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Introducing Canada and Its People
LYNN SPEER LEMISKO

I am in love with my country. There, I’ve said it. Now you know that everything I write about Canada is colored by how I feel about the place where I live.
One of the things I love about Canada is the size, variety, and beauty of our natural environment. Canada is the second largest country in the world. It sprawls out over 10 million square kilometers (about 3.6 million square miles), stretching from its southern border with the United States all the way up to the North Pole, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
If you were to travel around Canada, it would take you a very long time to see all the amazing natural sights. You could see the highest tides in the world swooshing into the Bay of Fundy, which lies between the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the eastern side of the country. As you traveled westward, you would see thick oak and maple forests sprinkled between granite outcroppings and lovely lakes of all sizes and shapes that dot the Canadian Shield regions of Québec and Ontario. You could move farther west to feel the bright sunshine that kisses the fields of grain on the prairies where it feels like “half the world is sky.” Then you could wind your way through the towering Rocky Mountains that stand like sentinels between the prairies and the coast; or turn north to tread carefully over the vast treeless tundra, which seems rather empty but is actually alive with tiny fragile plants that grow atop the permafrost. Reaching the west coast, you could stand within the forest groves of old-growth Douglas firs, where the rich smell of humus surrounds you as the silent fog creeps up the ocean inlets to hang softly in the branches of the huge evergreens. If you are lucky, in the distance you could hear killer whales trumpet out their calls, inviting one another to join in the hunt for salmon or seals.
If you are lucky, you’ll hear and see a wide variety of wildlife on your trip through Canada. The haunting call of loons can be heard in most regions, while ravens, Canada geese, moose, bear, deer, cougars, and beaver can be spotted across the country. Like killer whales and sea otters, who are usually found only on the west coast, there are some creatures you will find in the wild only if you visit certain regions. You could see caribou and polar bears only in the far north. Sightings of sperm whales and puffins could be part of your visit to the east coast. You will likely only see elk in the Rocky Mountains, along with mountain goats, mountain sheep, and marmots.
As you can probably tell, Canada has a wide range of climates. In the winter, the southwest coast remains fairly warm, with lots of rain and not much snowfall. Across the rest of the country, the winter can be very cold, with temperatures dipping well below -20 degrees Celsius (-4°F) across the prairies, heavy snowfalls in central Canada, and plenty of wind, fog, and sleet on the east coast. It can be bitterly cold in the far north, where the sun does not peek over the horizon during the months of November, December, and January, leaving it dark both day and night. In the summer in the far north, however, the sun shines day and night during June, July, and August. It does not usually get very hot there, but the summer sunshine makes up for the darkness in the winter. In the rest of Canada, the summers can be very hot and dry in such areas as the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and on the prairies, or warm and humid on the coasts or hot and humid in central regions.
Along with the natural environment, I also love the variety of human communities you find in Canada. Canada is made up of ten provinces and three territories, so there are many, many varieties of communities you could visit. Just for example, you could visit provincial and territorial capital cities like St. John’s, Newfoundland (one of the oldest cities in North America); Victoria, British Columbia (known as the Garden City, with the mildest climate of all the capital cities in Canada); Québec City, Québec (the only walled city in North America); Regina, Saskatchewan (home of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police); Iqualuit (Ee-ka-loo-eet), Nunavut (the newest and northernmost capital city); or Toronto, Ontario (the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with about 6 million people, and known as one of the most multicultural cities in the world).
As I think about all these communities in Canada, I realize that my other great love for Canada is the interesting and diverse people who call this country home. First Nations peoples, including the Huron, Cree, Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Salish, Algonquin, Mi’kmaq, Inuit, and Dene (to name only a few), were the first human beings to create communities in this land. Arriving much later, the Vikings from Scandinavia, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen, and eventually French, Scots, Irish, Welsh, English, Anglo-Celts, and African Americans began to build communities here, too. Over time, wave after wave of peoples from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East decided to make Canada their home. I think the weaving together of all these different peoples is what makes Canada’s communities so lively and fascinating.
I do not want to paint too rosy a picture for you, though. It has not been easy for all these different peoples to learn how to live together. There is racism and intolerance here, and some people in the province of Québec (where the majority of people speak French as their first language) would like to separate from Canada to form their own country. But, no matter how hard it has been learning to get along, most Canadians keep trying. I am very proud that Canada has two official languages, French and English, and that you can hear many, many languages from around the world spoken in Canadian communities every day. You can find books and newspapers written in these languages and hear them spoken on radio and television, too. You can also take courses to learn how to speak, read, and write First Nations languages and can hear Inuktitut (the language of the Inuit people) spoken in the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut. I am proud that the federal government passed the Canadian Multiculturalism Act in 1988. This policy encourages us to celebrate cultural and racial diversity and supports Canadians in keeping, developing, and sharing our different cultural heritages.
I am also proud of the examples in our history when all the peoples worked together to shape Canada’s reputation. Canada gained recognition as an independent nation when Great Britain called on Canadians to join the Allies during World War I and World War II. Canadian soldiers—with such diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds as First Nations, English, Scottish, French, Japanese, and Italian—fought bravely from 1914 to 1918 and from 1939 to 1945. They gained fame for their victories at places like Vimy Ridge and on the beaches of Normandy. Canada has also gained recognition for helping peoples and countries around the world prevent war and conflict. One of our prime ministers, Lester B. Pearson, won the Nobel Peace Prize for proposing the idea of using soldiers as a peacekeeping force guided by the United Nations. Called upon to serve again and again, Canadian soldiers with diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds have joined together to work as peacekeepers around the world.
There is so much more you could know about Canada and the people who live here. I have told you some of the reasons why I love my country and the diverse people who make it such a special place to live. I am hoping these bits of information tweak your curiosity. To find out more about us, here are a few examples of websites you can visit:

Society, Government, Land, and Economy
canada.gc.ca/acanada/acPubHome.jsp?lang=eng
Multiculturalism
www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/multi/index_e.cfm
Capital Cities
www.canadascapital.gc.ca/ccco/canadas_capitals_e.asp
Get to Know Canada
www.get2knowcanada.ca
An interesting collection of sites that lead you to all the information
you ever wanted to know about Canada
proudcanadiankids.ca

About Lynn Speer Lemisko
I was born in 1954, in Vancouver, British Columbia, which makes me a member of the “baby boom” generation. Although Canada had suffered because of the Great Depression of the 1930s—and because of the loss of young people who went to fight in World War II from 1939 to 1945—by the time I was born, Canada was experiencing a period of general growth and prosperity. This meant there were many opportunities for engineers in Canada to work on big projects across the country, like the St. Lawrence Seaway in Ontario and the Gardiner Dam in Saskatchewan.
Because my parents had a sense of adventure, and because my father was a civil engineer who was able to work on these projects, my family lived in a variety of communities across Canada while I was growing up. My parents ensured that my brothers and I always felt “at home” wherever we lived, and they encouraged us to read, explore the world, and work hard in school.
I developed a deep love for reading—in fact, I cannot actually remember learning how to read, it just seems like I always knew how—and to this day I always have at least one novel on the go. Now that I am grown up and helping people learn how to become teachers, I spend much of my time encouraging the love of books and reading and demonstrating how stories teach us lessons about people, our world, hope, and possibility.

Questions to Ponder

1. Canada and the United States were both colonized by Great Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What are some similarities between the two countries? What are some differences? Find out the Canadian perspective on the American Revolution. How is it different from the perspective of people in the United States?

2. Explore several of the different First Nations peoples. How are they different from one another? How does the area of the country in which they live impact their way of life?

3. Plan a car or train trip across Canada. Begin in Newfoundland and travel west through the major cities to the Pacific Ocean. Or start at the southernmost point of the country and travel north to the Arctic Circle. Through which provinces and important cities would you pass? What might you see in each city? What would you see as you rode through the provinces between the cities?