The cosmic circle's spun 'round one more time and the mountains are open. OK, some small part of the mountains are open, for those of you who insist on being glass-half-empty pedantic. And the opening of Blackcomb can only mean one thing: American Thanksgiving.
Yes, our neighbours to the south are back again, turkeys in tow; neighbourhoods all over Whistler will be redolent with the rich smell of turkey dinner today, Pique Thursday. The only thing better than walking around the hood and catching a fleeting sniff of roasting turkey is walking into my house and smelling the same... which isn't going to happen. For I am Canadian and I et turkey over a month ago.
Ironically, turkeys figured in no small way in my preparations to move to Canada. Lo those many years ago, burdened with a shockingly low number in the annual Selective Service draft lottery and a president who couldn't figure a way out of Vietnam, I laid plans to escape to Canada if my various other options for avoiding the draft failed. Having carefully studied large-scale contour maps of the southern half of British Columbia, I had narrowed my choices down to three.
Whistler — still shown as Alta Lake — was one; true story. I wasn't a skier but spent lots of time climbing and the contour lines around Alta Lake blew my mind, which wasn't really saying much because the contour lines around the whole freaking province blew my mind.
Nelson was another place, but that was largely because even in the far reaches of the American southwest it was known as a draft-dodger destination. Having bridged the cultural divide between draft dodger and esteemed, mature citizen, many of those I might have joined then now run the town.
Prince George was my final choice. Why, I hear you ask? Turkeys. Pouring over bits of trivia — Historical Aside: For those of you who have forgotten, or never knew what it was like to dig up information about far-flung places before the Internet, discovering trivia about places like Prince George was a hit-and-miss affair requiring hours of library research — I discovered, much to my surprise, no one in or near Prince George raised turkeys.
I found this both a troubling oversight and a potential business/lifestyle opportunity. I was, at the time, raising two turkeys, three if you count the German Shepard dog named Turkey a former girlfriend had stuck me with when she left in a huff. It was the waning days of my back-to-the land period and the turkeys, named Thanksgiving and Christmas for obvious reasons, were more despised pets than anticipated dinners. Nonetheless, I was momentarily intrigued by the notion of owning Prince George's only turkey ranch. Of course, I'd never been to Prince George. Now that I have, I more fully appreciate the bullet I dodged. But I digress.
More than 45 million turkeys will be eaten this American Thanksgiving. The exact number isn't known because the US Department of Agriculture is as tightfisted with precise numbers as our own FE&A group. Perhaps there's a competitive advantage the chicken growers might glean if accurate numbers were revealed. Perhaps not.
Something like 99.9 per cent of Americans alive today believe turkey was the main course at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. This number is exactly 0.01 per cent less than the number of Americans who believe the first Thanksgiving was actually called Thanksgiving. It wasn't. The settlers at Plymouth Colony called that meal dinner and were thankful to have the venison, corn, shellfish and, maybe, cranberries they ate. They were even more thankful the various tribes living in the area failed to realize what a threat they were and eat them for Thanksgiving, an oversight many of the first Americans regret to this day.
It was nearly one hundred and fifty years later the term Thanksgiving came into general usage. Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863 when the Great Emancipator, Abe Lincoln, declared it such. Abe, being fond of turkey, declared two Thanksgivings. The one still celebrated this week to give thanks for a bountiful harvest, blah, blah, blah, and one in August to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg? Perhaps because the Union troops referred to it as a turkey shoot.
One of the more endearing Thanksgiving trivia factoids is the long-standing pique Benjamin Franklin suffered as a result of turkey eventually nosing out venison as the meat course. Ben thought the turkey ought rightly be the national symbol of the U.S. He found the majestic bald eagle of low moral character, prone as it was to stealing the food other animals laboured hard to capture or inclined to eating carrion. He also believed the eagle a coward while he was certain the noble turkey "...would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
Dressing your Farm Yards in red Coats was, in the day, as popular as it is easy today to dredge up such bits of trivia.
Having never eaten bald eagle I can't be sure I agree with Ben. But I do wonder how different Canada might be had the first Canadians to celebrate Thanksgiving in 1872 eaten beaver. OK, get your adolescent minds out of the gutter; this isn't a Rob Ford moment.
Many a voyageur and coureur des bois enjoyed roast beaver. The beaver was plentiful, not particularly difficult to trap or hunt and offered a twofer, meat and a warm pelt, which is more than can be said of turkeys.
Perhaps if beaver was the mainstay of Canadians holiday table, we'd have less illegal logging around local lakes. But we're stuck with turkeys and turkeys we shall celebrate and roast this week.
One local turkey we're roasting this week is the Great Hydrogen Bus Experiment. Now that B.C. Transit has grasped the obvious, they're not sure they can continue to bleed money to keep the GHBE rolling. Understandable. With the Hydrogen Highway — so enthusiastically touted by Governor Schwarzenegger and Rear-Entry Campbell — the one destined to run from California to British Columbia, having been reduced to the stretch of road from Function Junction to Emerald, it seems destined to history's bottomless scrap bin.
And with any luck, Whistler council will roast another local turkey next Tuesday when they finally make a decision about the rezoning application for WhistlerU. Not unlike domestic gobblers, WIC is a bird destined to never take flight.
So welcome back, my fellow Americans. We're happy to see you, smell your dinner cookin' and give thanks for what we all hope will be a glorious ski season. And on the off chance you have some unwanted leftovers....
