As I remarked a couple of weeks ago in Ontario, as I contemplated the giant maple tree under which we were camped, “If it wasn’t for the leaf on the Canadian flag, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of tree this is.”
As I remarked a couple of weeks ago in Ontario, as I contemplated the giant maple tree under which we were camped, “If it wasn’t for the leaf on the Canadian flag, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of tree this is.”
I suppose if we need something more ubiquitous as our symbol, we could use the dandelion leaf.
The dandelion is taken. Ontario provincial flower.
If the millennials had their way, it would be the weed leaf, and not dandelion.
The maple tree is also known for its sap…. just like Canada is for the sap that’s running the country.
Second thought of the day: If you constantly teach Canadian kids and scold Canadian adults that Canada is a horrible, racist, sexist and genocidal country…don’t be surprised if they no longer feel a strong bond to the nation.
Third comment of the day: If you constantly engage in regional/provincial favoritism for political advantage…don’t be surprised when the poorly treated provinces don’t feel strong bonds to Canada or the other provinces.
#westernseparatism
Agreed. I suspect that you just expressed the feelings of many that frequent here.
I think we are being used and made use of.
Once, living in Winnipeg, I had to ask my mother in Ohio to send a Maple leaf as I was teaching my son how to recognize trees. Seems crazy, but I could not find a Maple tree in my Winnipeg neighborhood at that time.
On another note, does anyone get the Google Canada Day symbol? Couple small land forms with pine trees — very odd. The bits of land are surrounded by water — Maybe an ominous reference to climate change. I guess the folks at Google do not know that we are doing our part taxing people to save the earth.
I would like Jordan Peterson’s clinical assessment of our woke, Silicon Valley, overlords. I imagine, from a detached , scientific standpoint, they exhibit multiple pathologies.
I live in Ontari-owe now, but was born and raised in Calgary, and was still living there during the discussions about the proposed new flag in 1964.
I remember that one of the points made during the debate about the maple leaf on the flag was that sugar maple trees are native to Eastern North America – they don’t grow in the prairie provinces.
Well, no. The maple leaf, like the beaver, was a tribal totem of the children daughters of the Indian tribes of New France had by the white habitants who bought the girls from their fathers, who in 1965 still styled themselves the French Canadians.
The flag that made sense from coast to coast of course, was the Union Jack. But in every sense of the word it was not going to fly in Quebec, where the Liberal Party needed seats to form government.
You are one disturbed troll, dude. Seek help.
Don’t feel bad, Kate. Many of the producers of Trudeaupian propaganda can’t tell a Canadian sugar maple (the symbol of French Canadian national vanity chosen to adorn the Trudeaupia flag to spite the “English,” who were perfectly happy with the Union Jack) from a Norway maple, introduced in the 18th century. That includes the makers of bank-confetti:
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1343767
The Norway maple, incidentally, is now considered a weed, driving out the native sugar maples. Make of that what you will.
We all survived one more “Canada Day.” Let’s hope it’s the last.
“Let’s hope it’s the last.”
Would be nice.
Won’t be, unless there is a revolution on Conservative benches. PET was no hero, but a vain, deeply flawed man of almost no understanding. His son has been tragically used for the sick agenda of the Liberal party.
Norwegian
WoodMaple?https://duckduckgo.com/?q=norwegian+maple+tree&atb=v104-1&iax=images&ia=images
I was stunned to learn that the maples on my street were Norwegian.
Norway Maples were planted because they grow quickly. My house is 95 years old and my neighbourhood is full of them. Unfortunately they are now in their old age and dying off, and they are huge. They are likely six feet across and they tower over the houses. We have had a few come down in bad storms, causing property damage, and some of the remaining ones have had to be removed, at great expense, to prevent the even greater expense of them coming down on someones roof. Apparently they don’t even make good lumber either.
dozens. hundreds of them taken down in my town, with the telltale rot in the centre of the trunk.
my daddy hated the things.
I took one down in a buddy’s back yard. it juuuuuust barely fit when it fell. I used the
‘proportionate shadow length’ thing to figure it out and a couple 2X4s cut into wedges to help aim the fall.
now my buddy has a decent backyard.
“If it wasn’t for the leaf on the Canadian flag, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what kind of tree this is.”
Back in 1965 and indeed over the years many have been puzzled by that very thing.
Why would any country pick as its national symbol a leaf from a tree that is only able to grow in a narrow and geographically small part of that country’s territory?
Because it’s telling us what the important part of the country is. I’ve never lived outside of Canada, but never lived where maples grow wild. So I should be a second-class citizen.
Yesterday morning my wife asked, “Do we have a Canadian flag?”
“Yup, it’s in the drawer….and it’s staying there. I’m not feeling very patriotic.”
so true.
this year I specifically did NOT tack the flag over my front window.
gawd I hate lieberals.
I am a bit confused…is Kate saying saying she is not good at identifying trees?
There must be another reason for her post, there must be something that I miss, another meaning.
can anyone help me understand what Kate is saying?
or is this a sort of metaphor/analogy about diversity and multiculturalism? That Canada no longer looks like Canada because of “diversity”?
Anyone?
Ain’t rocket science. The national symbol of Canada doesn’t grow in maybe 90% of Canada. Some national symbol!
They could have picked a spruce tree, but then everybody would confuse us with Lebanon. Or they could have picked a beaver, but then beaver jokes…
These days the real national symbol is the spruce bud worm, windmills and Chinese steel. Don’t know how that would look on a flag though.
Somebody above said we could go with the cannabis leaf and keep everything else the same, buncha stoned commies on fricking welfare.
I was there. She was saying we don’t have “maple trees” in the west. We never see them. They’re just another uniquely eastern convention/ symbol the west has accepted.
Big Leaf and Vine Maples are native to the west coast but the origins of our “new” flag are more nuanced than distribution. I remember when the nine month debate was ongoing, Pearson’s Liberals were attempting to de-anglicize Canada in order to appease Quebec, essentially breaking cultural ties to the UK while aligning us more with the US as the Quebecois consider the ROC no different than Americans anyway. A Maple leaf makes sense in that circumstance as they were successful in de-anglicizing but appeasing Quebec is always a fools game. In recent years both living in the US and visiting the UK, I found that there is no longer any special place for Canada or Canadians in the UK and expat Brits are more likely to reside in the US than Canada. Maybe if the UK can eventually Brexit, ties with Canada might strengthen.
Well, I do like the maple leaf, but then I am a US citizen. Also maples in New York State and New Jersey (where I, sequentially, grew up, and live) are as common as dirt, although mostly nicer. I can appreciate that this isn’t really so in most of Canada. To be fair, Canada is kind of huge, and a lot of it is tundra. If one were to choose a natural symbol that represented the majority of Canada, what would one choose? Caribou? Tamarack? Musk Ox? All these would be cool, I suppose….
The maple leaf patch was worn by Canadian soldiers in both world wars. A maple leaf roundel is, painted on RCAF aircraft (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Roundel_of_Canada.svg.) and on Her Majesty’s Canadian ships. A lot of Canadians died, were wounded, and served wearing the leaf. I’m Alberta born, a veteran, and that’s good enough for me. The flag flies in front of my home.
Well said.
A MARI USQUE AD MARE
Some pretty childish carping about the maple leaf, which has been a consistent symbol of Canada from the 19th Century on.
And the usual suspects have taken the opportunity to vent their anti-French spleens I see. Too bad the maple leaf has just as much historical significance as a Canadian symbol for English Canada. I believe you’ll find that “The Maple Leaf Forever” (never a big hit with French Canada) was written in 1867 – and by a man with the clearly Franco-Laurentian-élite moniker of Alexander Muir, a militia veteran of the Fenian invasions.
Separatists, whether the boring old Québec variety or the tedious Albertan kind – are uniformly petty and crimped in their nationalistic hubris, as the comments here about the maple leaf so clearly prove.