CANADA MILITARYNEWS: let's bmorelike beavers/2black?/whitetrashkids WWII fostercare/instead of dissing other countries how about fixing our own'civilized nations'/putoldfolksinjail and prisoners in oldfolkshomes/our incredible troops- thank u
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: O Canada why can't we b more like our beaver- “With nothing but sticks, rocks, mud, teeth, paws and plenty of energy, a beaver can build a dam that holds back tonnes of water. It can fell several cords of wood with its jaws and teeth and create ponds that rival water features coveted by subdivision designers.” who make home and family and environment matter/how black is 2 black and dirty white trash not white enough- some good reading folks/ blogs and links/God bless our military and a little Canadiana - put the elderly in prison and the prisoners in old age homes
Thc Canadian beaver, official symbol of Canada March 24, 1975. Photo Credit: Image from CBC "Nature of Things" Tv
documantary.
quote
O Canada : beavers: “They
have a slick, greased-down appearance and long, gross yellow teeth.”
Graham
says our national symbol inspires awe because, “With nothing but sticks, rocks,
mud, teeth, paws and plenty of energy, a beaver can build a dam that holds back
tonnes of water. It can fell several cords of wood with its jaws and teeth and
create ponds that rival water features coveted by subdivision designers.”
While
we, the so-called brainy animal at the top of the food chain, denude the Earth
in search of “valuable” ore and minerals, pillage the oceans and rivers for
profit and castigate anything or anyone not considered useful, the beaver
simply builds a home for its family.
“Instead
of extorting every last nickel from Creation, we need to marvel at it, the big,
the small, the weird, and even the seemingly ordinary, like the amazing rodent
on our five-cent piece,” she writes.
Monica Graham’s In the Spirit speaks with insight,
wonder
MARY
ELLEN MACINTYRE
Published August 3, 2015 - 8:46am
Dog-earing
books is an abomination.
And
yet I have quite thoroughly abominated Monica Graham’s In the Spirit:
Reflections on Everyday Grace.
Without
highlighter, pen or even scraps of paper, how else to mark those pages that
touch, anger or provoke thought? Not that I’m in a permanent sans highlighter,
pen or paper state but … there are times.
Besides,
it felt kind of rebellious. And what better way to approach a book about
spirituality than with a rebellious, dog-earing kind of attitude?
There
is now a full-blown pack of dog ears on this little book.
And
that’s a good sign.
There
are reasons to like this book by Pictou County author Monica Graham.
Although
many of the short-snapper chapters or essays first appeared on the religion
pages of The Chronicle Herald, they are not overtly religious. The longtime
religion page writer doesn’t preach or rage but merely observes in a spiritual
manner.
The
chapters speak to spirituality, to a world view, to a way of looking at the
world — with the kind of insight and simplicity that prompts a smile.
But
it’s what she observes that makes her writings so readable.
The
references are to things of this Earth — a wheelbarrow full of crooked carrots,
or beavers: “They have a slick, greased-down appearance and long, gross yellow
teeth.”
Graham
says our national symbol inspires awe because, “With nothing but sticks, rocks,
mud, teeth, paws and plenty of energy, a beaver can build a dam that holds back
tonnes of water. It can fell several cords of wood with its jaws and teeth and
create ponds that rival water features coveted by subdivision designers.”
While
we, the so-called brainy animal at the top of the food chain, denude the Earth
in search of “valuable” ore and minerals, pillage the oceans and rivers for
profit and castigate anything or anyone not considered useful, the beaver
simply builds a home for its family.
“Instead
of extorting every last nickel from Creation, we need to marvel at it, the big,
the small, the weird, and even the seemingly ordinary, like the amazing rodent
on our five-cent piece,” she writes.
In
a chapter on the power of words, Graham sneaks in a reference to an old George
Carlin monologue, Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television.
Now
how can you not like a religion writer who mentions George Carlin?
With
the twisting of words and manipulation of thoughts and ideas, we humans cause
all manner of trouble, she suggests.
“How
else could the most excellent teachings of someone like Jesus or Muhammad, or
any of the sages and prophets down through the ages, be used as an excuse for
sexual abuse, war, treachery, racism or other demonstrations of hatred?”
It’s
when she describes the incongruous sight of a painted trillium pushing through
dry, hard-packed earth that Graham does what she does best.
“You
might expect a rugged dandelion to pop through … but not this frilly,
fragile-looking trillium. To me, that little flower represented triumph over
adversity, beauty arising from ugliness, hope overcoming desolation.”
Life
is full of surprises and strangeness, she says.
“My
dainty little trillium surprised me by toughing its way into the light, but the
lowly and much-maligned dandelion is full of surprises too,” Graham writes.
A
useful “weed,” not only can you make wine or jelly from dandelion blossoms, its
roots will even serve up a reasonable coffee substitute.
Surprise.
“And
just have a look at how a dandelion spreads its seeds, by those little fairy
parachutes that float around on the wind; meanwhile, trillium seeds are carted
around by ants — who knew?”
Surprise
again.
Graham’s
book is deceptively simple to read. In small bites or in one sitting, it is
easily digestible. It feels like the musings of a pure and simple soul,
uncomplicated by life’s heavier questions.
And
yet her words linger, her images stay to gently probe at the reader’s own
spirituality, or way of looking at the world.
Mary
Ellen MacIntyre is a News Reporter at The Chronicle Herald
After the early Europeans explorers had realized that Canada was not the
spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was the beaver population
numbering in the millions. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the fashion of
the day demanded fur hats, which needed beaver pelts. As these hats became more
popular, the demand for the pelts grew.
King Henry IV of France saw the fur trade as an opportunity to acquire
much-needed revenue and to establish a North American empire. Both English and
French fur traders were soon selling beaver pelts in Europe at 20 times their
original purchase price.
The trade of beaver pelts proved so lucrative that the Hudson's Bay Company
honoured the buck-toothed little animal by putting it on the shield of its coat
of arms in 1678. Sir William Alexander, who was granted title to Nova Scotia in
1621, had been the first to include the beaver in a coat of arms.
The Hudson's Bay Company shield consists of four beavers separated by a red St.
George's Cross and reflects the importance of this industrious rodent to the
company. A coin was created to equal the value of one beaver pelt.
Also, in 1678 Louis de Buade de Frontenac, then Governor of New France,
suggested the beaver as a suitable emblem for the colony, and proposed it be
included in the armorial bearings of Quebec City. In 1690, in commemoration of
France's successful defence of Quebec, the "Kebeca Liberata Medal"
was struck. A seated woman, representing France, with a beaver at her feet,
representing Canada, appeared on the back.
The beaver was included in the armorial bearings of the City of Montreal when
it was incorporated as a city in 1833. Sir Sandford Fleming assured the beaver
a position as a national symbol when he featured it on the first Canadian
postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of 1851.
The beaver also appeared with the maple leaf on the masthead of Le Canadien, a
newspaper published in Lower Canada.
For a time, it was one of the emblems of the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste. It is
still found on the crest of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
Despite all this recognition, the beaver was close to extinction by the
mid-19th century. There were an estimated six million beavers in Canada before
the start of the fur trade. During its peak, 100,000 pelts were being shipped
to Europe each year; the Canadian beaver was in danger of being wiped out.
Luckily, about that time, Europeans took a liking to silk hats and the demand
for beaver pelts all but disappeared.
The beaver attained official status as an emblem of Canada when an "act to
provide for the recognition of the beaver (castor canadensis) as a symbol of
the sovereignty of Canada" received royal assent on March 24, 1975.
Today, thanks to conservation and silk hats, the beaver - the largest rodent in
Canada - is alive and well all over the country.
Canadians don't go in
for symbols ... and
they treat their flag with a casual disregard.1 Alan Fotheringham (1986)
To see a maple leaf is to think of Canada. The two are
inextricably intertwined in the minds and hearts of a people; over the
centuries, the maple leaf has emerged as the dominant visual symbol of Canada.
But, the word Canada is, itself, just a symbol: a symbol for a land, a nation,
and a people. Linguistically, we identify ourselves with this old
Huron-Iroquois word for a village; visually, we use a maple leaf.
Symbols are the material of thought and the tools of
communication. Without the symbolic representation of the world around us in
the form of words and images, there could be neither civilizations nor nations.
Nations have always identified themselves with a name, most have used a visual
device as well. The informal visual symbol of a nation (in Canada's
case, the maple leaf) is usually incorporated into two different formal
symbols: a flag and arms. The use of the two formal symbols is not universal;
while no modern nation is without some form of flag, some have not adopted
arms. Canada has both.
Contrary to the prevalent Canadian mythology, the Canadian
passion for their symbols is deep and abiding; Canadians treat their flag, and
have always treated their flags, with reverence and enthusiasm.
The
Flag and the Arms
...a nation needs
emblems and symbols to preserve traditions and inspire love
of country. Of these symbols, the coat of arms and the flag are the chief.2 Charles Frederick Hamilton,
Assistant Comptroller, R.C.M.P (1921)
This book celebrates our flag. However, so closely related
are the arms and flags of Canada, that a discussion of the second cannot be
made without an understanding of the first. The functions of flags and arms are
not identical. One distinction is offered by John Matheson, a person who, in
the words of Lester B. Pearson, "had more to do with it [the creation of
the National Flag] than any other." Matheson comments:
The function of a flag is to send the simple message of identity. The
function of arms is to dignify an individual, or institution, or country by
special identifying symbolism and by appropriate reference to ancestry.3
Canada's flag serves to identify something Canadian. More
specialized in its use, Canada's arms identify national authority and
jurisdiction. Leaving aside strictly decorative uses of either, the flag is
used wherever one wishes to make the simple statement: Canada or Canadian; the
arms only where the authority of the nation is asserted.4
Thus, the arms appear in the courts of law, on the
currency, on some governmental stationary, and on all buildings of the federal
government. The arms make a clear statement for the official presence of the
Crown, or anyone who exercises delegated authority for the Crown in Canada. The
federal government makes regular and prominent use of the arms on
proclamations, passports and on some rank badges of the armed forces. The flag
is often displayed in the same places as the arms, but it is also flown on
private, commercial, and public property alike. In no case is authority
asserted, only a Canadianness.
Our flag grew out of our arms, and our arms grew out of our
informal symbol, the maple leaf. Yet, before tracing this growth, the worthy
beaver must not be missed. Although an older symbol of Canada than the maple
leaf, the beaver appears on neither the arms nor the flag. Why?
The
Beaver
Have you marked but
the fall of the snow
Before the soil has smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver? Ben Jonson, Charis' Triumph, c. 1616
(in a metaphorical tribute to his ladylove)
The discovery of the Canadian beaver was almost coincident
with the discovery of Canada. Jacques Cartier traded for furs with the Indians
of the Gaspé in 1534, and two years later visited Hochelaga (the site of
present-day Montréal), a village whose name meant beaver meadows. The
subsequent pursuit of the beaver pelt from the Maritimes to the Arctic and
Pacific oceans was a major motivation for the exploration of what is now
Canada.
The importance of the trade in beaver pelts in New France
prompted its governor general, Count Frontenac, to suggest to the royal
authorities in 1673 that the beaver was the appropriate symbol for Canada.
Indeed, the beaver was used to represent Canada in 1690 when the French KebecaLiberata medal was struck to mark the repulse of the British attack on
Québec of that year.
The symbol was equally compelling to the British of the
time. In 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was formed and given control of
Rupert's Land, a vast territory covering 38% of present-day Canada. Sometime
during its first decade, the Company began to use arms bearing four beavers on
a shield. (Although used throughout the history of the H.B.C., these arms were
not made official until 1921.)5
Sometime prior to 1779 these arms were placed upon a white field to make the
first flag known to display the beaver. The flag represented the Governor of
the Hudson's Bay Company, and thus, perforce, the Governor of Rupert's Land.
Amazingly, this flag is in use to this day and can be seen flying regularly
over the stores of The Bay throughout the country. As such, it is probably the
oldest unchanged flag still in official use in North America.
After 1821, the popularity of the beaver as a Canadian
symbol began to decrease. That was the year that the Hudson's Bay Company
absorbed the Northwest Company causing the virtual cessation of fur trading
through Montréal. Further, as silk hats became fashionable in the 1830s, the
beaver lost its place as the staple of trade; the Hudson's Bay Company turned
to fancier fur.
Although the beaver was the main feature in Canada's first
postage stamp, issued in 1851, the decline in the use of the symbol was
evident. In 1863 Sir William Dawson delivered a lecture entitled "The
Duties of Educated Young Men in British America." He explains:
Canada has two emblems-the beaver and the maple. The beaver in his
sagacity, his industry, his ingenuity, and his perseverance, is a most
respectable animal: a much better emblem for our country than the rapacious
eagle or even the lordly lion; but he is also a type of unvarying instincts and
Old World traditions. He does not improve, and becomes extinct rather than
change his ways. Some of our artists have the bad taste to represent the beaver
as perched on the maple bough, a most unpleasant position for the poor animal,
and suggestive of the thought, that he is in the act of gnawing through the
trunk of our national tree (the maple). Perhaps some more venturous designer may
some day reverse the position, and represent the maple branch as fashioned into
a club, wherewith to knock the beaver on the head.6
Even if that metaphorical club was never fashioned, the
maple did largely sweep the beaver aside. When arms were granted to the
original four provinces of Confederation in 1868, two bore maple leaves, but
none bore a beaver.
As William Dawson noted, artistic renditions of the beaver
often included it incongruously sitting on a branch of maple. One such
representation, upon a flag, contributed significantly to the beaver's
discomfiture. For a quarter of a century, the Beaver Line, a shipping company
out of Montréal, used a house flag which proudly displayed a beaver upon a log.7 What transpired is
explained by Thomas Mulvey, K.C., Canada's Under-Secretary of State and member
of the committee established to advise on the design of the national arms. When
the editor of the Rod and Gun magazine objected to the omission of the
beaver from Canada's arms in 1921, Mulvey countered with:
It was decided that as a member of the Rat Family, a Beaver was not
appropriate.... The Canadian Merchant Marine [sic for the Beaver Line]
displayed a Beaver on their House-Flag and they have ever since been
colloquially known as "The Rat Line."8
Apparently some Canadian mariners of the time were
sensitive to the teasing of other sailors. Although the Beaver Line had been
purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1903, the influence of its flag
lived on. In its own right, the Canadian Pacific Railway had displayed the
beaver in its logotype across the land from its inception until 1968. However,
the beaver could not recapture its once prominent position. Dr. Arthur Lower, a
renowned authority on Canadian history and social change, commented ironically
in 1964 on its rather stodgy characteristics as:
The beaver? I do not like the beaver very much. He is very
representative of English Canada rather than French; that is to say he is a
pretty intelligent animal on a rather low level who is very fond of work and
has not much idea beyond that. We are very safe and sane, we English Canadians,
in a lot of ways and I think it represents us very well, but I do not like to
be represented too much by the beaver, I must say. I would like an animal that
gets his nose off the ground a little farther.9
Nevertheless, the beaver has retained a position of
affection among Canadians and regularly appears in forms ranging from cartoons
to children's stuffed animals. In 1975, almost as a national afterthought, the
beaver attained official status as a Canadian emblem through an "Act to
provide for the recognition of the beaver as a symbol of the sovereignty of
Canada."
The
Maple Leaf
The scarlet of the
maples
can shake me like a cry,
Of bugles going by.
Bliss Carman
The roots of this symbol date back three centuries to the
earliest settlements along the St. Lawrence. Just as our linguistic symbol, Canada,
was born on the banks of that great river and then extended its applicability a
mari usque ad mare, so too did our visual symbol, the maple leaf.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the settlements
of the New France had attained a population of about 18,000. Also by this time,
the maple leaf with its fiery autumnal colours had been adopted as an emblem in
the settlements along the river.10
Its popularity with French Canadians continued, and was
reinforced when, at the inaugural meeting of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in
1834, the maple leaf was one of numerous emblems proposed to represent the
society. Speaking in its favour, Jacques Viger, the first mayor of Montréal,
described the maple as "the king of our forest; ... the symbol of the
Canadien people."11
Two years later, on November 14, 1836, maple leaves were
chosen to embellish the heading of the newspaper, Le Canadien. Explained
the editor, Étienne Parent:
La feuille d'érable a été, comme on sait, adoptée comme l'emblème du
Bas-Canada, de même que la rose est celui de l'Angleterre, le chardon celui de
l'Écosse et le trèfle celui de l'Irlande.
The following year, maple leaves made, what it probably,
their first appearance upon Canadian flags, albeit those of rebellion. On June
1, 1837, Louis-Joseph Papineau was lead into an assembly of Patriotes at
Ste-Scholastique by the green-white-red Patriote Flag adorned with a beaver,
maple leaf, and muskellunge. Another flag, which had apparently also been
prepared for that assembly, was subsequently carried by the Patriotes at the battle
of Saint-Eustach on Dec 14, 1837. Its design was striking similarity to the
masthead of Le Canadien: in addition to a bough of maple leaves on a
plane field, it bore a pine wreath, a muskellunge, and the monogram, C J-Bte,
said to mean, Canada for Canadiens.12 Fortunately for Canada, this latter
flag, or at least the lower two-thirds of it, has survived and is in the care
of the Château Ramezay in Montréal.
It was not long before the maple leaf was also adopted by
anglophones as the distinctive Canadian symbol. In 1848, the Toronto literary
annual, Maple Leaf, referred to the leaf as the chosen emblem of Canada;13 in 1853, Susannah
Moodie wrote in its praise; in 1854, it was borne on the banners of the Loyal
Canadian Society at the dedication of the Brock monument at Queenston Heights;
in 1858 a wreath of maple leaves appeared on the coins of the Province of
Canada and four years later on those of New Brunswick.
The first flag with some official status to bear maple
leaves appears to be that of the Royal Canadian Regiment (100th). In 1858, in
reaction to the great rebellion in India, Canada offered to raise this regiment
to serve in the regular British Army. Its regimental colours, presented by the
Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) in January 10, 1859, bore a
maple leaf in each corner.14
Widespread use of the symbol was evident in Canada during
the 1860 visit of the Prince of Wales. The wearing of the maple leaf was urged
at a public gathering in St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto on August 31. The meeting
adopted the motion, put forward by James H. Richardson:
Resolved: that all Native Canadians joining in the procession, whether
identified with the National Societies or not, should wear the maple leaf as
the emblem of the land of their birth.
At the grand ball given in the Prince's honour, ladies wore
the maple leaf badge, and the Prince's table bore a setting decorated with
wreaths of maple leaves surmounted by a crown.15
By the time Alexander Muir wrote "The Maple Leaf
Forever," Confederation was only a few months old. Then, within a year,
maple leaves appeared on the arms of Quebec and Ontario. In Quebec's case, they
were in recognition that the sprig of green maple leaves was "commonly
used as a distinctive Provincial badge," while, in Ontario's case they
resulted from a specific request by Canadian authorities.16
v In 1870, the first official distinctively Canadian flag
was approved; it contained a garland of maple leaves in the centre. This was
the flag of the Governor General of Canada, and so it will be treated in detail
in the next chapter. The maple leaf was now firmly established as the premier
distinctive Canadian symbol, a symbol shared by the people of each founding
nation.
Yet the maple leaf was still an informal symbol of the
nation. Its transformation into a formal national symbol was accomplished
through a grant of arms for Canada.
The
Story of the Arms of Canada
Whereas We have
received a request
from the Governor General in Council of Our Dominion of Canada
that the Arms or Ensigns Armorial hereinafter described
should be assigned to Our said Dominion.
King George V
(preamble in the proclamation of Canadian Arms, November 21, 1921)
To a large extent, Canada was granted the arms that Canada
sought.17 During
the subsequent flag debates, questions were to arise as to what Canada's
national colours and symbol were. The answers, although made by recourse to a
grant from King George V, sprung from choices made by Canada. As Colonel A.
Fortescue Duguid paraphrased the grant for the flag committee during the
1945-46 flag controversy:
The King at the request of Canada, assigns to Canada the national
colours white and red, and declares that the national emblem of Canada shall be
three maple leaves on one stem on a white field. 18
The road to the adoption of national arms was not nearly as
rocky as the one to the adoption of the new national flag, but it had its bumps
and it was a road that had to be travelled first.
In 1868, when arms were granted to the four original
provinces, the intent was to join these provincial arms to form a great seal
for Canada. This was never carried out, but the composite (or quartered) arms
were soon used to form a badge on the flag of the governor general and on both
the blue and the red ensigns. The very real distinctions to be made among
seals, badges, and arms, were rarely made, and soon the quartered arms of the
provinces were treated as if they were the Arms of Canada.
In the chapter on ensigns, the story is told of how the
Canadian badge, alias arms, evolved into a visual cacophony. Canada was
being represented, not as an entity, but as an agglomeration of its parts. As
those parts increased in number, the resulting clutter, although fun to study,
hardly represented the nation very effectively. By 1907 the unofficial badge of
Canada was a composite of the proper arms of all nine provinces with the
frequent addition of a miscellany of maple leaves, oak boughs, a beaver, a log,
and a crown.
Despite the clutter of the composite, the individual
provincial arms were very effective. Equipping the latter five provinces with
arms had been the project of Sir Joseph Pope, the Under-Secretary of State from
1896 to 1909. In 1915, he commented:
Having got the provinces regularly equipped [with arms], I began to
consider the question of Arms for the Dominion and communicated with several
people...
Pope had sought counsel in both Toronto19 and Montréal. A proposed shield for
Canada was developed which contained not only maple leaves, but a lion and
fleur-de-lis. Pope then corresponded with the York Herald at the College of
Arms in London, with the result that an artist at the College produced a
tentative drawing of the shield and crest for Canada. The drawing showed arms
that were similar to those that Canada now enjoys, except that the red maple
leaves on white were in the chief (at the top) of the shield, rather than in
the base.
However, Pope left the office of the Secretary of State to
become Under-Secretary in the newly formed Department of External Affairs in
1909 before the project had reached a stage where it could be presented to the
Government. Without Sir Joseph Pope pushing the issue, it languished, but did
not vanish. It resurfaced in 1915 during planning for the forthcoming fiftieth
anniversary of Confederation, and in 1918 when the architect designing the new
Parliament Building (the old ones.burned in 1916) sought to use the arms in
several places in the new Building. With the war over in November, 1918, the
needs of the architect undoubtedly contributed to the establishment on March
26, 1919, of a committee to inquire into a grant of arms for Canada. Sir Joseph
Pope, was appointed, along with Thomas Mulvey, Under-Secretary of State, Dr.
Arthur G. Doughty, Dominion Archivist, and Maj. Gen. Willoughby G. Gwatkin,
Honorary Lieutenant General of the Canadian militia.
The committee sought and received advice from a wide range
of people including: Ambrose Lee, the York Herald at the College of Arms;
Lieutenant Colonel C.F. Hamilton, Assistant Comptroller of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police; E.M. Chadwick, a Toronto lawyer (K.C.); Major General Eugène
Fiset, later to become the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec; members of the
Antiquarian and Numismatic Society of Montréal at the Château Ramezay; and
curiously, Rudyard Kipling. Of particular interest for the story of the flag is
the recommendation of Major General Fiset that Canada's national emblem should
be a single red maple leaf on a white field.
There appears to have been general agreement growing out of
these discussions that while the arms must contain emblems of a "special Canadian
nature," they should also recall the major historical tributaries whose
confluence was Canada; one of the functions of heraldry is to place the present
within the grand sweep of the past. The pattern which emerged late in 1919
represented Canada with the maple leaves, and, the national lineage with the
Royal Arms of England, Scotland, Ireland and France. Unsettled questions
concerned the number, placement, and colour of the maple leaves; the beaver,
however, was nowhere to be seen.
By this time, the beaver had been substantially eclipsed by
the maple leaf as a national symbol and so it does not seem that the committee
members ever seriously considered inclusion of Canada's favourite fauna. The
stated reasons for its rejection seem a little contrived, especially in the
light of the fact that at the time Nova Scotia had a fish on its arms. The
beaver: "his virtues, while real and laudable, are of a pedestrian and
humble type not wholly suited to a nation which has no reason to pride itself
upon its humility." Probably of greater moment were the jibes Canadians
had suffered over the "Rat Line."
On the other hand the committee said the maple leaf is the favorite and
is the most susceptible of artistic treatment. Not only has it been long in
use, but during the war it was used as the symbol on the 'service flags' which
scores of thousands of Canadians displayed; and a red leaf on a service flag
denoted a Canadian who had laid down his life for his country. Thus the emblem
has assumed a very poignant meaning to us.
The story of the service flags, an idea cribbed from the
Americans, is told later in the book. One suspects that most of the reasons
offered were but justifications for the real motivation which was only
presented as if an afterthought: "in addition, Canadians are very fond of
the maple leaf in its autumnal glories."
So maple leaves it was, but how many? Nine leaves, one for
each province, would have made each "so small as to render distinctive
treatment impossible.... A single leaf, on the other hand would be too large,
and would tempt artists to make a picture of it, instead of conventionalizing
it, as is proper in heraldry." Thus design considerations prompted the
choice of three, which were then joined as a sprig as had been the leaves on
the 1868 arms of both Quebec and Ontario.
Initially the committee wished to place the maple leaves on
a white band across the top of the shield with the various royal arms below.
Their aim had been to show Canada's origins as "a daughter country
inheriting the arms of the four mother countries." That this positioning
was not the correct heraldic way to accomplish their ends only became apparent
later. (The positioning was based on a flawed analogy with a label, which when
used on the top of a shield, transformed the arms of a parent into that of a
child).
At first the colour choice for the leaves seemed obvious:
red. The rich red of the leaves would be striking against a white background
"reminiscent of the snows for which Canada is famous and of which she is proud.?
This combination to represent Canada on the shield then would make red and
white Canada's official colours.
Indeed there is good historical reasons to believe that red
and white had for some time been informally considered the colours of Canada. The
first evidence is indirect and comes from the arms of Ontario and Quebec.
Heraldically, there are only three proper colours for maple leaves: green,
yellow and red. In 1868, Ontario, the former Upper Canada, had been given
yellow leaves; Quebec, the former Lower Canada, had been given green leaves.
Whether purposely or inadvertently, the Heralds had left Canada, itself, to be
distinguished by red leaves. To enhance visibility, heraldry has a rule that
restricts the allowable combinations of shades: a colour such as red must be
placed on a metal, either gold (yellow) or silver (white). Yellow had been used
for the leaves of Ontario and the background for Quebec, so white was clearly
the background colour for Canada.
There is a difference between something being available for
use and something being used. But from the early years, red and white also
seemed to have been used as the quasi-official colours of Canada. They were
adopted as the ribbon colours on the first post-Confederation military medal,
the Canadian General Service Medal issued in 1899 for service against the
Fenian raids (1866, 1870) and for service in the Red River campaign (1870). The
red-white-red pattern of this ribbon seems to have inspired the flag of the
Royal Military College early in the twentieth century.20 (This in turn, was an inspiration for
the red-white-red pattern of the new national flag in 1965.)
It is clear that red and white were deemed the obvious
choice for Canada both by the officials at the College of Arms, who would have
been familiar with the 1868 arms, and by committee member, Maj. Gen. Gwatkin,
who would have been familiar with the General Service Medal and the colours of
Royal Military College. This choice was reflected not only in the colours of
the leaves they chose for the shield, but also the colours of the mantling, the
wreath, and the leaf held by the lion in the crest.
So, by early 1920, the arms committee had decided that the
nation of Canada would be represented by maple leaves and its colours red and
white; the antecedents of Canada would be represented by the Royal Arms.of
England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. Now, the grand plan began to unravel.
The committee sought the comments of the College of Arms in
London, England, and in April 1920 received a stern rebuke. No such use of the
Royal Arms was permissible, said the Garter King of Arms, and he would refuse
to recommend Canada's design to the King. The Canadians had an exquisite design
and they knew it, so, after some consideration, they decided to recommend that
the government "defy Garter and turn his flank by approaching the King
through the Duke of Connaught [Canada's Governor General]."
Now, with a stratagem to counter the external problem, the
committee developed internal dissent; by April 17, 1920, Sir Joseph Pope
developed a taste for green leaves, which, he said, spoke of growth and life as
opposed to the red, which symbolized decay and death. It appears that Pope's
conversion followed immediately upon a meeting with Prime Minister Borden, who
held a firm preference for green leaves. Although there is nothing in heraldry
that associates red with decay and death, the Prime Minister had to be catered
to if they were going to outflank the College of Arms by going to the King
through the Governor General.
So it was that on July 13, 1920, an order-in-council was
passed requesting the King for a grant of arms with the sprig of green
leaves above the four Royal Arms. Although about to be bypassed, Garter
countered with a shield bearing an imperial crown and red maple leaves on a
white field. The Canadians would not be deterred and went to the King through
the Colonial Office. After all their manoeuvring, it must have been
embarrassing to now be informed, as they were, that the presented arms had a
design flaw. The committee had wished to show Canada as the heir of the older
kingdoms, but the heraldic way to show that was to place Canada's symbol at the
base of the shield rather than at the top. As presented, they were assured, it
was the Royal Arms that had been debased into the junior position.
Another order-in-council, on April 30, 1921, solved this
problem by placing the leaves at the base, where the committee's design
criteria should have put them in the first place. An added benefit was that the
base of the shield, with its triangular shape, also more effectively displayed
the sprig of maple leaves. However, the proposal continued incongruously to
show green leaves on the shield, but a red and white mantling and wreath, plus
a red leaf in the lion's paw on the crest.
This time King George V approved Canada's arms proposal;
the College of Arms, which had been outflanked, was called upon to prepare the
warrant. Now, the Herald preparing the arms did Canada a considerable favour.
Instead of specifying leaves that were "green," as the
Order-in-Council had requested, he specified leaves that were
"proper." Proper means in its natural colours, and this allowed the
green preferred at that time, but left the door ajar for others to correct the
inconsistencies.
On November 21, 1921, King George V signed the Royal
Proclamation that gave Canada the arms it sought. However, the story did not
end there. In the ensuing years, the arms were widely used not only to
represent Canada formally on governmental flags, money, buildings, documents,
medals and stationary, but also to represent Canadians informally on popular
plaques, china, broaches, and postcards. While there were stylistic changes in
the representation, the leaves were almost exclusively depicted as green.
Yet there was early recognition that a mistake had been
made. In 1939, a Battle Flag was approved; based on the Proclamation of
Canadian Arms, it displayed a sprig of three red leaves. Similarly, the
Canadian Army Badge, adopted in 1947, showed a sprig of three red leaves.
Indeed, red leaves began to appear elsewhere, largely as a result of the work
of the Canadian heraldic artist, Alan B. Beddoe. For quite a number of years
after the war, he had been required to depict the arms in work for the
government, and he had always shown the leaves as red for he felt that the
proclamation of 1921, properly interpreted, called for red leaves.
At Alan Beddoe's urging, the official depiction of the Arms
of Canada was revised. Among the changes announced on October 8, 1957, was a
change in the colour of the leaves from green to red. Further, the female harp
was replaced by the simpler and more ancient celtic harp, and, at the Queen's
request, the crown with the raised arches, often called the Tudor crown, was
replaced with Saint Edward's crown with its depressed arches. These and other
small changes resulted in an even more effective and beautiful design than the 1921
version.
1. Alan
Fotheringham, Capitol Offences (Toronto: Key Porter, 1986), p. 70.
2.The
Arms of Canada: 1921 (Ottawa: Secretary of State, 1921, 1923), p. 6. This
pamphlet was published without attribution of any kind. However, the Secretary
of State File No. 1156 reveals that its author was Lt.-Col. C.F. Hamilton, who
was at the time the Assistant Comptroller and Accountant for the RCMP.
3. John
Ross Matheson, Canada's Flag: A Search for a Country (Boston G.K. Hall, 1980),
p. 7.
4. See
also a discussion of the relation between arms and flags by Whitney Smith,
"An Antipodean Dilemma," Crux Australis, I, 4 (1984), p. 28.
5.
Conrad Swan, Canada: Symbols of Sovereignty (Toronto: U. of Toronto,
1977), p. 217.
6.
Horace Martin, Castorologia (Montréal: Drysdale, 1892), p. 198.
7.
Robert Finch, "Silent Parables," Canadian Forum, LXIV, 744
(December, 1984). Reprinted in Flagscan, 3, 9 (Spring, 1988), pp. 8-15.
10.
Bruce Peel, "Emblems of Canada," The Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton:
Hurtig, 1985), pp. 565-69.
11.
Jean-C. Bonenfant and Jean-C. Falardeau, "Cultural and Political
Implications of French-Canadian Nationalism," Canadian Historical
Association Report (1946), pp. 56-71. Reprinted in Ramsay Cook, ed. French-Canadian
Nationalism, An Anthology (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969).
12.
Jacques Archambault and Eugénie Lévesque, Le Drapeau Québécois (Québec:
Éditeur officiel du Québec, 1978), p. 16.
13.
Bruce Peel, "Emblems of Canada," The Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton:
Hurtig, 1985), pp. 565-69.
14.
Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old (Toronto, 1873), pp. 774-78.
15.
G.F.G. Stanley, The Story of Canada's Flag (Toronto: McGraw-Hill
Ryerson, 1965), p. 23.
16.
Swan, Canada: Symbols of Sovereignty, pp. 161, 101.
17. Much
of the material in this section is based upon two sources: the Secretary of
State Department File No. 1156, and Chapter 2, "Canada Obtains Arms,"
of John Ross Matheson's book Canada's Flag (Boston: Hall, 1980) or
(Belleville Ontario: Mika, 1986). Matheson's book should be consulted for
further detail.
19. One
of the people in Toronto with whom Pope corresponded on the subject was E.M.
Chadwick, K.C. the senior partner of Messrs. Fasken, Robertson, Chadwick and
Sedgewick. The interesting role Chadwick played in establishing provincial arms
and ensign badges is told in the chapter on ensigns.
After the early Europeans explorers had realized that
Canada was not the spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was the
beaver population numbering in the millions. In the late 1600s and early 1700s,
the fashion of the day demanded fur hats, which needed beaver pelts. As these
hats became more popular, the demand for the pelts grew.
King Henry IV of France saw the fur trade as an opportunity
to acquire much-needed revenue and to establish a North American empire. Both
English and French fur traders were soon selling beaver pelts in Europe at 20
times their original purchase price.
The trade of beaver pelts proved so lucrative that the
Hudson's Bay Company honoured the buck-toothed little animal by putting it on
the shield of its coat of arms in 1678. Sir William Alexander, who was granted
title to Nova Scotia in 1621, had been the first to include the beaver in a
coat of arms.
The Hudson's Bay Company shield consists of four beavers
separated by a red St. George's Cross and reflects the importance of this
industrious rodent to the company. A coin was struck that was equal to the
value of one male beaver pelt – it was known as a « buck ».
Also, in 1678 Louis de Buade de Frontenac, then Governor of
New France, suggested the beaver as a suitable emblem for the colony, and
proposed it be included in the armorial bearings of Quebec City. In 1690, in
commemoration of France's successful defence of Quebec, the "Kebeca
Liberata Medal" was struck. A seated woman, representing France, with a
beaver at her feet, representing Canada, appeared on the back.
The beaver was included in the armorial bearings of the
City of Montréal when it was incorporated as a city in 1833. Sir Sandford
Fleming assured the beaver a position as a national symbol when he featured it
on the first Canadian postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of
1851.
The beaver also appeared with the maple leaf on the
masthead of Le Canadien, a newspaper published in Lower Canada.
For a time, it was one of the emblems of the Société
Saint-Jean-Baptiste. It is still found on the crest of the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company.
Despite all this recognition, the beaver was close to
extinction by the mid-19th century. There were an estimated six million beavers
in Canada before the start of the fur trade. During its peak, 100,000 pelts
were being shipped to Europe each year; the Canadian beaver was in danger of
being wiped out. Luckily, about that time, Europeans took a liking to silk hats
and the demand for beaver pelts all but disappeared.
The beaver attained official status as an emblem of Canada
when an "act to provide for the recognition of the beaver (castor
canadensis) as a symbol of the sovereignty of Canada" received royal
assent on March 24, 1975.
Today, thanks to conservation and silk hats, the beaver -
the largest rodent in Canada - is alive and well all over the country.
CANADA MILITARY
NEWS: 11 September 2014-Tribute n photos of Canadians Sept. 11 2001-World Trade
Center-New York USA/Photos and Memorial 2 Canadians sacrificed Afghanistan- We
Remember Always/IRAQ-CHRIS MASON- Chris also said: "WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE
That the Patch We Wear On Our Right Shoulder Stands For Something That's
Greater Than Ourselves; That's Greater Than Where We Are From... We're The
Fabric That Holds the Flag Together"
How black is 2
black... how white is 2 white... and those aren't freckles.... they're big
moles like witches and goblins.... ur a dirty white trash girl.... u don't
belong here in our class even if u are smart..... REMINDERS OF THE NOVA SCOTIA HOME FOR COLOURED
CHILDREN BLACK ON BLACK ABUSE.... AND OVER 8 MILLION OF US WWII KIDS WHO BECAME
- CHILDREN OF THE SECRET....
CHILDREN OF THE
SECRET- CHILD ABUSE- MIND RAPE; PHYSICAL TORTURE; SEXUAL ASSAULT
Impact of ‘shadism’ probed in Toni
Morrison’s latest novel, God Help the Child
EVELYN C. WHITE
Published August 3, 2015 - 8:52am
Nobel laureate Toni Morrison has released a searing new
novel, God Help the Child. (AP)
Forty-five years after the release of her debut novel,
Nobel laureate Toni Morrison revisits themes of hurt and harm among people of
African descent in her new book.
As with Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye (1970),
protagonist Lula Ann Bridewell (who calls herself Bride) is subject to ridicule
and rejection because of her dark complexion, in God Help the Child.
“It’s not my fault,” Morrison writes in the chilling
opening paragraph of the novel. “ I didn’t do it and have no idea how it
happened. It didn’t take more than an hour after they pulled her out from
between my legs to realize something was wrong. She was so black she scared me.
I’m light-skinned, with good hair so is Lula Ann’s father. Ain’t nobody in my
family anywhere that colour.”
Convinced that the “blue-black” girl is not his daughter,
Bride’s father, a railway porter, leaves her mother, a woman who, in wounding
gestures, large and small, distances herself from the child.
“I told her to call me ‘Sweetness’ instead of ‘Mother’ or
‘Mama,’” Morrison writes. “Being that black and having what I think are
too-thick lips calling me ‘Mama’ would confuse people.”
But unlike Pecola, who is driven mad by her desire for blue
eyes, Bride emerges as the powerful creator of a cosmetics brand You, Girl —
“for girls and women of all complexions from ebony to lemonade to milk.”
Among other symbols of her material success, Bride drives a
Jaguar (“sleek, rat grey with a vanity licence, looked like a gun”) and rocks
diamond earrings.
Yet, she remains scarred by the physical and emotional
slights of her youth. In desperate need of “mother love,” Bride commits a
deceit for which an innocent person pays a heavy price. The act of betrayal
also undermines her romance with a golden-brown, poetry-loving, trumpet-playing
beau named Booker. Read: “good catch,” especially for a “licorice black” woman.
Morrison writes: “Their lovemaking from the very beginning
was serene, artful and long-lasting, so necessary to Booker that he
deliberately withheld for nights in a row to make the return to (Bride’s) bed
brand-new. Their relationship was flawless.”
The novel’s cast of characters also include a white girl
named Rain who has been abused by her prostitute mother and Brooklyn (a “white
girl with dreadlocks”) who prides herself on rising from the abyss of poverty
to a prominent position with You, Girl.
“I started out sweeping a hairdresser’s shop then
waitressing,” Morrison writes, in the voice of Brooklyn. “I fought like the
devil for each job I ever got and let nothing, nothing stop me.”
In addition to a reprise of riffs from The Bluest Eye, God
Help The Child also features a fire scene that calls to mind a blaze in the
author’s 1973 novel Sula and a slumlord who echoes a character in Song of
Solomon (1977). Close readers of Morrison’s previous works are likely to be
surprised by a narrative in which shopworn phrases such as “proud as a peacock”
and “fast as a bullet” appear.
That said, the novel showcases exquisite passages. Consider
Morrison’s depiction of the pleasure Bride derives from using the old-school
shaving kit (strop, boar-hair brush, bone-handled straight razor) that Booker
has left in her medicine cabinet:
“I lather my cheeks. This is crazy I’m sure but I stare at
my face. I clasp his razor. How did he hold it? Some finger arrangement I don’t
remember. I’ll have to practise. Meantime, I use the dull edge and carve dark
chocolate lanes through the swirls of white lather. I splash water and rinse my
face. The satisfaction that follows is so sweet. Lets me imagine without grief
times I was made fun of and hurt. ‘She’s sort of pretty under all that black.’”
God Help The Child probes the enduring impact of “shadism”; a
soul-murdering practice that has been openly discussed, recently, by black
actors such as Viola Davis and Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o. The Oprah
Winfrey-produced documentary series Dark Girls and Light Girls also provides a
global analysis of the issue. To be sure, Morrison’s novel offers much for
those seeking to understand the contours of the cruelty at the Nova Scotia Home
for Coloured Children.
Evelyn C. White is a freelance writer living in Halifax.
Susan Elkin is an education journalist, author and former
secondary teacher of English. Her book Unlocking the Reader in Every Child is
published by Ransom. She is Education and Training Editor at The Stage.
Toni Morrison’s
novels have become more svelte and directly focused over the years, although
thematically God Help the Child takes us right back to Song of
Solomon (1977) and the Pulitzer prize-winning Beloved (1987).
Morrison’s
characters are always clearly shaped by the past, whether that means the
experiences they had as children or the history of the family which is usually
traceable back to slavery and its aftermath.
Toni Morrison’s
novelistic world is characteristically very distinctive too. Everything bumps
along with gritty, often painful realism until she introduces a murdered child
come back from the dead in adult form (Beloved) or a navel-less woman (Song
of Solomon) and suddenly we’re in a quite different, quasi-fantastical sort
of novel.
Here in God
Help the Child the surreal element is a woman who reverts to her childhood
body overnight, losing her breasts, pubic hair and much of her size and body
weight – or, maybe, imagines she does.
Morrison deliberately makes the physical reality vague and leaves you
wondering. Light skinned Sweetness is horrified when Lula Ann, later to call
herself Bride, is born. The child is ebony black. It leads to the break up of
Sweetness’s marriage and life-long resentment for a child whose pigmentation is
clearly just a quirky genetic throwback.
Morrison uses it
to show just how much colour and its details matter to some black people.
Sweetness is proud that some of her relatives could have “passed” for white.
Prejudice and twisted values are not the exclusive province of white people.
Centuries of
oppression have conditioned them into some black people too. Sweetness’s nicely
observed, sometimes guilty, sometimes self-justificatory thoughts open the
novel and continue as a presence, both in Bride’s thinking and personality and
in the reader’s consciousness of what has formed the main character.
Having a mother
unable to give unconditional love to her own child – and being treated
throughout childhood with shame and contempt – leads Bride to some appalling,
approval-seeking behaviour of her own, although we don’t learn the precise
details until the end of the novel. At the outset, in adult life she co-manages
a small, successful cosmetics business with her close friend Brooklyn and
drives a Jaguar.
She also has –
or has had – a boyfriend, Booker, she’s fairly happy with. But something very
big from her past is nagging her. “Memory is the worst thing about healing”,
she comments.
Then she tries
to contact a frightened, angry, wary female prisoner, Sofia Huxley, who has
just completed a long sentence. Bride’s help is rejected. Morrison drip-feeds
information and ratchets up the tension as we gradually piece together why
Bride is seeking out Sofia and why both women feel as they do.
And as the novel
opens Booker – a very private person whose past Bride has respected – walks out
on her, declaring that she is not the woman he wants, a phrase which haunts her
thereafter. Rejection and its effects run through this novel like a dark
thread.
At the heart of
this moving novel is a traditional quest in which Bride, like Macon Dead in Song
of Solomon, goes on an ultimately and, literally, asset-stripping journey
to find her real self and some peace of mind. In Bride’s case it involves
amnesia and a beautifully depicted backwoods, retro-hippy (white) family who
take her in and help to build in her some faith in human nature.
Their curious,
thoughtful, wistful adopted daughter Rain, who now gets all the parental love
Bride’s own childhood lacked, is one of the most attractive things in the
novel. Fascinated by Bride’s apparent exotic glamour, she longs for someone to
talk to properly about her own troubled past.
Meanwhile
Morrison is building up the missing Booker’s character and background which is,
in a different way, as powerful and tragic as Bride’s. Like most of the rest of
Morrison’s cast of characters he is “knowing all about how childhood cuts
festered and never scabbed over”. The message is clearly that you can know no
one until you know about his or her childhood. But the veteran novelist is no
pessimist and there’s a note of hope at the end.
A complex novel
which packs a great deal into its 180 pages, God Help the Child is a
compelling example of what you can achieve with skilled and sophisticated use of
multiple narrators interspersed with third person sections. When she wants to
be, Morrison herself is the omniscient third-person narrator able to skate
effortlessly and invisibly among people, places and situations.
At other times
she gives Sweetness, Bride, Brooklyn, Sofia and others a very clear voice of
their own. In less experienced hands it might be clumsy. Here it comes off
beautifully, like a Picasso painting telling a story in a multi-dimensional
series of superimposed snapshots as each character becomes ever more rounded
and complete.
Untitled (Door on William), 1979, from the Vancouver Nights series.
IAM NOT white trash. I grew up white trash, though. When I was brought home from the hospital, I looked around the tiny lobby of our building and saw the dirty walls, the broken mailboxes, and the missing tiles on the floor. German shepherds wandered on the landings, and a beautiful girl wailed at a locked door to be taken back. I heard the radios blaring rock ballads from open apartment doors and the men standing in the doorways in their underwear, and I thought, great, I’ve been born into a poor family. But it didn’t seem so bad.
Growing up, all our furniture came from the garbage. We never threw anything out. How could you know what was garbage when our whole building looked like it was made from trash? The clock on the wall was a gangster that shot out machine gun noises on the hour. We had fake stained glass unicorns hanging from little suction cup hooks on the living-room window. We had stacks of old telephone books and a fish tank with no fish in it. It was typical white trash decor, shocking to no one. We weren’t exactly entertaining guests from other neighbourhoods.
By the time I was eleven, many of my friends were always being taken off to foster care when their moms had breakdowns or got arrested or had particularly shitty new boyfriends. Everybody had regular visits with social workers. In the summer, they gave us free passes to the amusement park. The Ferris wheel would turn around and around, filled with scared white trash children with their eyes closed—a little white trash solar system.
The white trash girls wore cut-off jean shorts and high heels over gym socks, and tied shoelaces around their wrists. The boys wore T-shirts with heavy metal bands, and jean jackets with silver-studded sleeves.
All of the kids had bangs down to their noses. We never saw each other’s eyes. This was good for looking tough, and for hiding when you were crying. All of the kids had potty mouths. The only word not spoken out loud was “welfare.” A person could get stuck on it for years. You could be three generations on welfare.
When I turned thirteen and started noticing boys, I decided that my type was Judd Nelson as the teenage delinquent in The Breakfast Club. There weren’t any jocks or nerds around. I had a boyfriend named Shaun who wore a porkpie hat he had stolen off a snowman. He wrote the worst poetry on earth. He was in grade seven math for three years straight. He tried to sell photocopies of his drawings of ninjas on the street corner. Afterward, I dated Derek, who had a pet pigeon named Homer. He lived with his dad and slept on the couch. His dad kicked both of them out one day. Derek was sent to live in a foster home. I don’t know what happened to the pigeon.
When I was fifteen, I had a crush on a boy named Lionel who had a long scar on his arm where his dad had stabbed him when he was nine. He was known for having the high score on the Donkey Kong machine at the back of the corner store. He held up a gas station one night with his older brother. He came over with a suitcase full of stolen cigarettes and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
I went on a date with a boy named Paul. His grandmother was raising him. She wore a winter coat all year long, even in the house. The peeling wallpaper of their apartment was covered in cherry trees. There were cockroaches in the teacups that you had to shake out into the sink.
We didn’t judge each other because we were poor. It would be like yelling at someone because it was raining. I just felt pretty and light headed when those boys were around. They thought I was a genius because I was the only kid from our circle who did really well at school.
When you’re a child, you become best friends with whoever lives across the street. But when I started high school, I was placed in all the advanced classes, and I joined extracurricular activities like the chess club. I started to make friends from different backgrounds. We had more in common, like books and alternative movies, and they opened up different worlds to me.
When I was fifteen, I was walking down the street with a boy I had recently made friends with and sort of liked. He was middle class and very nerdy. I had always wanted to be friends with a nerd. According to all the movies, they liked and accepted everyone. Out of nowhere, he said, “My mother says you’re not going to do anything with your life.”
“What, is the woman a fortune teller? How could she possibly know something like that?”
“She says you’re white trash, like the rest of your family.”
The boy said it as if it shouldn’t even bother me. He said it in the way that you tell a dog it can’t sit at the table because it is a dog. He said it as if everyone knew my place in the world, so I must know it, too. I just stood there on the sidewalk, not making eye contact. I suddenly realized that my new friends had been looking down on me.
I changed the way I dressed. I started making new friends who hadn’t known me when I was little. If they asked about my family, I would tell them things I had read in Edwardian novels about aristocrats. My father was a barrister. My mother played the clarinet for Prague’s People’s Community Orchestra. I would even lie about my dog. It was from Paris. Its mother was killed by a gendarme’s car.
I tried really, really hard. I went to university. I wanted to be a writer. I lost touch with everyone I knew from childhood. But I always felt as if I didn’t fit in and dreaded people finding out my history. Finally, I started dating someone with a different background. He hailed from the suburbs, from a two-storey house with wall-to-wall carpeting, prints of Renoir on the wall, and a plastic cover on the sofa. I thought dating him would mean that I was from another class, too.
We stayed together for years, but he had a nasty streak. He had a way of saying the meanest things possible out of the blue when we were alone. One day, I was flipping through a magazine, and I saw a photograph of children in a field filled with daisies. I asked him whether he saw us having a baby one day. He went quiet for a moment, and then he started looking angry. He said he couldn’t see himself having a child with someone from a white trash background.
I was startled. It didn’t matter to him that I was educated and had a respectable career. He seemed to believe white trash was in my blood. It was something I would pass on to my children. And who wants a baby with a mullet in a little acid-washed jumper?
By then, I had started writing the truth about my background. I wrote about how the basement walls of my building were covered in licence plates and hubcaps. I thought it was beautiful, like Aladdin’s cave. I wrote about eating pork chops while sitting on the sidewalk and watching a television plugged into an extension cord that ran through a window. I wrote how we collected bottles in a suitcase after festivals in the park. As I started telling the truth, beautiful things began to emerge. And I began to be proud of my heritage.
So my reaction was different this time. His insult changed how I regarded him. While he had once seemed educated and clever, he now looked unattractive, ignorant, and small minded. For all his supposed refinements, he didn’t understand that being white trash wasn’t a genetic disorder. It was a culture, just like his.
O CANADA- Child
Sexual Abuse – It is your business-ONE BILLION RISING- NO MORE EXCUSES-HELP
LINES 4 KIDS- F**KING PAEDOPHILES- CHILD ABUSERS- PREDATORS OF WOMEN- WE MUST
DO BETTER CANADA -IDLE NO MORE CANADA -IDLE NO MORE - How 2 Catch a PAEDOPHILE-
Dr. Phil /Love u ANONYMOUS- a huntin we will go
GOD'S FIRST PEOPLES OF THIS WORLD- THEY MATTER... and isn't it time that USA, Americas, Aussies, New Zealand as well as our Canada... and the Lands of the Israelites.... isn't it time.... the world's humanity... started giving back 2 the First Peoples.... so many - democratic countries bemoan Russia, China etc.... who have cultures as old as the world's First Peoples and so-called human rights... whilst our own 'civilized' nations have millions of starving children, youth, disabled and homeless and broken.... how about making humanity matter more than your wars... and when a country is brave and good enough to host global youth - the best in the world... IN 2015- HOW ABOUT WE SAY THANK U... instead of this same sheeeeet.... love u Michael de Adder... but this sucks..... China does more for their people than ever b4 in human history.... and frankly... Europe...especially Germany.... and Canada... and USA (how about signing the UN Universal Human Rights Proclamation eh?).... come on ...
SERIOUSLY.... Canada has children starving and homeless... and u give us this??? come on...
talking about
persecution - try God's First Peoples.... the Israelites- or the Planet's First Peoples- in Canada- First Nations, Metis, Inuit or
Non-Status Indian... then come talk to us... especially in a world where women
don't even equal men on this day. Basically we all have family, friends and
those we love and admire who happen 2 be gay.... it's time now 2 focus on
people with disabilities, the poorest of the poor and homeless, aged, weak and
children don't u think... imho.
GOD BLESS
ISRAEL.... JESUS CHRIST THE GALALEAN WAS BORN A JEW- and as Christians we love
our Israel- a tiny country of 8 million people - only country of the Jews on
the planet surrounded by 1.5 billion Muslims...
THIS IS CRUCIAL
BECAUSE OVER 6 MILLION JEWS BUTCHERED- CATHOLICS, GAYS, GYPSIES AND PEOPLE OF
COLOUR...... IT MATTERS.... United Nations was built on the ashes of the
disgrace that became League of Nations-
United Nations WAS BORN ON THE ASHES OF THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST...
PROMISING HUMANITY FIRST..... and on this day women are NOT equal 2 men...
children have no power and gays are considered stains on the world outside of
legitimate countries who have made legal rights matter- and women equal 2
men...
meanwhile....
ABOUT BASHING OUR HOLY LAND... ISRAEL AND OUR JEWS.... HERE IS HOW IT
STARTED.... and we cannot get the documents made transparent to the public and/
or who the authors are.... of this organization called ICRC or one darn piece
of evidence of what this truly is . This is the RED CROSS for goodness sake...
and we should look closer at this organization...... really! I mean... The Red
Cross.... like how ugly is this!
THE ICRC
(SWISS... INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS).... AND THEIR WAR AGAINST
ISRAEL...
For nearly four
decades many in the international community have insisted that Jews are forbidden
to live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha), 'eastern Jerusalem,' and the Golan
- areas conquered by Israel in 1967. Leading this fight was and is a private
Swiss organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC was the
first international organization to charge that "the presence of Israeli
settlements in the occupied territories is contrary to the Geneva
Convention," and therefore "unlawful."
"Any measure
designed to expand or consolidate settlements is also illegal. Confiscation of
land to build or expand settlements is similarly prohibited." (ICRC, 2009)
And the world
listens, because the ICRC isn't just another NGO; it is the official recognized
authority on the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV). Its decisions, therefore,
were and are crucial in determining international law and vilifying Israel.
Every judicial condemnation of Israel cites the GC and follows ICRC's
interpretation.
This explains why
the international community and courts have accepted ICRC's decisions that
"Israeli (Jewish) settlements violate international law" without
question.
Based on The
Hague Convention, GC IV was drawn up after WWII to protect innocent civilians
and restrict brutal occupations. Unilaterally, the ICRC turned it into a weapon
to delegitimize and demonize Israel. Meeting secretly in the early 1970's in
Geneva, the ICRC determined that Israel was in violation of the GC IV. That's
been "the law" ever since.
And there's no
appeal, because all decisions and protocols of the ICRC are closed, even the
identities of the people involved are secret. Without transparency or due
process, ICRC rulings became "international law." Their condemnations
of Israel provide the sole basis for accusing Israel of "illegal
occupation" of all territory conquered in 1967.
It's a legal
fraud.
Article 49 of GC
IV says: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its
own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
According to the
ICRC, this forbids Jews from living in Judea, Samaria, Golan and eastern
Jerusalem - areas conquered by Israel in 1967 - even though they moved there
voluntarily, and prohibits any form of government assistance to them, including
roads, utilities, schools and clinics.
The ICRC's
position contradicts all written agreements which confirm the right of Jews to
live in their ancestral homeland - League of Nations and British Mandate -
including the Oslo Accords.
Article 49
obviously refers to the territory of another country, or sovereign power;
Judea, Samaria and Gaza don't fit this definition. These areas were illegally
occupied by Jordan and Egypt between 1948 and 1967; the ICRC, of course,
differs, but has never satisfactorily answered the question to which State this
territory belongs.
Holding these
territories in limbo for a future Palestinian state, which may never come to
fruition, whose borders are undefined and whose intentions are openly hostile
is absurd. Such ICRC antagonism to Israel, however, is pervasive.
During WW II the
ICRC visited concentration camps and gave the Nazis a pass. After the war, they
provided false passports to escaping Nazi war criminals.
Their website
demonstrates their humanitarian efforts around the world, but when it comes to
the Middle East, their story is one-sided. During two decades of constant
terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, the ICRC said nothing. They have
written several stories about the suffering of "Palestinians" in Gaza
and Lebanon as a result of Israeli actions, without mentioning terrorist
attacks that prompted a response.
The ICRC
condemned IDF actions to stop terrorism in Jenin, Lebanon and Gaza as
"massacres." They have consistently condemned Israel for 'violations
of Palestinian civil and human rights,' and accused Israel of "war
crimes." Sometimes, when these lies were exposed, the ICRC has recanted -
but not often and never with full disclosure.
Because the ICRC
lacks transparency, there's no way to find out how and why they made their
decisions, or who made them. If they have nothing to hide, why the secrecy?
The Red Cross
should stick to helping people in need, not waste resources in bashing Israel.
By the by...
hasn't Switzerland been taken to task for their actions against the Jews... the
war where over 6 MILLION JEWS WERE MURDERED... along with Catholics, Gypsies
and persons because of race, colour, creed and sexual orientation.... that war?
No more hiding.... let's " get r done!"
CANADA MILITARY
NEWS: it's 2015 who is USA or United Nations 2 judge behaviour and norms when
they place war and greed over humanity and education for all- and every damm
country abuses their citizens...WTF- Do u know USA has NOT signed UNIVERSAL
DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS?- we everyday people of western nations have
donated over $2 TRILLION in last 50 years 2 Africas, India, Asias/ 50 years
whilst our First Peoples of the North suffer in our Canada??? let's change
Canada and look after our own and make education free for each and all /IDLE NO
MORE- all those missing murdered girls, boys, women- and the sex trafficking...
and Amnesty International doesn't have a problem with that??? WTF???? how
horrific they are treated -26 million a year girls and boys kidnapped for sex
trafficking??? WTF???- hey civilized nations- let's fix our own human
violations b4 attacking russia-china ...whatever eh? come on...imho
MONTREAL — While
Barack Obama plunges his country into a controversial debate about gays in the
U.S. military, he could perhaps find comfort in the Canadian experience which
celebrates an anniversary milestone next week.
The U.S.
president has promised to repeal America’s policy of, ’Don’t ask, don’t tell,’
reviving a heated debate in his country that has not made a ripple in Canada
since Oct. 27, 1992.
On that day
Canada’s Federal Court ruled that barring homosexuals from military service
violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a landmark verdict that prompted
more openly gay men and women to join the ranks of the army, air force and
navy.
In the last 17
years, many have risen to the top in their respective fields — an otherwise
impossible feat under rules that once barred the promotion of enlisted
individuals who’d been outed.
Luc Cassivi is
one of them.
He certainly
didn’t talk about his sexual orientation when he joined the Canadian Navy in
1983. He’s now the highest-ranking sailor aboard HMCS Ville de Quebec, a
commander in the navy, and he’s no longer shy about who he is.
"I’ve been
openly gay for a number of years. My friends and my co-workers know it and it
surely has not been an impediment for me progressing," Cassivi said in an
interview aboard his Halifax-based frigate.
"I’m not
saying that things have always been rosy. There were periods when things were
difficult for a lot of people. . . . But I think we’re well past that at this
point."
According to the
Palm Centre, a California-based think-tank focused on research related to
gender, sexuality and the military, Canada is a leader among the 25 countries
that now permit military service by openly gay people. Canadian Forces
chaplains have been blessing same-sex weddings on military bases since 2005.
Cassivi spent 15
years in tight quarters as a submariner. He said he’s experienced his share of
awkward moments and uncomfortable jokes. There were even times he considered
leaving the military.
But once the
rules changed, he says, so did the culture. Opportunities began to surface.
These days, Cassivi says, success is dictated by performance.
"It’s not
colour, cultural background, gender or the like. It’s (whether) you are
competent at what you do," he said. "If you’re competent at what you
do, then the team will take you in and fully integrate you."
Cassivi said
coming out with his colleagues merely simplified his life. He doesn’t see
himself as a champion for gay rights and says this is the first time he’s ever
spoken in the media about his sexuality. What he’s most concerned about, he
says, is getting the best out of his crew.
"I try to do
the best job I can and if somebody sees me as a role model, good for them. If
what I do inspires them to carry on and achieve their full potential, that’s
great, but that’s for them to judge, not me."
Michelle Douglas
is heartened to learn just how much things have changed for her fellow
homosexuals.
The 45-year-old
public servant was inadvertently thrust into the spotlight when she was
discharged from the military police in 1989 because she was — in their words —
"not advantageously employable due to homosexuality."
She had no idea
at the time the historic impact her legal challenge would have, but as the
anniversary of that fateful victory approaches, Douglas said she’s thrilled to
have played a "small part" in the rights movement.
"It was a
real turning point for equality rights for gay and lesbian people in
Canada," she said.
"To have
such an institution as the military now be open to gay and lesbian service
members was an important victory."
While she didn’t
return to the Canadian Forces, she was pleased to see service members marching
for the first time at Toronto’s pride festival in 2008.
Megan MacLean, a
spokeswoman for Canada’s Department of National Defence, said the military
keeps no statistics regarding homosexual members but says gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgendered people serve in all three branches of the military.
Since the rules
changed in 1992, she said, incidents of discrimination and harassment have been
"extremely rare."
She touted Canada
as a global leader when it comes to inclusiveness. She noted, however, that the
Obama administration had not sought any Canadian advice on how to tackle the
thorny subject.
CANADA MILITARY
NEWS: GAY BROTHERS AND SISTERS- to all politicians who think they own 'gay'- in
the real world among real everyday people- u don't.... and u and media need 2
work on ur own prejudging.....CANADIANS LOVE OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS COMMUNITY
AND COUNTRY- 1969 law about gay rights came in2 effect in Canada- God bless our
Canada our Israel and welcome 2 Iranian Refugee Gay couple 2 Nova Scotia/
DISABLED GAY BROTHERS AND SISTES HAVE FANTASTIC SEX LIVES and always have- just
so ya know...July 11 2015
CANADA MILITARY
NEWS: UPDATED AUG 23- luv u gay bros and sistas-but DO NOT HIJACK winter
olympics/paralympics- we'll NEV'A 4give ya/Nova Scotia News/AGAHANISTAN UP2DATE
NEWS/BULLYCIDE N BULLYS GET LAW NOVA SCOTIA STYLE
The largest rodent in North America -
it can reach over one metre in length.
Average weight:
Can weigh up to 32 kilograms
Did you know?
The beaver is Canada’s national symbol, representing our country for over 300 years.
Physiology
Beavers are known for their buck teeth and large, flat tail. These well-known features are what help the beaver live life from day to day.
This animal, from the rodent family, has a thick brown fur coat and a soft grey undercoat that protects it from all climates.
The beaver's tail is large and shaped like a paddle. It functions like a boat rudder, helping steer the beaver as it moves logs to its dam. The black scaly tail is also used for balance on land when carrying heavy tree branches.
Beavers are excellent swimmers and are built for underwater work. They have valves in their ears and nose that close when they swim underwater. They also have a clear layer that covers their eyes when swimming, in order to protect them from anything floating in the water.
Their front teeth stick out in front of their lips, so that they may cut and chew wood that is submerged underwater without getting water in their mouth. A beaver's teeth never stop growing and chewing on tree trunks and branches helps to keep the teeth from getting too long. They are strengthened with iron compounds.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BEAVER (as a symbol of Canada)
The quest for religious and political freedom is often cited as the reasons Europeans colonized North America, but natural resources were another major draw. These included whales, vast schools of cod, and towering lodgepole pines used for ship's masts. But the resource that lured explorers across the continent was ACTUALLY the beaver.
After the early European explorers realized that Canada was not the spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was the beaver, then a population numbering in the millions. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the fashion of the day demanded fur top-hats, which needed beaver pelts. As these hats became more popular, the demand for the pelts grew. Explorers were dispatched deep into the North American wilderness to trap and trade for furs with local natives.
King Henry IV of France saw the fur trade as an opportunity to acquire much-needed revenue and to establish his North American empire. Both English and French fur traders were soon selling beaver pelts in Europe at 20 times their original purchase price.
The first North American coat of arms to depict a beaver was created by Sir William Alexander, who was granted title in 1621 to the area now known as Nova Scotia .
The trade in beaver pelts proved so lucrative that the Hudson's Bay Company honoured the buck-toothed little animal by putting it on the shield of its coat of arms in 1678. The Hudson's Bay Company shield consists of two moose and four beavers separated by a red St. George's Cross, and reflects the importance of this industrious rodent to the company. A coin was created at that time to equal the value of one beaver pelt.
There is a magazine called "The Beaver", first published in 1920 by Hudson Bay Company, that is still being published today.
Hudson’s Bay Company was no ordinary business. Wielding extraordinary power, it was a business that acted like a nation. It played a major role in the exploration of Canada, even helping determine its borders. A potent rival to Hudson’s Bay Company, the French also honored the beaver in 1678. In that year, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, then Governor of New France, suggested the beaver as a suitable emblem for the Colony, and proposed it be included in the armorial bearings of Quebec City. In 1690, the "Kebeca Liberata Medal" was struck to commemorate France’s successful defense of Quebec. The reverse depicts a seated woman, representing France, with a beaver at her feet, representing Canada.
The beaver was included in the armorial bearings of the City of Montréal when it was incorporated as a city in 1833. Sir Sandford Fleming assured the beaver a position as a true National Symbol when he featured it on the first Canadian postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of 1851. The beaver appeared with the other popular Canadian symbol, the maple leaf, on the masthead of Le Canadién, a newspaper published in Lower Canada. It was one of the emblems of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste for a time, and it’s still found on the crest of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR).
Despite all this recognition, the beaver was close to extinction by the mid-19th century. There were an estimated six million beavers in Canada before the start of the fur trade. During its peak, 100,000 pelts were being shipped to Europe each year, and the Canadian beaver was in danger of being wiped out. Luckily, about the mid-19th century, Europeans took a liking to silk top-hats, and the demand for beaver pelts all but disappeared. Beaver populations began to recover as Great Britain’s northern North American territories evolved towards nationhood.
On March 24, 1975, the beaver received the highest honour ever bestowed on a rodent. On that day it became an official emblem of Canada when an "act to provide for the recognition of the beaver (castor canadensis) as a symbol of the sovereignty of Canada" received Royal assent. Today, thanks to conservation and silk hats, the beaver - the largest rodent in Canada - is alive and well all over this great country.
The beaver design has appeared seven times on a Canadian stamp issue. It first appeared on the 1851 3 pence, followed by the 1852 3 pence stamp on wove paper, the 1858 3 pence issue, the 1859 five cent, the 1951 15 cent, the 1982 stamp-on-stamp for the Canada '82 Philatelic Exhibition, and a 25 cent stamp in 1988. As 2001 is the 150th anniversary of the first Canadian postage stamp, Canada Post has issued another beaver stamp to honour the occasion. The Royal Canadian Mint also issued a special commerative 3 cent coin in 2001 (shown below larger than actual size). It is not in general circulation and only available to collectors by special order.
MORE BEAVER TRIVIA The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal saw Amik the beaver as their mascot. The name Amik means beaver in the Algonquin language, the most widespread language among Canada's Native Americans. An 18th Century silver Canadian trading token was in the shape of a beaver. It was valued at 10 beaver pelts. Today, you can see the Canadian beaver on the back of the Canadian 5 cent coin, and on coats of arms representing a few of Canada’s provinces. On provincial coats of arms, the beaver generally represents Canada, or national unity. Some provincial coats of arms also depict a lion as a symbol of Great Britain. One group of Canadians have celebrated National Beaver Day on the last Friday in February since 1974. They are the Nova Scotia Association of Architects, a club of modern builders any beaver could appreciate. The de Havilland Beaver is a single engine high-wing five seat bush airplane. Depending on the season, it may be operated on floats, wheels, or wheel-skiis and is a favorite among fishermen, hunters and canoeists for safe, economic travel throughout the north. Jerry Mathers played the Beaver in the classic TV sitcom "Leave it to Beaver." This role was reprised by Cameron Finley in the 1997 Universal Pictures film "Leave it to Beaver." Scouts Canada (Boy Scouts) includes the Beaver Program in their organization. It consists of a group of Beavers 5 to 7 years of age. Beavers meet in a group called a colony. The colony is split into smaller groups called lodges. There is one leader for every five Beavers. Each Beaver learns a promise, law and motto to help guide their personal development. The Beaver Fire Insurance Company was incorporated in 1913 and operated in Canada for many years. It was eventually absorbed into a large insurance group, surrendered its Charter and went out of business. A small, tasty, sugar-coated pastry is called a Beaver Tail (sometimes spelled Beavertail, in one word). It can be found mostly in the Ottawa area. The Beaver is the state animal of the State of Oregon. There was an old Canadian tool manufacturing company named BEAVER. LINKS
The Canadian Wildlife Service has an excellent page all about the beaver. To view this page (and stay on the KCIC site) HERE.
Here is a link to another very informative site all about Beavers - (you will leave KCIC to visit this page) BEAVER FACTS AND PICTURES SOME FACTS ABOUT THE BEAVER DESCRIPTION The North American beaver (Castor canadensis), is a large, web-footed, semi-aquatic rodent with brown fur and a wide, flat, dark tail. The tail acts as a rudder while swimming, as a prop for standing upright, as a lever when dragging tree logs, and as a noise maker for producing a warning signal when it is slapped on the water. The fingers have long claws, and the legs have small webbed feet and claws. The beaver has a large, wide, head. It has sharp, renewable, self-sharpening, enameled teeth that can cut through wood and fell a tree.
The adult beaver weighs about 20 kg (44 pounds), but can be as large as 35 kg (77 pounds). It is about 30 cm (12 in) tall, and its tail is about 25 cm (about 10 in) long. The beaver is the largest rodent in North America. Its life span in the wild is about 20 years.
HABITAT
Beavers live by rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes. They are one of the few animals that alter their environment in a large-scale way in order to provide themselves living space and protection. Beavers build dams that change the course of streams and create ponds. They build dams and lodges using sticks, bark (from deciduous trees), mud, and logs (that they fell themselves). The presence of pointed tree stumps is a good indication that there are beavers living nearby.
To create a habitat, beavers build a dam in a stream, flooding an area of the woods and creating a pond in which the beaver can build a lodge. This beaver lodge or den is located away from shore and has an underwater entrance. This makes it difficult for most predators to enter the lodge. In winter, the water around the lodge usually freezes, protecting the beaver almost completely. Some beavers live by rivers and do not need to build dams. Instead, they live in burrows that they build on the river bank.
Each beaver pond is inhabited by one beaver family: two adults and usually 2-4 kits (very young beavers) and the yearlings from the previous year's litter. When the food supply around the beaver's home is exhausted, they move to another site and start again.
REPRODUCTION
Beaver mating occurs in January or February. The kits are born in early spring, from April through June. When young beavers reach their second summer, they take on adult duties, building and maintaining the lodge and the dams. They reach adulthood during their second winter and move away to find a mate and build a lodge of their own.
FOOD
The beaver eats aquatic plants (including pond weeds, water-lilies, and cattails) and the cambium (the soft tissue in which new wood and bark grow) of hardwood trees, including birch, aspen, willow, cottonwood, and alder.
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Federal Election- WATCH CANADA SURPRISE THE WORLD -
Brison, Morse will go head to head in repeat performance in Kings-Hants AND TWO
FANTASTIC NEW STARS- GREEN PARTY AND NDP - oh yes Canada's getting interesting
- LET'S GET MORE CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES (visible and invisible) IN OFFICE-
there are over 18 Million of us.... come on!!!/my family used 2 say the
homeless was Jesus in disguise -God bless our troops and our Canada /A CANADIAN
VET HERO'S ELECTION RANT...LOL ... God bless Nova Scotia and our Canada...
/some old new and hilarious takes - Canada walks Canada's path folks- always
has always will/ #1BRising Canadian hero Flora MacDonald remembered and
honoured /IDLE NO MORE
u know ,... as i look at my walker..... can't help but dream and picture me racing right along with them....... faster and faster..... feeling the air and the sky and the glory.... helll yeah...
------------
t's Canadian Info Collection
PRESENTS
The Canadian Beaver
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BEAVER
(as a symbol of Canada)
The quest for religious and political freedom is often cited as the
reasons Europeans colonized North America, but natural resources were
another major draw. These included whales, vast schools of cod, and
towering lodgepole pines used for ship's masts. But the resource that
lured explorers across the continent was ACTUALLY the beaver.
After the early European explorers realized that Canada was not the
spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was the beaver, then a
population numbering in the millions. In the late 1600s and early
1700s, the fashion of the day demanded fur top-hats, which needed beaver
pelts. As these hats became more popular, the demand for the pelts
grew. Explorers were dispatched deep into the North American wilderness
to trap and trade for furs with local natives.
King Henry IV of France saw the fur trade as an opportunity to acquire
much-needed revenue and to establish his North American empire. Both
English and French fur traders were soon selling beaver pelts in Europe
at 20 times their original purchase price.
The first North American coat of arms to depict a beaver was created by
Sir William Alexander, who was granted title in 1621 to the area now
known as Nova Scotia .
The
trade in beaver pelts proved so lucrative that the Hudson's Bay Company
honoured the buck-toothed little animal by putting it on the shield of
its coat of arms in 1678. The Hudson's Bay Company shield consists of
two moose and four beavers separated by a red St. George's Cross, and
reflects the importance of this industrious rodent to the company. A
coin was created at that time to equal the value of one beaver pelt. There is a magazine called "The Beaver", first published in 1920 by Hudson Bay Company, that is still being published today.
Hudson’s Bay Company was no ordinary business. Wielding extraordinary
power, it was a business that acted like a nation. It played a major
role in the exploration of Canada, even helping determine its borders. A
potent rival to Hudson’s Bay Company, the French also honored the
beaver in 1678. In that year, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, then Governor
of New France, suggested the
beaver as a suitable emblem for the Colony, and proposed it be included
in the armorial bearings of Quebec City. In 1690, the "Kebeca Liberata
Medal" was struck to commemorate France’s successful defense of Quebec.
The reverse depicts a seated woman, representing France, with a beaver
at her feet, representing
Canada.
The
beaver was included in the armorial bearings of the City of Montréal
when it was incorporated as a city in 1833. Sir Sandford Fleming assured
the beaver a position as a true National Symbol when he featured it on
the first Canadian postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of 1851. The
beaver appeared with the other popular Canadian symbol, the maple leaf,
on the masthead of Le Canadién, a newspaper published in Lower Canada.
It was one of the emblems of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste for a time,
and it’s still found on the crest of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Company (CPR).
Despite all this recognition, the beaver was close to extinction by the
mid-19th century. There were an estimated six million beavers in Canada
before the start of the fur trade. During its peak, 100,000 pelts were
being shipped to Europe each year, and the Canadian beaver was in danger
of being wiped out. Luckily, about the mid-19th century, Europeans took
a liking to silk top-hats, and the demand for beaver pelts all but
disappeared. Beaver populations began to recover as Great Britain’s
northern North American territories evolved towards nationhood.
On March 24, 1975, the beaver received the highest honour ever bestowed
on a rodent. On that day it became an official emblem of Canada when an
"act to provide for the recognition of the beaver (castor canadensis) as
a symbol of the sovereignty of Canada" received Royal assent. Today,
thanks to conservation and silk hats, the beaver - the largest rodent in
Canada - is alive and well all over this great country.
The beaver design has appeared seven times on a Canadian stamp issue. It
first appeared on the 1851 3 pence, followed by the 1852 3 pence stamp
on wove paper, the 1858 3 pence issue, the 1859 five cent, the 1951 15
cent, the 1982 stamp-on-stamp for the Canada '82 Philatelic Exhibition,
and a 25 cent stamp in 1988. As 2001 is the 150th anniversary of the
first Canadian postage stamp, Canada Post has issued another beaver
stamp to honour the occasion. The Royal Canadian Mint also issued a
special commerative 3 cent coin in 2001 (shown below larger than actual
size). It is not in general circulation and only available to collectors
by special order.
MORE BEAVER TRIVIA The 1976 Summer
Olympics in Montreal saw Amik the beaver as their mascot. The name Amik
means beaver in the Algonquin language, the most widespread language
among Canada's Native Americans. An 18th Century silver Canadian trading token was in the shape of a beaver. It was valued at 10 beaver pelts. Today,
you can see the Canadian beaver on the back of the Canadian 5 cent
coin, and on coats of arms representing a few of Canada’s provinces. On
provincial coats of arms, the beaver generally represents Canada, or
national unity. Some provincial coats of arms also depict a lion as a
symbol of Great Britain. One group of
Canadians have celebrated National Beaver Day on the last Friday in
February since 1974. They are the Nova Scotia Association of Architects,
a club of modern builders any beaver could appreciate. The de
Havilland Beaver is a single engine high-wing five seat bush airplane.
Depending on the season, it may be operated on floats, wheels, or
wheel-skiis and is a favorite among fishermen, hunters and canoeists for
safe, economic travel throughout the north. Jerry Mathers played the Beaver in the classic TV sitcom "Leave it to Beaver."
This role was reprised by Cameron Finley in the 1997 Universal Pictures film "Leave it to Beaver." Scouts Canada
(Boy Scouts) includes the Beaver Program in their organization. It
consists of a group of Beavers 5 to 7 years of age. Beavers meet in a
group called a colony. The colony is split into smaller groups called
lodges. There is one leader for every five Beavers. Each Beaver learns a
promise, law and motto to help guide their personal development. The Beaver
Fire Insurance Company was incorporated in 1913 and operated in Canada
for many years. It was eventually absorbed into a large insurance group,
surrendered its Charter and went out of business. A small,
tasty, sugar-coated pastry is called a Beaver Tail (sometimes spelled
Beavertail, in one word). It can be found mostly in the Ottawa area. The Beaver is the state animal of the State of Oregon. There was an old Canadian tool manufacturing company named BEAVER. LINKS The Canadian Wildlife Service has an excellent page all about the beaver. To view this page (and stay on the KCIC site) HERE.
Here is a link to another very informative site all about Beavers - (you will leave KCIC to visit this page) BEAVER FACTS AND PICTURES SOME FACTS ABOUT THE BEAVER DESCRIPTION
The North American beaver (Castor canadensis), is a large, web-footed,
semi-aquatic rodent with brown fur and a wide, flat, dark tail. The tail
acts as a rudder while swimming, as a prop for
standing upright, as a lever when dragging tree logs, and as a noise
maker for producing a warning signal when it is slapped on the water.
The fingers have long claws, and the legs have small webbed feet and
claws. The beaver has a large, wide, head. It has sharp, renewable,
self-sharpening, enameled teeth that can cut through wood and fell a
tree.
The adult beaver weighs about 20 kg (44 pounds), but can be as
large as 35 kg (77 pounds). It is about 30 cm (12 in) tall, and its
tail is about 25 cm (about 10 in) long. The beaver is the largest
rodent in North America. Its life span in the wild is about 20
years.
HABITAT
Beavers live by rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes. They are one of
the few animals that alter their environment in a large-scale way
in order to provide themselves living space and protection. Beavers
build dams that change the course of streams and create ponds. They
build dams and lodges using sticks, bark (from deciduous trees),
mud, and logs (that they fell themselves). The presence of pointed tree
stumps is a good indication that there are beavers living nearby.
To create a habitat, beavers build a dam in a stream, flooding an
area of the woods and creating a pond in which the beaver can build
a lodge. This beaver lodge or den is located away from shore and
has an underwater entrance. This makes it difficult for most
predators to enter the lodge. In winter, the water around the lodge
usually freezes, protecting the beaver almost completely. Some beavers
live by rivers and do not need to build dams. Instead, they live in
burrows that they build on the river bank.
Each beaver pond is inhabited by one beaver family: two adults and
usually 2-4 kits (very young beavers) and the yearlings from the
previous year's litter. When the food supply around the beaver's
home is exhausted, they move to another site and start again.
REPRODUCTION
Beaver mating occurs in January or February. The kits are born in
early spring, from April through June. When young beavers reach
their second summer, they take on adult duties, building and
maintaining the lodge and the dams. They reach adulthood during
their second winter and move away to find a mate and build a lodge
of their own.
FOOD
The beaver eats aquatic plants (including pond weeds, water-lilies,
and cattails) and the cambium (the soft tissue in which new wood
and bark grow) of hardwood trees, including birch, aspen, willow,
cottonwood, and alder.
PREDATORS
Some of the animals that prey upon beavers include foxes, coyotes,
wolves, lynx, otters, weasels, hawks, eagles and owls.
Beavers are known for their buck teeth and large, flat tail. These well-known features are what help the beaver live life from day to day.
The trade in beaver pelts proved so lucrative that the Hudson's Bay Company honoured the buck-toothed little animal by putting it on the shield of its coat of arms in 1678. The Hudson's Bay Company shield consists of two moose and four beavers separated by a red St. George's Cross, and reflects the importance of this industrious rodent to the company. A coin was created at that time to equal the value of one beaver pelt.
The beaver was included in the armorial bearings of the City of Montréal when it was incorporated as a city in 1833. Sir Sandford Fleming assured the beaver a position as a true National Symbol when he featured it on the first Canadian postage stamp - the "Three Penny Beaver" of 1851.
The beaver appeared with the other popular Canadian symbol, the maple leaf, on the masthead of Le Canadién, a newspaper published in Lower Canada. It was one of the emblems of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste for a time, and it’s still found on the crest of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR).
The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal saw Amik the beaver as their mascot. The name Amik means beaver in the Algonquin language, the most widespread language among Canada's Native Americans.
An 18th Century silver Canadian trading token was in the shape of a beaver. It was valued at 10 beaver pelts.
Today, you can see the Canadian beaver on the back of the Canadian 5 cent coin, and on coats of arms representing a few of Canada’s provinces. On provincial coats of arms, the beaver generally represents Canada, or national unity. Some provincial coats of arms also depict a lion as a symbol of Great Britain. 
HERE.
The North American beaver (Castor canadensis), is a large, web-footed, semi-aquatic rodent with brown fur and a wide, flat, dark tail. The tail acts as a rudder while swimming, as a prop for standing upright, as a lever when dragging tree logs, and as a noise maker for producing a warning signal when it is slapped on the water. The fingers have long claws, and the legs have small webbed feet and claws. The beaver has a large, wide, head. It has sharp, renewable, self-sharpening, enameled teeth that can cut through wood and fell a tree. 
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