I recently met an amazing woman from Tehran who moved here a few years ago. She likened the situation in Iran to having two strangers in your home who start fighting, destroying everything—and you can only stand by and watch helplessly. This was even before the latest U.S. involvement. As for the strangers, they’re Israel and Iran’s current regime.
With all the worry from wildfires, wars, and now the latest American outrage permeating our world, sometimes it’s hard to look up from our screens and put things in perspective. Sure, history is soaked in terror and tragedy. But it’s also steeped in goodness—even bits of quirky fun. Losing sight of that is equally tragic.
Like one of my favourite quirky bits generated during human-caused hell is something as right-on today, as we hippies used to say, as it was at its inception. The word “snafu” started in the U.S. army during the Second World War as a very appropriate acronym: “Situation normal. All f----- up.” The U.S. army even developed a series of instructional cartoons for recruits during WWII called Private Snafu.
So never mind “elbows up” my fellow Canadianists, if I can borrow that term from McGill University’s Nathalie Cooke, who’s just released an excellent new book on menus (more on that in a sec). In light of the latest snafus, I say “spirits up” as we head towards the 158th birthday of our fair nation.
WORLDLY WISDOM FROM TIMELESS WOMEN
Speaking of birthdays—and there are plenty this time of year—we haven’t yet witnessed any Canadians who’ve reached 158 years. But we’ve had some great close calls. According to Wiki, the oldest verified Canadian was Marie-Louise Meilleur, who was born in 1880 in Kamouraska, Que., and died April 16, 1998 at the lovely age of 117 years, 230 days.
Marie-Louise even made the record as the world’s longest lived person for a time, something that helped generate a following of loyal fans, even though social media was a distant dream (nightmare?) during her time. Part of the intrigue was her diet—largely vegetarian, spiked with olive oil, port wine and chocolate. Yum. She also did tons of exercise, riding her bike till age 100 and taking up fencing at age 85.
Amazingly, she was also a smoker. (I recall my dad’s doctor telling him, at age 90 when he was still going strong, smoking a pack and a half a day, not to tell a soul he’d smoked since age 11! Apparently, if it doesn’t kill you, it mummifies you.)
As of June 23, just a week before Canada Day, the oldest living person in our fair land is 113-year-old Margaret Romans, a delightful “youngster” born March 16, 1912 in Latvia, which also happens to be my father-in-law’s homeland. Again, something good came from something as bad as the invasion of her home country, which in 1947 forced her family to migrate to Montreal, where she became a community art teacher. My in-laws also arrived there under similar circumstances. And thank god they all did, adding untold goodness to our communities and families.
According to a recent Global News report, Margaret is still grateful to be in Canada, and she shared this good advice for young people: Be curious about the world around you, since learning is the first step to understanding.
“Study, study and study. Learn, learn and learn. What you have in your head, no one can take that away from you,” she said.
ALWAYS YOUNG AT HEART
And speaking of youngsters, picture me: A gangly 15-year-old, fresh out of Grade 10 in Edmonton, trundling across Canada via Via Rail (what else?) along with thousands of other high school kids, all headed to one of the biggest, brightest “lessons” of a lifetime: Expo ’67, built to celebrate Canada’s 100th birthday smack dab in the middle of Montreal on Notre Dame Island. What a party!
Thankfully, the leaders of the day didn’t listen to Expo’s chief architect Édouard Fiset and allowed British-Canadian architect Rod Robbie and his team, including local legend Arthur Erickson, a full 11-plus acres for the site of the Canadian Pavillion. Wow!
Visitors were welcomed by a giant nine-storey inverted glass pyramid inspired at the modelling stage by an inverted green ashtray someone placed atop empty cigarette packs. Named Katimavik, Inuit for “gathering place,” the amazing pavillion, in fact all of Expo ’67, was a mind-blower that elevated imaginations and spirits worldwide. (Robbie went on to design Toronto’s SkyDome and hundreds of Canadian schools.)
All of this burbled up in my mind, including Bobby Gimby’s crazy-popular “Ca-na-da” Expo theme song (“we love thee”), while listening to a CBC Radio interview with the above-mentioned Canadianist, Nathalie Cooke. Her latest book, Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History grabbed my attention. It’s an illustrated look at the significance of menus over time, including the one at La Toundra, the restaurant at Katimavik.
As Cooke points out, not only the name of the pavillion was inspired by Canada’s Indigenous people—the whole menu was, from the dishes themselves, some shaped like umiaks (Inuit kayaks), to muktuk-inspired tuna (a traditional Inuit dish of raw whale skin and blubber; think sashimi).
Even if you weren’t around in 1967, you have to admit Canada’s 100th birthday party was quite the historical shooting star, including the Katimavik menu, which gave one of the first powerful nods to Indigenous culture when most people were barely aware of such things.
Sure, we’ve got more than enough snafus to worry about lately, and even more we can work on for the better. But take a sec this Canada Day and consider at least one or two bright spots we Canucks have generated over time. And write your local MP to tell them we need another unforgettable nationwide party way before 2067!
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning journalist who urges you to check out the bannock tacos anytime at Thunderbird Cafe in Whistler’s beautiful Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre.
