Large Fierce Mammal

You can keep your bit coin mining. It’s a well known fact that nickel mining is an important component of the Canadian economy. Less well known is that the one in Sudbury, Ontario, is the biggest we’ve ever found.

This is Canada Day up here in the Great White North, on which all and sundry customarily gather to celebrate the day in 1867 when the citizenry got convinced it would be easier to keep track of one band of crooks rather than the usual mishmash of transient bandits from out of town. We all know it hasn’t worked particularly well, but there’s Canadian beer and whiskey to keep us laughing, and cushion the blow that this third July first in the inspiring reign of Trudeau the Second also marks the day Bourbon starts costing 10% more.

Yes, that sound you heard just after midnight was the first shot fired south in the trade war between Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump — less a war really than an amalgam of an argument among the Tim Horton’s brain trust over the merits of the Canadian Maple vs. Boston Cream, and a slap bet.

But enough dark musings on this day of days that dawned in a wash of what Environment Canada described in the advisory posted midweek —

A very warm and humid airmass will settle over the Maritimes on Monday and persist through the middle of the week. Over inland areas of Nova Scotia, maximum temperatures are expected to exceed 30 degrees Celsius with humidex values ranging from 35 to 40.

We’ve got the precursor to that today with conditions my Esteemed Father, a gifted amateur meteorologist in his own right, would have described as, “Some Jesus sultry!”

I last formally addressed this holiday four years ago in a piece I was oddly compelled to call Canada Day 2014, and in that I revealed some lore not only eye opening to those who ain’t from around here, but also to those who are but haven’t been paying attention. Read it here, and as you do, here are a couple of musical accompaniments.

First, here’s Paul Brandt with the immortal Canadian Man …

And to sing us out, here’s Jeanette MacDonald singing Indian Love Call while Nelson Eddie labours in the throes of that ever so Canadian dilemma — what’s a Mountie to do when there’s a bootie call and you’ve got one in custody?