Am I the only one who wonders where Canada went?

Gotta love this caricature by Chloe Cushman, one of several that turns up in Saturday's National Post. The article, put together by Mark Medley, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Creative Writing Program at University of British Columbia. Contributors include Andreas Schroeder, Leo McKay, Nancy Lee, Charlotte Gill, Madeleine Thien, and Andrew Westoll, among others. Our Hero's offering goes like this . . . .
Forty years ago, when I flew west to write a novel while earning an MFA, I brought a portable typewriter and two dozen books. Having graduated top of my journalism class at Ryerson and worked as a reporter at the Toronto Star, I was stunned when, at my first novel-writing workshop, instead of hailing my genius, the other grad students kicked me to the curb with faint praise. I spent the next two years discovering how little I knew about storytelling. Cortazar, Marquez, Butor, Lessing, Achebe, Calvino. Where had these magicians been hiding? My mentor was novelist Robert Harlow, who had recently published Scann. After flying as a bomber pilot in the Second World War, Harlow had become the first Canadian to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Back home in B.C., he had helped run CBC Radio before moving to UBC at the invitation of Earle Birney. Both men battled to keep the creative writing department separate from the English department. With Harlow looking over my shoulder, I completed a novel that served as my thesis. Years later, after rewrites, it emerged via Pottersfield Press as my second book, Visions of Kerouac: A Novel. The rest, as Harlow used to say, is persiflage.

In the north of Scotland, they're calling him Kildonan's Kennedy. They're referring to John Diefenbaker, Canadian prime minister from 1957 to 1963. And, yes, they do mean John F. Kennedy, the most charismatic of American presidents, and one who was famously attached to his Irish roots. Not only that, but in the Timespan Museum in Helmsdale, a town 68 miles north of Inverness, they have just launched a months-long Diefenbaker's North project, celebrating the story of Diefenbaker and his Bannerman ancestors.
If you've perused How the Scots Invented Canada, you will understand, but bear with me.  Above, you see Our Hero outside Rogart, which is in the same county as
Helmsdale: Sutherland. I am sitting by a cairn built out of stones from the croft of the grandfather of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister. Trust me, it is not an easy place to reach. But you see the plaque on that cairn? In 1968, Diefenbaker visited Rogart and unveiled it at a well-attended ceremony. He unveiled a second plaque, not far away, to his own Scottish ancestors, the Bannermans. His mother's people, they were among those who, driven out of Sutherland during the Highland Clearances, left the parish of Kildonan in 1813 and sailed to Canada. They were "Selkirk Settlers" who, after spending one bitter winter on the shores of Hudson Bay, trekked 1,000 miles south to establish Red River Settlement, which gave rise to Winnipeg. Yes, "Dief" was proud of his Scottish roots. Earlier today, while giving a talk in Markham, north of Toronto, I said a few words about that and showed the two images posted here. When I arrived home, I found a letter from Jim McGugan, a second cousin of mine who lives in Letham, Scotland. He enclosed a clipping from the Glasgow Herald of Feb. 19. . . . all about the Helmsdale project that launched last week. Gotta love even a modest synchronicity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeuGZkSNPPQ . . .
I read a book last Friday for the first time in seventeen years. . . .

No, this is not an image taken at the symposium. But I couldn't resist: I had to show them this slide. Here we have Jenna Andersen doing the only handstand that has ever been done at the site where John Rae discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage. A bunch of us got to this hard-to-reach Arctic location in 2012 with Adventure Canada. I had been there before, in 1998, when three of us put that plaque there: me, Inuk explorer Louie Kamookak, and antiquarian Cameron Treleaven. On this return visit, Sheena Fraser McGoogan captured the handstand for posterity. To the right of the plaque, you can see the remains of the cairn that Rae built in 1854.  Of course, I wrote about this in Fatal Passage.  But earlier today, I outlined the Rae saga here in Toronto at the 29th annual Wilderness and Canoe Symposium -- to an enthusiastic audience of 500, no lie. I had met the woman who introduced at the airport in Kugluktuk. She had just paddled down the Coppermine River -- while reading Lady Franklin's Revenge, I might add -- along the route pioneered by Samuel Hearne. Anyway, hats off to the organizers of that symposium. Thanks to folks like you, we may yet get Rae recognized at Westminster Abbey.

You have been wanting to catch Our Hero in person. You know you have. . .
Friday, Jan. 31: The Burns Supper at Hart House. Toast to The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns.
Saturday, Feb. 8: Canoe & Wilderness Symposium. 2 p.m. Fatal Passage: Return to Rae Strait.
Tuesday, Feb. 18. McGill University Community for Lifelong Learning. 3:15 p.m.  Skype appearance re: Fatal Passage.
Thursday, Feb. 27. University of Toronto Lecture Series. Markham Civic Centre. 12:30 p.m. 50 Canadians Who Changed the World.
Monday, March 24. University of Toronto Lecture Series. The Oakville Club. Noon. 50 Canadians Who Changed the World.
Wednesday, April 9. University of Toronto Lecture Series. Fitzgerald Building. 50 Canadians Who Changed the World.

Over on Facebook, a recent image sparked complaint. Where was my sporran? The clamor induced me to solicit yet one more kilted photo from Sheena Fraser McGoogan. Here we have Our Hero setting out with Sheena for the Robert Burns extravaganza sponsored by the St. Andrew's Society of Toronto. And quite a shindig it was, complete with haggis, pipers, and a Burns' songfest led by Strings in Motion. I got to chat with Norm Kelly, the Deputy Mayor. As  reported elsewhere, I offered unsolicited advice on transit, recommended Straphanger by Taras Grescoe, and relayed statistics on the Scots and the Irish in Canada. Mr. Kelly did not smoke crack. He did not curse out the police chief in Jamaican patois. And he did not threaten to strip down to his underwear and kill somebody. Either he's a notable improvement on you know who, or the sporran really does work magic.