Montgolfiere Weekly

By Patricia Lightfoot

This week my family celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of our arrival in Canada as visitors, though our landed-immigrant papers arrived a week after us. As we were driven down the Décarie Expressway in Montreal with our babies on our knees in May 1992, we looked at the cement all around and the trees without leaves and we wondered what we had done. The following day, walking around Montreal in the sunshine, perplexed by the mixture of what we knew of as early and late spring and summer flowers in the gardens, we realized that this might work. Continue reading “A split life” →

By Patricia Lightfoot

In the 1990s, a few weeks before moving to Montreal, my husband and I were having dinner in France with friends who also happened to be originally from the UK, and the discussion turned to what sort of country we were going to live in for the next three years. We agreed that apart from having a reputation for amiability, Canada did not seem to have a very high profile in Western Europe. Someone then asked whether any of us could name any famous Canadians. “Of course!”, we said. As far as I recall, the list was a bit like this: Continue reading “Ten famous Canadians” →

By Patricia Lightfoot

I was impressed and moved by the exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada of the works of Alex Janvier, who is of Dene Suline and Saulteaux descent. Whether abstract or figurative, many of his paintings are a protest against the ill-treatment of indigenous people and the lack of respect in which they have been held, and the related degradation of the Canadian landscape. Blood Tears is a painting of imagery related to the residential school Janvier was forced to attend for 10 years, whereas on the reverse side of the painting, he lists the resulting losses that he and so many other children were forced to endure. Oil Patch Heart Beat is a circular abstract painting, in which blue is the predominant colour, against which drops of red, leading to a little heart, stand out. The piece glows, reminiscent of the rose windows of medieval cathedrals. Janvier creates beauty in the expression of loss.

Photo credit: Thompson River University

By Patricia Lightfoot

A classic urban Canadian phenomenon is the rumbling sound and light show of heavy snow-removal equipment after dark. It begins with the signs deposited on the snow banks that line each street, warning that snow removal will take place between the posted hours. Early that evening, a pick-up truck goes up and down the streets with flashing lights and sirens to encourage laggards to move their cars. Sometimes, thoughtful city workers will bang on people’s doors to say, “Is that your car? Do you know whose it is?” This means that your car isn’t towed and you can move it to a street that is not being cleared that night. A few blocks away, you can see the headlights of the waiting trucks, which are the longest I have ever seen. The grader, which looks like a giant prehistoric insect, arranges the snow in a long, high pile, the length of a city block, so the auger can spin it up and shoot it down into the trucks with its Loch Ness monster neck. The sight of the trucks and the auger processing slowly in unison down a dark street illuminated by lights on the vehicles, accompanied by the heavy tank-like rumbling, always makes me happy to live in a peaceful, though chilly, country.

By Patricia Lightfoot

This year, Canada’s 150th birthday is being celebrated. The events planned for Ottawa, where I live, include a fire-breathing dragon and a giant spider processing through the city streets courtesy of the ingenuity of La Machine. But what does the 150th really mean? The First Nations, Métis and Inuit have been here for more than a millennium, and the first European settlers began to make a life here in the early sixteen-hundreds. What is being celebrated is an agreement by four of Canada’s current provinces — Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia — to work towards making all of British North America one nation. The enterprise has clearly been a success, though Newfoundland and Labrador only joined in 1949, and the newest territory, Nunavut, was created in 1999. Generally, the standard of living is high, and life is good for many, but a national failure is our treatment of indigenous communities. It’s time for us to do better. My intention this year is to learn more about the lives of indigenous people in Canada.