A
friend of mine takes marketing in school. Recently, a local restaurateur came
into their class seeking help with the promotion of his poutinerie, which has
its sights set on an expansion into the United States. Oddly enough, “poutine”
does not exist south of the border. The name must be too “French” for American
sensibilities. Rather, this man will call his product “loaded fries”. A truly
lost opportunity. In a culinary world devoid of Canadiana, poutine stands
alone, for better or for worse, as distinctly Canadian. The only other
offerings we can lay claim to in the way of pemmican and bannock lack a certain
modern appeal.
This
recent discussion, combined with an afternoon stroll through a snow-bound cemetery,
chaffed by wind, pine boughs drooped and laden with white, caused me to think
on Canada, and our cultural treasures. Unlike with food, we have a great many
icons to which we can turn to, none more so than the famed artists of the Group
of Seven. Landscape painters of great renown, they captured scenes of great
beauty, both grand and severe. In a time of sought identity, they painted a
nation.
The
sweep of shoreline along the Superior coast called to them, and the artists
returned several times, taking the train north in a series of trips now
referred to as the “Algoma Train Trips”. Having taken myself a lonesome January
drive along highway 17 to Thunder Bay, I can see why they were so drawn to
these rugged scenes.
Ancient,
wind-tormented pines cling like spindled gargoyles to jagged bare rock; pale
stands of birch shiver nakedly in ever deepening piles of snow. Frozen granite
lit by a half moon falls away from the highway to kiss the cold-darkened waters
of the lake below. It is a harsh and unforgiving landscape, as severe as it is
beautiful. Land of hard lines well
suited to a painters brush.
Even
today, that north shore drive is remote, steeped in isolation. Once the road
veers north in the Sault, you drive alone through cold wilderness. Towns may
dot the highway, but not with any regularity. Each conclave is unique, a
testament to the hard men and women who opened this nation. Wawa with its goose
and mills, Schreiber and its rail yards, Rossport lonely by the water, and
Terrace Bay crowning its hill.
My
drive through these places was brief. Thunder Bay was calling. It was also sad.
Shuttered mills and derelict mines greet you, rail yards with three trains, but
space for twenty, sit cold and unused. Even Thunder Bay itself, the urban
centre of the North West, suffers, with 90% of its mills closed down, and the
grain freight now heading for the open waters of Churchill and the North-East
passage. The people in these (what have become hard-luck) towns persist,
however. Hard places have bred hard and unyielding people.
The
drive itself is long, 17 hours from the steel mills of the Hammer to the rocks
of the Sleeping Giant. To put that time frame into proper perspective, it once
took me 16 hours to drive from home to the Floridian border. A combination of
ice, snow, and mad truckers makes the drive treacherous. Jeremy, as is so often
the case, was my co-pilot for this particular northern jaunt. Sadly, flu, or
possibly a tainted hot ham sandwich in Wawa laid him low. He was out of
commission, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the sweep of coastline.
Night
lashed out suddenly, all darkness and snow. The vista shrinks too little beyond
what my headlights can reveal. I found myself worrying about moose, and
wondering how the big rigs can keep their breakneck pace around icy bends
without fear of fauna or road conditions.
At a
pull off, I stopped the car. My eyes were tired from the strain of looking to
the shoulder for the glimmer of feral retina. My legs ache from riding hard on the
pedals. Jer was fast asleep, bundled in what appeared to be all of his clothes.
The snow was so cold that it cracked audibly underfoot. A transport whizzed by,
and then there was nothing. The silence was heavy, laden, the air so crisp it
iced my nostrils, and sent icy fingers seeking down into my lungs. Naked
granite loomed above and below, crackling in the chill. Superior lay vast into
the distance. Green fire flared briefly in the sky. A momentary shimmer of the
Borealis, dreamlike and fey. I could almost have wished for some wolf-song, but
that wish was never to be realised that night. My fingers become numb. Despite
the dreamy beauty of this remote place, it is a harsh night. The cold has death
in it. Despite the harshness of the night, there was beauty there too.
As I
walk the snow-laden Haldimand cemetery, I think long on that north shore drive.
I think on a painting seen and loved. I think on beauty and severity, the
marriage that exists between the two in this northern land. I think on our
icons and our artists who could capture Canada with a stroke of paint. I think
on cold and a snow weighed Jack pine that lets fall its burden in a gust of
wind. And of course, I think on poutine.
No comments:
Post a Comment