Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Canada Read online

  •“Were the Vancouver Olympics cursed?” asked one Web site, before the games had even finished. Lots of things went wrong: A warm winter; light on snow; a tragic death on the luge course; a skater whose mother died on the eve of her performance; an unsuccessful lawsuit about the Olympic committee’s decision to exclude women from ski jumping; anti-Olympics protests; a barricade collapse that injured 19 people; a spigot opening during a luge competition and threatening to turn the ice slide into a waterslide; and a technical glitch during the opening ceremonies that left four Canadian athletes waiting for several minutes for cauldron legs to emerge from below the floor, followed by one of the athletes getting short shrift when only three of the four legs came up.

  •The closing ceremonies recovered, though, featuring the same defective leg, but this time with a mime “fixing” it with oversized tools. That allowed speed skater Catriona Le May Doan, the slighted athlete from the opening, to finally light the torch.

  •Canada turned its gold medal drought into a deluge in Vancouver, winning 14 and setting a record for the most ever won by a single country at any Winter Olympics.

  Million Dollar Names, Part I

  We’ve all spent our money with eponymous companies—like Kraft Foods or Tim Hortons. But how much do you know about the Canadians who gave us those brands?

  An Elizabeth Arden magazine advertisement from 1948

  Elizabeth Arden

  While working in a New York beauty salon in 1908, Florence Nightingale Graham (1881–1966) became known as “the little Canadian woman with the magic hands.” An ambitious nursing school dropout from Woodbridge, Ontario, she borrowed “Elizabeth” from a former business partner and “Arden” from the Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden,” and began formulating her own cosmetics as Elizabeth Arden. Her company was reporting annual sales of $60 million when she died in 1966 and remains a major cosmetics firm today.

  Tomáš Bat’a (left), and son Thomas Bata Jr.

  Bata Shoes

  When Thomas Bata Jr. (1914–2008) moved his late father’s shoe company to Ontario in 1939, he had to smuggle the equipment out of Czechoslovakia as the Nazis were moving in. Using modern assembly-line technology and aggressive marketing, Bata created a shoe empire that now includes 33 factories, 5,000 shoe stores, and the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

  The town of Batawa, Ontario, was once a company-owned commune for workers and the site of the original Bata shoe factory. Eventually, it became too expensive to make shoes in Canada, and Bata moved overseas. The town of Batawa was absorbed into Quinte West, but the old factory building still stands.

  A vintage Cunard poster entices travelers.

  Cunard Line

  Halifax-born Samuel Cunard (1787–1865) had a dream: that the schedules of ships crossing the Atlantic would be as predictable as those of freight trains. That may not sound so amazing now, but it just didn’t happen in those days of wind-powered schooners. The idea was greeted with ridicule. That is, until 1833, when the Cunard-sponsored Royal William crossed the Atlantic; it was the first ship to sail from England to Canada entirely under steam power. Seven years later, Cunard’s company began offering regular steamship service from Liverpool to Halifax, to Quebec City, and to Boston. The Cunard line had an unparalleled safety record for its first 65 years, with not a life lost…until in 1915, when disaster struck and a German submarine sank the Lusitania, killing 1,200 people and becoming a major factor in the United States’ decision to enter World War I.

  Eddie Albert kisses Lucille Ball in a publicity photo for The Fuller Brush Girl (1950).

  Fuller Brush

  “Fuller” wasn’t a description of the bristles, but the last name of the company’s founder, Alfred Carl Fuller (1885–1973). A self- described country bumpkin, Fuller grew up on a farm in Welsford, Nova Scotia. His career started disastrously: as a trolley conductor, he was fired for derailing the car, and his own brother fired him from his job as an express wagon driver because he delivered packages to the wrong people. Fuller didn’t do as badly selling brushes door-to-door, though, so he borrowed $75 and started his own brush company. He sold everything from scrubbing brushes to hairbrushes. Eventually, he hired a fleet of traveling salesmen who became so famous they inspired two movies: The Fuller Brush Man, with comedian Red Skelton, and The Fuller Brush Girl, with Lucille Ball.

  Eaton’s spring and summer catalog, 1904

  Eaton’s

  At one time, Eaton’s department stores were in every major Canadian city. The company also reached into rural homes with its “Family Bible” catalogs. But whatever became of the beloved retail institution that began in 1869 when Timothy Eaton opened a Toronto dry-goods store at 178 Yonge Street?

  The first store was on the small side, but it had very large intentions. Measuring just 7.3 x 18.3 meters (about 24 x 60 feet), the store advertised “sound goods, good styles, and good value.” By 1883 it had moved to bigger digs down the block, and was the first store in Toronto with an elevator and telephone. (At the time, there were so few phones in the city that the store’s number was just three digits: 370.)

  Through its catalog, Eaton’s offered everything you could possibly need to live a comfortable life—from clothes and appliances to farm equipment and seeds; even prefabricated homes. The company kept growing, and by 1911, its employees totaled 17,500. But unfortunately, simply being born with the Eaton name did not guarantee the business acumen of the original. Timothy and his son John Craig made the Eaton’s empire, but by the early 1970s, subsequent relatives had a series of missteps and Eaton’s was in trouble.

  To save money, it discontinued its famous catalog, closed stores, and stopped sponsoring the famous Toronto Santa Claus Parade, which had cemented its status as Canada’s premier retailer since 1905. In the end, the company couldn’t adapt fast enough to survive, and in 1998 it went belly-up.

  Victual Visionaries

  Food is often (sadly) overlooked when talking about inventions and discoveries. Yet, we all have to eat every day. Here, we raise our glasses to the Canadian accomplishments in gustatory science.

  Poutine

  There are several claims to the origins of this dish, but most likely poutine (meaning “mess” in French) was invented in Warwick, Quebec, in 1957. Rushing to fill a trucker’s order, restaurant worker Fernand Lachance quickly dumped French fries and cheese curds all into the same bag. As the trucker left, Lachance warned, “It’s going to make a damn mess.” (For good measure, diners eventually added gravy.) The trucker liked it, and more than 50 years later poutine is still one of Canada’s most popular fast foods.

  Pablum

  The first cooked dried infant cereal, Pablum, is 100 percent Canadian and still in use today. In 1931 three doctors at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children developed an easily digested cereal and fortified it with vitamins and minerals. Called “Pablum” (after pabulum, Latin for food), it was marketed by Mead Johnson and Co., but the doctors insisted that for the first 25 years after the sale, the Toronto Pediatric Foundation get a royalty for every package sold.

  Instant Mashed Potatoes

  In 1962 one of Canada’s largest crops was transformed when Edward Asselbergs, a Canadian Ministry of Agriculture employee, turned the familiar potato into instant mashed potato flakes. He developed the dried flakes to provide an easy-to-carry food for military rations and for campers.

  Canola Oil

  In the 1970s, a Canadian doctor named Richard Keith Downey together with University of Manitoba researcher Baldur Stefansson created an edible version of rapeseed (a toxic member of the mustard family). Because it was cheaper to grow than other oil crops, it was soon in high demand. In 1978 scientists at the Rapeseed Association of Canada changed the name from the fairly unpalatable “rapeseed oil” or “rape oil”, to “canola” (a blend of “Canada” and “oil”).

  Ginger Ale

  Back around the turn of the 20th century, Toronto pharmacist John J. McLaughlin was busy making fruit-and-herb-flavored soda water that
he sold to local drugstores for their soda fountains. In 1904 he developed a ginger-flavored soda he later called Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale. Although some people argue that ginger ale was invented 50 years earlier in Ireland, McLaughlin’s distinctively dry recipe—combined with an innovative bottling technique that pumped out large numbers of sealed bottles ready for sale—put the drink on the map.

  Bloody Caesar Cocktail

  The Bloody Caesar was invented in 1969 at an Italian restaurant inside the Calgary Inn (now the Westin Hotel) when bartender Walter Chell created a cocktail to commemorate the restaurant’s opening. Taking cues from the classic Italian dish linguini in clam sauce and riffing off the Bloody Mary, Chell mixed clam juice, tomato juice, and oregano with vodka and called it the “Caesar.” When a British man sitting at the bar declared, “That’s a bloody good Caesar,” the drink’s name was born. Today, the Bloody Caesar is Canada’s national cocktail.

  Holiday Cheer

  If you’re one of those Canadians who can’t get enough holidays, you’re in luck! Somebody in Canada celebrates at least one holiday every month, and now, so can you!

  January 11: Sir John A. Macdonald Day

  Celebration suggestion: Be like the man himself—put down a rebellion or two. Take bribes. Binge drink, vomit on a podium during a speech, and marry your first cousin.

  January 26: International Customs Day

  Celebration suggestion: Rummage through your friends’ bags. Volunteer for a strip search.

  February 28: Yoga Day Canada

  Celebration suggestion: Participating studios often offer free yoga classes, so get twisted and sore in as many meetings as you can during the day. Best bet: take a hot yoga class, and stay warm on someone else’s dime.

  March 20: Journée internationale de la Francophonie

  Celebration suggestion: French fries, French horns, French kisses.

  April: Poetry and Records Management Month

  Celebration suggestion: Straighten out both your finances and your iambic pentameter—if you think that’s a strange pairing, consider that April is also National Oral Health Month and Irritable Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month.

  Queen Victoria

  The Monday before May 25: Victoria Day

  Celebration suggestion: Celebrate your own birthday. Queen Victoria was born on May 24, so there’s only one chance in seven the celebration will land on her real birthday anyway. (Still, that’s better odds than Queen Elizabeth II. Her birthday is also celebrated on Victoria Day, even though she was born on April 21—and her name is Elizabeth.)

  June 21–July 1: Celebrate Canada!

  Celebration suggestion: What other country has an official holiday with an exclamation point in it? With 11 days of merriment—encompassing Aboriginal Day (June 21), Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (June 24), Multiculturalism Day (June 27), and Canada Day (July 1)—don’t forget to pace yourself and drink plenty of liquids.

  August 15: National Acadian Day

  Celebration suggestion: Head down to New Orleans and spend the day with the original Cajuns.

  September 8: International Literacy Day

  Celebration suggestion: Offer to help a local literacy program with their outreach efforts and print up a big sign: “If You Can’t Read This, Sign Up Here.”

  October 1: International Day of Older Persons

  Celebration suggestion: Yell at some kids to get off your lawn.

  November 19: Have a Bad Day Day

  Celebration suggestion: Screw up at work, burn your dinner, stub your toe.

  December 31: Make Up Your Mind Day

  Celebration suggestion: Make some decisions about how to improve your life…or wait until the next morning and call them “resolutions.”

  We Love Canada, Part II

  Here are four more Canadian provinces..

  New Brunswick

  •The Bay of Fundy’s range between low and high tide is the biggest in the world: 14 meters (45.5 feet). In fact, so much water flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy each day that nearby Nova Scotia actually tilts slightly under the pressure.

  •If you don’t like forests, you may not like New Brunswick, since 80 percent of the province is covered with trees.

  The New Brunswick-built Marco Polo was once the fastest ship in the world.

  •In their heyday, New Brunswick shipbuilders were among history’s best. In 1851 the town of Saint John launched the fastest clipper ship ever built, the Marco Polo. After immediately getting stuck on mudflats for a couple of weeks, the Marco Polo finally started breaking speed records, including a round-trip between Liverpool and Australia that took a mere five months, 21 days—the first time this trip was completed in less than six months.

  Nova Scotia

  •Nova Scotia (i.e., “New Scotland”) lives up to its name. In the 2001 census, 31.9 percent of the population identified as Scottish. However, English was close behind (31.8 percent).

  •Nova Scotians have been called “bluenoses” since the 18th century. Nobody quite knows why, and most of the theories sound pretty unconvincing. It may have been the name of a local tuber called an Irish bluenose potato, it may have had to do with noses that turned blue from the cold, or it might come from fishermen’s badly dyed gloves. No matter its origin, the name is still used proudly, including on the Bluenose, a famous Nova Scotian schooner that has been featured on postage stamps and the Nova Scotia license plate; its successor, the Bluenose II, can be seen docked in Lunenburg.

  General Robert Baden-Powell

  •Port Morien, Nova Scotia, brags that it was home to the first Boy Scout troop in North America. The troop was founded in 1908, shortly after Robert Baden-Powell published the book Scouting for Boys, which inspired boys all over the world to form Scout troops.

  Flowering potato plants fill a field on Prince Edward Island.

  Prince Edward Island

  •Actor Charles Francis Coghlan was a native of P.E.I. but he died in Galveston, Texas, in 1899. He was buried there in a lead-lined coffin. Less than a year later, a hurricane struck Galveston, bringing widespread flooding that washed Coghlan’s coffin away. Fast-forward to 1908, off the coast of Prince Edward Island. Fishermen pulled a barnacle-encrusted coffin out of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Coghlan had hitched a ride home on the Gulf Stream.

  •Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series, hails from P.E.I., and the province is proud of it. You can tour the Green Gables Farmhouse in Cavendish. Nearby, we have Avonlea Village, a 1999 replica of Montgomery’s fictional town. There’s an Anne of Green Gables Museum in Park Corner, on the homestead that reportedly inspired Montgomery’s lesser-known Pat of Silver Bush novels. Scattered around P.E.I. are a number of hotels, barns, woods, stores, and churches that either inspired scenes in the books, were inspired by scenes in the books, or were used as sets in the popular Anne miniseries. (If you want to see the actual “Green Gables” house from the miniseries, however, you’ll need to go to the outskirts of Toronto.)

  •Prince Edward Island is Canada’s own private Idaho. The tiny province is responsible for a third of the country’s total potato production.

  •P.E.I. has just three counties: Kings County, Queens County, and Princes County.

  •P.E.I. is Canada’s smallest province in both population (140,000) and land area (5,684 square kilometers/2,194 square miles).

  Newfoundland and Labrador

  •Most places schedule their tourist festivals during their best weather. Just to be unusual, the town of Mount Pearl celebrates its Frosty Festival in early February during its coldest and snowiest time of year. Promising “music, magic, dancing, great food, laughter, and good sportsmanship,” the festival activities include just about any contest that will get you through the first weeks of February: videogame competitions, ice hockey, lip-synch contests, bowling, indoor soccer, a film festival, skating, drinking, swimming (indoor, we hope), and—for the hardy—“Sno Pitch Softball” and “Wild Winter Games.” All activities are presided over by
that jolly snowman himself, Frosty.

  •Despite its official name change in 2001, most people still refer to the whole province as “Newfoundland,” and the mainland region as “Labrador.”

  •We love Newfoundlanders and Newfie jokes. (It’s all in goodfun.) Like this one, for example:

  A Newfie’s wife died so he called 911. The operator said they’d send someone over right away and then asked where the man lived.

  When he said, “At the end of Eucalyptus Drive,” the operator asked, “Would you spell that for me?”

  After a long pause, the Newfie replied, “How ’bout if I drag her over to Oak Street and you pick her up there?”

  Phantoms of the Tundra

  Everyone loves a good ghost story. Luckily, Canada is a big country with lots of spooky sites and skilled storytellers.

  The Banff Springs Hotel is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Canada. But is it really?

  Who: A family of tourists, a long-lost bride, and a bellhop

  Where: Banff Springs Hotel, Alberta.

  The Banff Springs Hotel opened in 1888 as a railway hotel with fantastic surroundings: the Rocky Mountains, Bow Falls, Mount Rundle, and even a thermal spring. In the years since, those surroundings were almost eclipsed by some even more fantastic occurrences inside the hotel itself.