through a pile of fragrantly decomposing leaves.

I love that I sing my natioanl anthem in half English and half French without thinking. And it's great national anthem.

I love that at ahockey game you'll see jerseys of both teams on friends and everyone loves our game more than the different teams and rivalries are friendly.

I love that patios and docks and good beer are my summer.

I love that I can walk out my door in Toronto and sample the best foods from around the world with a relatively cheap cab ride.

I love that so much of Canada cheered and cried as hard for our women's hockey team as our men's and that we have great role models for our girls who are bigger than a size 2 because of those women.

I love my country for remembering those who have fallen to make my life so great, and I cry for them more than just once a year, regardless of who pays for the commercials or monuments.

"I'd love to come in for tea/
Thanks, but I really can't stay for dinner/
I really appreciate your offer of pie/
BUT,..."

These folks didn't know me from Adam.

Don't get me wrong - I love this place. It's a great model in many senses for other progressive societies - including its recent policial, economic and social initiatives with Aboriginal peoples. I don't mean to be a wet blanket on this delightfully positive thread, it's just that my perspective of Canada differs greatly from many others. To me, Canada has been like a wonderful, exclusive club that I had been only permitted to experience from outside, looking in. And now that I'm in, I still feel like I don't belong.

I could theorize about why I get this feeling (does geographic-psychology relate here?). But in the end those theories don't really matter. It is the feeling that does.

Things I love:

the prairies. many people complain that driving across them is boring, but I love them. Best (and worst) childhood memories of being locked in a giant old car with my mom, stepfather and brother, listening to Johnny Horton for 7 hours and watching the fields go by. Wheat, canola, barley, oats, and other crops in patchwork formation as far as the eye can see, all below that incredible blue sky that stretches for miles. The beauty of a simple slough (when there is water in it), and a few birds come to nest, and there are foxholes around. Its the drought that makes me cry, and the look on famer's faces when they look at what the soil has become.

Weird monuments at the sides of the road. Giant bees, pysanky, nickels, pyrogy on a fork, moose, happy rocks, and a whole lotta other weird things that you just have to stop and take a picture of on a road trip. St. Paul chose to build their alien landing pad instead of a library. I always used to beg my mom on the trip back to Edmonton from Saskatchewan to stop in Vegreville. It was a treat when we did.

That wherever I go, I almost always find someone who knows someone I know in a small Saskatchewan town.

Being on Parliament hill and having the friendly guides saying "hellobonjour" "hellobonjour".

Our lack of Canadian confidence. What other country has tv commercials designed to teach us history and make us feel good about ourselves? It works for me.

BUt for me Canada will always be camping with my family - mostly those trips when I was young and there'd be about 30 or 40 of us, at Pike Lake or Manitou, and we'd be loud and rowdy and people would be drawn to our campsite, so by the end of the 2 or 3 weeks we spent there, we'd know everyone. But also the mountains with my partner, and Drumheller with his family, and the weddings in the Shushwaps. Its about love and family and nature and weather and beer and CANADA.

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For me, it is the feeling I suddenly get when I step off the airplane in Canada after being abroad for many months. It is a feeling that I'm never expecting. I never really realise how I can *physically* miss 'home' until I actually get back. It is kind of like relief.

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my canada has a lot of work to do before i sing its praises.

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I am as cynical as the next babbler but for pity sake! There are at least 100 other threads that address our flaws and how we might work towards fixing them.

Let us have a thread to cherish what we have that is good and save the miserable comments for other threads. Because regardless of what needs work we are damn lucky to live in this country. And remembering what is good allows us to work that much harder to make it better.

I agree Scout, I think now and again we need to think a bit about how lucky we are to be here and for all of it's faults, we would still would be hard pressed to find a better place to live on this planet.

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I hate it when people go out of their way to ruin other peoples "warm fuzzies"

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