The Crusty Curmudgeon: Canada Day 2014

July 01, 2014

Canada Day 2014

Happy 147th birthday, Canada! We're definitely on the home stretch to our sesquicentennial celebration (150 years) in 2017. Absolutely true to tradition, this Canada Day is a muggy scorcher, threatening later in the day to break into thunderstorms. (In fact, as I write this, Ottawa is even under a tornado warning.) Fortunately, the buses are free, as I will be heading downtown this evening to view the fireworks with a friend, who has a perfect view from his balcony.

My blog posting has been sporadic in recent years, but unlike many of my more ambitious plans, I have always made sure to post something on Canada Day every year since 2004. My habit—though, after 10 years, I think I'm right in calling it a tradition—has been to showcase a Canadian patriotic song each year.

I discovered Stan Rogers 8 years ago—in fact, it was while researching my Canada Day post for 2006, in which I wrote: "It is said that the best recording [of "Farewell to Nova Scotia"] is that of the late folk singer Stan Rogers, although I have not heard it." In fact, I still haven't. Even YouTube (which hardly existed back then) hasn't managed to come through yet. Now I'm actually skeptical the recording even exists (curse you, Wikipedia!). However, the lack of one particular, fabled recording hasn't stopped me from enjoying the rest of Rogers' music over the years.

In his first trip to the North in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to Rogers' 1981 song "Northwest Passage" as Canada's unofficial national anthem. The lyrics parallel the search for the fabled Northwest Passage across North America to the Pacific Ocean, with Rogers' own trip west. Like many Canadian patriotic songs, it makes numerous references to history, mentioning several explorers directly or indirectly:

John Davis was a sixteenth-century English navigator, who led several voyages during the reign of Elizabeth I to find the Northwest Passage. Davis Strait, between Greenland and Baffin Island, is named after him.
Henry Kelsey ("brave Kelso" in the song) was a seventeenth-century English fur trader and explorer for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was likely the first European to see present-day Saskatchewan.
Alexander Mackenzie was a Scottish explorer, the first man to cross North America to the Pacific north of Mexico, in 1790. The Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories is named after him: he travelled to its mouth hoping it would lead to the Pacific, but named the river "Disappointment" when it opened into the Arctic Ocean.
David Thompson, who worked as a fur trader and surveyor for both the Hudson's Bay and North West companies, mapped nearly four million square kilometers of the North American west: one-fifth of the continent.
The Fraser River is named after Simon Fraser, the Scottish fur trader who charted much of present-day British Columbia, and in 1808 explored the Fraser River from Prince George to its mouth.
Sir John Franklin sailed on four Arctic exploration expeditions. The final one was to travel the theretofore unnavigated section of the Northwest Passage. Both ships and all hands of the expedition were lost in 1845 when they became icebound in the Arctic near King William Island.

Stan Rogers died at the age of 33 on June 2, 1983, when a fire aboard Air Canada Flight 797 forced an emergency landing at Cincinnati Greater Airport. Seconds after landing, a flash fire killed Rogers and 22 passengers who had not yet had time to evacuate the plane. His legacy is a small library of wonderful recordings, and a deep influence on Canadian music.

Happy birthday, Canada.

Previous Canada Day songs: