Yellowknife
I like this town
The lake is still frozen, but the falls are exposed. I hope to spend my time exploring. The sun is shining and will be for many hours to come. Solstice is approaching and the days are long. In a few weeks the sun will not set. The trees will blossom and the shortened growing season will persevere. At home the cherry blossoms have blown away and summer is beginning. Yet here, in the north, spring has just begun.
Diamonds and art galleries line the halls of the mall. Colourful and expressive I am reminded of the west coast art of my home. Totems have been replaced with Inuit Markers and sculptures. Whales have been exchanged for polar bears. This culture is foreign to me. The lost expanses of Canada are fascinating. Canada is BIG. I am 2384.11 Km away from home. (1481.42 miles for my American friends) such a distance seems incomprehensible. As such we often forget our own land. As Canadians we are segregated from each other. Mountains carve boundaries, forests separate, prairies divide the nation, and the ice feels eternal. In a country where the majority of the population lives within a few hours of the southern border, is it any wonder so much land is forgotten? The vast expanses of ice and rock seem endless as they kiss the distant horizon. My home is far away, yet this is Canada. This culture, this art, this land is Canada. I am so happy to be exploring my country.
Inuit culture is predominant; the art is everywhere, as are the languages. I wonder if their heritage is safer than that of the First Nations in BC and AB. I wonder if they have been able to retain more. I hope the racism I encounter in AB is absent. I am ignorant; I do not know.
Commercially I can appreciate the exported art, much as whales and ravens are sold to tourists at home, sold without understanding. Culture is bought without compassion or appreciation of the struggles, the treaties, the history, the pain, or the land.
It is a strange country that defines our culture on the global market by the art of the indigenous peoples we have sought to destroy and manipulate.
I have been confronted with so much discrimination while touring it festers in frustration. Alberta breaks my heart. Yet Alberta is currently the governing voice of Ottawa.
I am naïve, but I like my first impression of this city. It feels like Canada. I want this Canada back.
The lake is still frozen, but the falls are exposed. I hope to spend my time exploring. The sun is shining and will be for many hours to come. Solstice is approaching and the days are long. In a few weeks the sun will not set. The trees will blossom and the shortened growing season will persevere. At home the cherry blossoms have blown away and summer is beginning. Yet here, in the north, spring has just begun.
Diamonds and art galleries line the halls of the mall. Colourful and expressive I am reminded of the west coast art of my home. Totems have been replaced with Inuit Markers and sculptures. Whales have been exchanged for polar bears. This culture is foreign to me. The lost expanses of Canada are fascinating. Canada is BIG. I am 2384.11 Km away from home. (1481.42 miles for my American friends) such a distance seems incomprehensible. As such we often forget our own land. As Canadians we are segregated from each other. Mountains carve boundaries, forests separate, prairies divide the nation, and the ice feels eternal. In a country where the majority of the population lives within a few hours of the southern border, is it any wonder so much land is forgotten? The vast expanses of ice and rock seem endless as they kiss the distant horizon. My home is far away, yet this is Canada. This culture, this art, this land is Canada. I am so happy to be exploring my country.
Inuit culture is predominant; the art is everywhere, as are the languages. I wonder if their heritage is safer than that of the First Nations in BC and AB. I wonder if they have been able to retain more. I hope the racism I encounter in AB is absent. I am ignorant; I do not know.
Commercially I can appreciate the exported art, much as whales and ravens are sold to tourists at home, sold without understanding. Culture is bought without compassion or appreciation of the struggles, the treaties, the history, the pain, or the land.
It is a strange country that defines our culture on the global market by the art of the indigenous peoples we have sought to destroy and manipulate.
I have been confronted with so much discrimination while touring it festers in frustration. Alberta breaks my heart. Yet Alberta is currently the governing voice of Ottawa.I am naïve, but I like my first impression of this city. It feels like Canada. I want this Canada back.
Labels: thoughts
posted by Ryann @ 17:23
7 Comments:
At 8:07 AM,
Anonymous said…
God Bless [The U.S. of] America and the Constitution for which it stands, when enforced.
"This Canada," isn't what one may think, since in BC or Oregon treaty there was no indigenous people, just animal and vegetable life, no human beings.
This post does reming me of NAtional Lampoon Radio, "The Middle Class Liberal Well Intentioned Blues." "The stars are heavy with the buffalo," says the "native" or "first nations," "oh cut the tourist crap would you," Gölök ZLF Buday responds. I hate this "First Nations," crap, there is no proof of who is the first Nation, it might be a Hitite. Incan or Mayan, whatever; could be what Myths called elves all we know. Ever see Chiefs, Red Wire Magazine, and other "First Nation" tax money grubbers with Anglo Saxon and maybe Gaulian names? Red Man my ass. They are oppressed by this "Nation" mentality, I am glad I am a Federalist Libertarian. The olympics will kill us, and that logo reminds me of Niponese symbol.
At 12:59 PM,
Ryann said…
why is that people only post anonymously when they have something nasty to say??
cowards.
At 4:20 PM,
Cairde said…
I have often found that when someone get so "riled up" and responds with such wrath to something I said or wrote, then I must have said/written something meaningful enough to strike a cord...and it gives me motivation to keep on expressing myself! obviously what you say is important enough that these anonymous people come to your site to read them and if they feel the need to lash out...eh...more power to YOU I say! Are they so afraid you might actually have a valid point?
At 10:19 AM,
Anonymous said…
Sorry, Ryann, I Clicked The Wrong Hole.
Heh, I hope that's the first time I have to
say that.
At 10:22 AM,
Anonymous said…
I, Gölök Zoltán Leenderdt Franco Buday am picking other and yet get annonynmized, you might want to send a bug report. --- Mr. Nasty To Say.
At 10:33 AM,
Ryann said…
jimbo, welcome to my blog.
glad to have you here, and thank you for your thoughts.
At 6:04 AM,
Anonymous said…
No, they got deals, and based on political pragmatism and patronism. Oh and Chiefs with anglo names don't phaise me, Scotland even have loyal Chieftans, and of course the colonial governor has been known elseware; the money and land recycles; and my issue is with segregation and seperation; something Quebec and Alberta would get marshal law, and you miss my point; the Oregon Terratory first had escapies from the east and then placed "Frist Nations," I can not say the same for Alberta or Yukon, more hospitable in the old days, however I can say this; there is no evidence in the Millions of years of existence that they were first, unless you agree with the Stockwell Days of the world and just think it's just 6000 years. Oh the multiples were to clear up some mess about annon. posts. Oh, since it matters so much with my name how would you know I am not some way related to some type of Indian in some ancestral way? To be honest I only know of my mother's father's father's mother as a Paiute (Ute-Aztek); it's possible Azteks and Magyars both came feom Sumeria.
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