Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US

Now, let’s make this clear. I like Canadian stamps as much as the next Canadian, perhaps even a bit more.

Check out these stamps of some of my favourite Canadian musicians, writers, places, and, um, cultural heroes, for instance.

(Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, was Canadian, to answer your question)

BUT, I have to say, this would be one of the years where back in Canada you would have heard me say, “How come Americans get to buy all the cool stamps?!”

Now, if only I can find a way to buy a whole pile of Wolverine stamps to use for all of our outgoing mail from Canadian Studies!

A nice, albeit brief review on NPR of Madeleine Thien’s first novel Certainty, which was just released in the US this week.

NPR : A First Novel that Pits the Far East with Canada:

I’m very sad about the demise of the Rheostatics, one of the great Canadian bands of all time. Their final concert with band members Michael Phillip Wojewoda and founding member Tim Vesely is this week at Massey Hall in Toronto. Fans from across Canada and around the world are travelling there to attend.

The Rheostatics came to play at the Piazza Bar in Edmonton in the summer of 1987, supporting their first album. I was the house sound man for a month or two that summer and they blew me away. I’ve been a big fan ever since. That was a great summer.

I think the fact that all of these Canadian acts got together to do a secret tribute album to the Rheos says it all. There will be a big hole in the Canadian music scene after this, though it sounds like Dave Bidini and Martin Tielli will continue to work together.

No time to write much this week, but here are a few things I would comment on in more detail if I had time:

Graham Swift is one of my favourite writers, so it kills me that I’ve still not gotten around to reading the Light of Day. He also has a new book coming out this spring. Here’s a new podcast of an interview with him from The Guardian.

I’m very happy about this news…. Hockey Night in Canada (and Coach’s Corner) is a Canadian tradition and perhaps one of our greatest, most visible exports to border communities like Burlington.

I was just interviewed this morning by Vermont Public Radio about the results from last night’s election in Québec. Wow, talk about a shakeup of the political landscape in Québec. Looks like that other Paul Martin was busy today, too… (nice new website, other Paul!)

Oh yeah, speaking of politics, I almost forgot to link to this….

Center for Research on Vermont Research-in-Progress Seminar: “The Moccasin Village Project: Reconstructing the History of French-Abenaki Communities on the Winooski Intervale,” Judy Dow, Abenaki basketmaker and educational consultant, and Nancy Gallagher, historian and author, Memorial Lounge, Waterman, 7:30 p.m.

This should be a very interesting talk. Here’s an excerpt from a longer an article on Ms. Dow and this project in the Free Press of March 21:

Dow’s father’s family is from Moccasin Village, a part of Burlington that overlooked the Intervale. (She will reveal its precise location at the UVM talk.)

Later, in the 1920s and 30s, Burlington would create a eugenics survey in an effort to identify (and control) certain populations.

Glad to see this settled in favour of Carol Shloss. Many of us have been watching this case for a long time. The complete press release can be found here.

This great article from the New Yorker relates the whole story…..

(Thanks to Alec and Heidi for passing this along to me…)

From today’s Globe and Mail:

Although I still really miss getting my Big Rock Traditional Ale back in Alberta (have you ever heard of another brewery offering such a great university lecture series?!) , I live in a state filled with great breweries like Switchback, Otter Creek, and Magic Hat. I’ve not actually had any Molson Canadian since I’ve been here, but it is nevertheless cool to see it and Labatt’s beer everywhere out here. Just another thing that makes me feel like I’m not too far from home…

I can’t say that this has happened to me here either… yet

This is a fascinating and frustrating story. As someone who was once refused entry into the US by Homeland Security for no good reason (I was coming to look for a house before we moved here…), I know exactly what they’re talking about. I’d like to see the Canadian government investigate this case further.

Very interesting data is starting to emerge from the 2006 census. One of the more surprising revelations, at least to me, is that Canada had the highest population growth of all G8 countries and most of this growth has come from immigration, to Alberta and Ontario in particular. Edmonton and Calgary now officially have populations exceeding one million people and Alberta’s overall population has grown by 10% in the last five years. 1.2 million immigrants have settled in Canada between 2001 and 2006, which I think is pretty great to see.

Here are a few more interesting stats from the Statistics Canada 2006 census highlights page:

– Two-thirds of Canada’s population growth was attributable to net international migration, while the U.S. population growth resulted mostly from natural increase, as fertility was higher in the United States than in Canada.

– Alberta and Ontario were responsible for two-thirds of Canada’s population increase. Nearly all of the remaining third occurred in British Columbia and Quebec.

– Alberta is the Canadian province with the highest growth rate since 2001. Alberta’s growth rate (+10.6%) was twice the national average (+5.4%).

– In the 2006 Census, Canada had six metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people: Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Ottawa – Gatineau and, for the first time, Calgary and Edmonton. Together, this “millionaire’s club” had a total of 13.6 million residents, or 45% of Canada’s population.

Nothing I can see there, yet, on how many Canadians are currently living outside of Canada, but there are a lot of us as well… It would be interesting to see some sort of international census about where we all live.

Caught this article today about students producing podcasts as part of Heather Schell‘s freshman writing class at George Washington University and in Nanette Levinson‘s International Relations courses at American University.

I’ve had great success over the last couple of years with my English 005 students’ podcasts and group blogs and I’m looking forward to doing more of this next fall. You can hear my Fall 2006 English 005 students’ podcasts at our test UVM iTunes University page. Just follow the links until you wind up in iTunes.

If you also look at the Canadian Studies lecture links in iTunes U, you can also download a video of Eden Robinson’s terrific reading she gave here in October. Her book Blood Sports has just come out in paperback in Canada and my English 182 course will be reading it about a month from now.