Thoughts on America After A Weekend in Canada

The Canadians in Guess Who were right all along about America

Sorry to have been away for so long. The last week has been taken up with a trip to Montreal and the accompanying preparations. Now that I have returned, I am in a reflective mood. 

As we crossed the border north of Plattsburgh to return to the US this morning, I felt a new emotion. In the past, when I have returned to America after going abroad I have felt a certain warmness about being back in my home country again. This morning I felt dread. During a trip spent walking Montreal's streets, enjoying its sights, and riding its refreshingly modern subway system, I kept seeing the news from America. I read about progressive state representatives being expelled, about the gun deaths of children lowering our national life expectancy, and of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. For a couple of days, I felt like I had escaped a madhouse.

To be sure, Canada has its own problems. There were panhandlers and mentally disturbed people on the streets, for example. By and large, however, it felt like such an infinitely more FUNCTIONAL and livable place. There also wasn't an ever-present feeling of dread, one that has been dogging me in this country every day since the summer of 2015. For almost a decade, America has been on a precipe, our own Years of Lead with mass shootings, police murders, and capitol stormings with the spectre of right-wing authoritarianism constantly hovering. To the last point, I was in Montreal when I saw the news about a Trump judge banning abortion medication.

I had not been out of the country since 2009, by far the longest stretch in my adult life. I've still been traveling a lot however, and in that time have been to practically every corner of the United States. My travels to everywhere from New Orleans to Los Angeles to Alabama to Boston have deepened my love of this nation and given me perspective on its stunning regional diversity. I cherish getting to walk the Golden Gage Bridge, joining a second line on Bourbon Street, and chowing down on Maine lobster. 

But as my love has deepened, so has my despair. I don't much believe in this country's future anymore, and my deeper investment in it makes its precariousness all that much harder to endure. It's a dynamic I had not been aware of until I spent some time in Canada this weekend. It felt good to get a break from America, I only wish I could believe this nation could find a way out of its current spiral. 

Track of the Week: Gordon Lightfoot, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy"

America's Independence Day was this last week, but so too was the commemoration of another nation's birth: Canada Day.  I have an unabashed and genuine love of our neighbor to the north.  I have enjoyed her beautiful landscapes, explored her cities, laughed at her many accomplished comedians, loved her many great musical artists (Neil Young, Joanie Mitchell, most of The Band, to name a few), and have had the pleasure to know many of her sons and daughters.  Americans have many stereotypes about Canadian politeness, and while I have run into rude and mean-spirited Canadians, Canada does have a national culture much more humble and muted compared to America's bombasticity.  I still remember being in Montreal with my wife during our honeymoon, which just happened to coincide with Canada Day.  There were lots of people out and about, and fireworks in the evening, but no in your face nationalism.  Even as an outsider and foreigner, I still felt welcome on Canada's national day.

A good example of the contrast between American and Canadian nationalism is Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy."  He wrote it for Canada's centennial in 1967, and it tells the story of the construction of the trans-Canada railway in folk song fashion.  It begins describing the landscape before the railroad, then like a train leaving the station, shifts into a high gear describing the hopes and boosterism behind the railway.  So far, the song could be mistaken for an American anthem, in that it fails to mention the native people living in the railroad's path, and sees it all as a great triumph.  However, the song suddenly shifts into low gear, and a mournful harmonica enters in.  Lightfoot sings from the perspective of the navvies who built the railroad with low pay in tough conditions.  The song goes from being a triumphal ode to Canadian ingenuity to a reflection on the human cost of such endeavors.  This song written for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company, for you in the States) and its celebration of the Canadian centennial.

It is hard to imagine an American television network broadcasting a song this ambiguous for a major national commemoration.  The American disease of historical amnesia seems far less common up north, perhaps it's something we can learn a thing or two from.