Obligatory rambling on US/Canadian relations - July 11

I do love this country. I love it's landscapes, it's own style of liberalism, it's people, it's history and heritage. I'm loving getting under it's skin and I will live here again one day.

Yesterday I was in Sault Ste. Marie and stayed at a lovely campsite just outside of town run by a very friendly Austrian family. The place was wonderfully cared and was littered with Parisian playground equipment ("Paris" was stamped on the metal pieces). I had lunch at a restaurant on the Sault river. At one end of a reach of the river was a large bridge. On the other bank was the US. It made me think about something that has come up quite a few times on this trip, and that is how Canada manages to live next to and be to economically interlinked with such an imposing neighbour and not allow it to dilute our own unique culture. I think it just comes down to practice. Having relied on the US as a ready market for Canadian products (something like 80% of all Canadian exports are consumed by the US) for so long I think makes Canada willing to tolerate the quirks and bad habits of our neighbours. It's a bit like having an uncle who's generally a good guy, always brings presents for the kids, but a couple times a year, gets drunk on Jack Daniels and goes around trying to molest your cousins and shooting neighbourhood cats with a .22. We sigh, shake our heads, and hope he doesn't turn the gun on us.

I think it's safe to say that sitting in that restaurant on the banks of that river, looking at Michigan across the way, is the closest I will come to being on US soil. At least until that drunken uncle goes to rehab.