Canada – Page 95 – a sibilant intake of breath

The Golden Spruce

John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce is a superb book: the best I have read in many months. It tells the intertwined stories of British Columbia, the economic development of Canada, old growth logging, the Haida (and the Haida Gwaii), and, of course, a unique Sitka Spruce and the man who destroyed it. Particularly for somebody interested in both Western Canada and the environment, it was the ideal type of non-fiction reading.

The story told is a compelling one, full of informative detail and light on preaching and speculation. I read it in one long session, sitting in my hermitage in Devon while temporarily avoiding thesis work. What the book did remind me of, in part, is why the whole study of the environment is important.

I already have two people waiting to borrow my copy (one of the books my mother kindly sent to England for me), but there are surely other examples of it out there.

Heading for the 40th Parliament?

After 15 months with a Conservative minority government, it looks like Canada is heading for a new general election.

For those not paying overly close attention, the Liberal Party held its convention back in December, choosing Stéphane Dion as their new leader. Dion beat out Michael Ignatieff who had, at times, seemed the front-runner. Back in January 2006, the Conservative Party managed to secure a minority government, ending Y years of Liberal control over the House of Commons.

Stephen Harper is obviously trying to consolidate his earlier victory into a majority government. The election should be an interesting one, primarily because of social and environmental issues. There is a lingering suspicion that the relative moderation the Conservatives have shown in power is a tactical choice for the period until they get a majority government (though those fears may simply be stoked by Liberals hoping to frighten a few votes their way). On the environment, nobody is looking too good at the moment. The Conservatives have all but abandoned Canada’s commitment to Kyoto, which the previous Liberal government had never put a sufficient amount of effort into. The heightened level of concern about climate change will probably make the issue front-and-centre in the campaign. Whether that will lead to anything meaningful or not remains to be seen.

Waiting for SkypeIn in Canada

Canadian telecom regulators should hurry up and allow the allocation of SkypeIn numbers. The deal is that you pay about $50 a year to Skype for a phone number in an area code of your choice. People can then call it from within that area, as though it were a free local call. They would actually be calling a computer that forwards the call to your Skype account, on whatever computer or Skype-enabled phone you are using, anywhere in the world. You can also have it automatically redirect calls to another normal phone, though there is a per-minute charge for that.

The system seems really good because people in your designated area can call you without worrying about long distance charges. Also, people who don’t find the whole Skype system comprehensible can call you without any knowledge of how it all works. Supposedly, it is unavailable in Canada because it is incompatible with 911, but this doesn’t make a great deal of sense, since SkypeIn numbers receive calls, rather than initiate them.

With a combination of SkypeIn and Skype Unlimited (which costs $30 a year and includes unlimited calling to landlines), I could speak an unlimited amount to friends in North America for less than $75 a year, with benefits such as being able to use any internet cafe that has Skype installed as though it were my home phone. I just need to wait for Canadian regulators to permit the final link in the chain.

PS. I realize that I could buy a SkypeIn number for New York or Seattle, which would be very cheap for friends in Canada to call. Losing the convenience of it being a local call, for them, is the reason I have not done so thus far, though you can attach SkypeIn numbers in up to ten area codes to a single Skype account.

Moral Disorder

Often insightful, and sometimes clever enough to induce audible laughter, Margaret Atwood‘s Moral Disorder is a satisfying collection of tales. The way in which the thinking of the characters feels extremely familiar, while the circumstances in which they live are not, reminds me of Alistair MacLeod. I think the association comes from how calmly tragedy is presented: how they just unfurl as you progress through the pages, most of them too indistinct to generate more than vague sorrow.

The stories that make up the book involve connected lives, all jumbled together and ultimately connected more by tone than by narrative consistency. The language is that of an author confident but not showy, able to make you empathize with her characters. The writing is mature, as you would expect from an author so revered, and thankfully not pretentious in the way great authors tend to become, once their most creative work is behind them.

Like MacLeod’s work, these stories are heavy with the inevitable and the inescapable. As such, the dominant tone is one of resignation or, at the very best, the recognition that things are, for the moment, better than they have been.

Poetry in high school

I didn’t want any phase of my life to be gone forever, to be over and done with. I preferred beginnings to endings in books, as well – it was exciting not to know what was lying in store for me on the unread pages – but, perversely, I couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the final chapter of any book I was reading.

“My Last Duchess,” a story in Margaret Atwood‘s Moral Disorder, strikes me as an unusually successful discussion between literary Canadians. Reading a story about the classroom contemplation of Robert Browning‘s poem is an odd experience, for someone who has had exactly the same sorts of classroom discussions about poems by the author of the story. I am pretty sure “Disembarking at Quebec” was even tested on my grade 12 literature exam, though the memory of that test is almost entirely overshadowed by that of the far more challenging advanced placement literature test. (I remember the sight reading passage was the description of a wolfish Satan jumping into paradise (PL: IV, 172-192))

For those who are not Canadian, it is worth mentioning that Atwood is a kind of national literary representative. Along with Timothy Findley, she is probably the person who first comes to mind for most people, when they consider the content of Canadian literature. As such, it is interesting to see the author humanized: taking on the form of a young Canadian as they probably first experience her work, writing down lists of contrasting elements in a poem to rattle off for ten or twelve marks on a governmental exam sheet.

2006 conclusion

The fact that it is now the last day of December is vaguely amazing to me. The time that has passed since returning from Turkey on the 16th has been the extended equivalent of deciding to have a nap after lunch and waking up at 8:00pm.

I suppose the winter break last year was similar, though two differences stand out as significant. Whereas last year, I spent a good amount of time getting to know Louise, this break has been characterized by almost universal solitude in Oxford. More importantly, whereas last year’s break involved little necessity of getting anything academic done, I have felt constant pressure this time, and hence constant disappointment. Kate pointed out, quite rightly, that an essential element of being a success in graduate school is being able to do your own planning and marshall your own energies; in the absence of a social climate, this is not a thing at which I succeed well.

While the post-Turkey period has been largely lacking in lustre, the year has generally been an unusually good one. I travelled to Malta in March, Scotland in July, Ireland in August, Vancouver and Barrier Lake in September, and Turkey in December. I met some new and interesting friends, gained some local and international correspondents, and did a lot of good photography and academic work. Publication of the eternal fish paper was secured, if not accomplished, and I did my first serious teaching. I had my first photograph published, albeit without my permission being asked.

2007 will be the most unscripted year of my entire life to date. If you had asked me to bet, at the age of twelve, what I would be doing at the age of 23, I would have suggested four years as an undergrad, followed by graduate school somewhere. Where the road leads from here is profoundly unclear – a reality that almost anyone would find somewhat daunting. It will be interesting to see what my summing up on 31 December 2007 will involve.

The X-Files in retrospect

Unproductive pre-Christmas days are reminding me of evenings long forgotten. Specifically, those taken up in watching The X-Files and being terrified about all the pseudo-scientific content therein. These days, I am more appreciative about the opportunities the series provided to the emerging film and television industry in Vancouver, as several of my friends could describe on the basis of their personal experience.

I remember evenings after the point where my paternal grandfather replaced our television with one three times the size, in order to watch the World Cup – an event that had less than zero significance for me at the time and has not much more now – when I would watch new episodes of the X-Files and be unusually unable to sleep before the school days subsequent.

It is interesting how The X-Files was concerned to the point of paranoia about the dangers of government secrecy, whereas television today has largely embraced the mindset of the ‘War on Terror.’ 24 is an example that is shamefully compelling.

Gay marriage back under debate

Most annoyingly, it seems that Canada’s Conservative Party is trotting out gay marriage, which is presently legal in Canada, for new Parliamentary debate.

As I have written before, Parliament does not have the right to stop gay people from getting married. The right to not suffer discrimination supersedes the authority of Parliament to legislate, by virtue of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is not a right that can be restricted in keeping with “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” While the Notwithstanding Clause could be used to nullify that legality, doing so would be profoundly illiberal.

The whole thing is likely to be a vote-loser for the Tories, since even Canadians who have problems with gay marriage now generally consider the matter settled. Hopefully, the Tories will take some well-deserved flak for this political theatre and all parties will realize that they should leave the matter as it stands in the future.

My previous entries on this are here: 1 February 2006 and 3 June 2006.

And don’t lift up my head ’till the the twelve bells at noon

I am glad to see that Spirit of the West has been gaining in worldwide popularity. Almost every hour, for the last few days, I have seen people finding my site by searching for lyrics from their classing song “Home for a Rest.”

People tend to remember the chorus:

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best
I’ve been gone for a week
I’ve been drunk since I left
And these so-called vacations
Will soon be my death
I’m so sick from the drink
I need home for a rest
Take me home….

The song is great fun, and a Canadian pub favourite. I was lucky enough to see Spirit of the West live on my nineteenth birthday, at the infamous Pit Pub, at the University of British Columbia.

Liberal conference concluded

So, Ignatieff is out. I knew nothing about the other candidates, so I cannot really say anything worthwhile. He may have made debate more interesting, but turning the Federal Liberal Party into a group that can win the next election is obviously foremost in the minds of supporters. Given the egregious environmental policies of the Harper government, I wish more power to them.

Taylor Owen knows more. So do Tim and Tristan. Doubtless, many more politically minded Canadian blogging friends of mine will weigh in soon. Who would have expected that to be such a substantial group?

I am off to bed, but please link additional relevant items in comments.