Canadian author Stephen Marche, a self-described “professional worrier about the U.S.,” has an essay just out in The Atlantic about the real, senseless and tragic possibility that the U.S. would invade Canada, unleashing an insurgency war. As recently as a few months ago, Marche predicted this would never happen. He now quotes an expert on insurgencies at the University of Toronto:
“Canada has the most educated population in the Group of Seven advanced industrial nations, which for a resistance movement would be ‘an asset in being able to identify pressure points, in being able to know what critical infrastructure is, in being able to develop technology and weapons that can be highly disruptive,’ Ahmad said. ‘The scale and the capacity would be so much higher.’ If only one in 100 Canadians took up arms against an American occupation, that force would be 10 times the estimated size of the Taliban at the outset of the Afghan War. And that force would consist of machine-learning specialists and petroleum engineers rather than shepherds and subsistence farmers.”
Canadians are less gentle than supposed. One in four Canadian households own a gun. Canadians are a proud people and made sure the last American invasion of their country did not go well for America.
Rona, you do not disappoint, ever. What a glorious and melancholy essay. That America is disappearing faster than I ever thought possible. It's a scandalous mess. I have to tell you, though, that were you to ever end up in a Salvadoran work camp, your jailers will have met their match in you. Would you make me a reservation in the hotel around the corner? I won't rest until we meet in person, one fine day. And I love lilacs. xo
Even those of us in America are missing America. But we're also building a movement, powered by elder women I might add, to stop the destruction and rebuild the goodness.
My stepmother was a nurse who married my British father, a surgeon. After too many years together they separated. My father took early retirement in an old folks home. My mother took off by car on an annual trip from Brantford , Ontario to Palm Springs, California. I drove her twice, leaving on Christmas Day with a small cooler of egg salad and ham and pages and pages of route directions carefully created by the CAA. The first year she got a ticket for speeding through Missouri. The second year I rebelled against the stale egg salad and treated us to a stop in a woebegone restaurant in the Texas panhandle. We passed signs pointing to The Grand Canyon. We never saw it. She was too set on her goal of Palm Springs by day four. There was a lot we never saw. But my mother lived the route nineteen years in a row. And I will never forget it.
Oh, my! What a grim way to see (and not see) America. I hope you made it to the Grand Canyon in better company. Its vast grandeur is almost terrifying.
I'm going to be going to Canada (British Columbia, on our sailboat) for the first time in my life this summer...though my grandfather was born in Sheatown, Ontario. We love Canada and are devastated by the harm that Monster in the white house has wreaked. I hope and trust that we will still be welcomed by your country.
Jennifer, most of us understand that most Americans, including Republicans, did not vote to annex Canada. B.C. is stunning. It formed my father’s creative imagination. For him no other place compared.
A few years after I lost my soulmate a great friend and I took a roadtrip. He from Northern Ireland, me from North Carolina. We met in Chicago and followed small roads, (almost no big trucks). We followed a lot of Lewis and Clark route. I especially loved the Black Foot rez where we spent a couple nights in a tee pee. Sounds so hokey, but was wonderful. I became instant friends with a child from NY whose mom brought him there because he’d been studying about Native Americans. They had the most beautiful art gallery, all Native American artists. We travelled to Seattle and the outer peninsula where I saw such spectacular mountains. We ended in Portland and flew back to NC. Portland is a lovely city.
I turn 81 next month. I hope to revisit Northern Ireland again. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving there and celebrated with friends who had never celebrated that holiday. Such wonderful people from County Down.
What a trip, in both senses of the word (daughter of the 60s speaking). We too followed some Lewis and Clark routes, and these half-remembered characters from school days captured my imagination. I read a book about them, Undaunted Courage, that revealed their complexities. One of them suffered terribly from depression and took his life.
Several summers ago I drove from my home in Oregon to Louisiana. I'd never made such a trip (having previously flown such distances) and it shocked me. Dead/dying town after dead/dying town. Close-up views of poverty. The further we traveled, the more distressed I felt. I began to understand our divide in a new way. I began to grieve the loss of us in a new way. I support your decision not to come here this summer. I wouldn't if I lived elsewhere unless absolutely necessary.
I can picture what you saw, having driven through hard corners of rural America. Things will only get worse there. By the way, we would cross the border to see someone who’s very ill or very old. I am approaching a “now or never” moment with a couple of special people.
This piece is heartbreaking and so touching. But I think it’s smart for Canadians and others to avoid traveling here as a protest of this current horrific administration. We will lose so much tourist income and that’s one of the consequences of his cruelties….A Canadian friend recently visited and told me “no offense but I deleted anything negative you said about you know who in case they looked at my phone.” We are living in very sad times.
Gah, it breaks my heart, all that is going on, to think of you wary to visit your home country, to think of neighbors and dear friends like Canada seeing the US as dangerous.
May we come to the change that will right all this (or begin to) sooner than later.
And whatever the case, may we one day sit across from each other for a cup of tea, whether in our shared home country or your new one . 💕
None of us guessed, as recently as a few months ago, that the U.S. might actually invade Canada. It would be insane, and catastrophic for both countries, but this administration has shown a gleeful tolerance for insanity.
As a fellow American-Canadian, I share similar feelings. I’m encouraging my American friends and family to come to Canada this year. I’m musing about a trip to Quebec in the summer.
You’ve captured the joy of travelling and being welcomed and the sadness of disappointment and letting go. When we spoke recently we touched on some of these themes. This spoke to my traveler’s heart.
And as I head to Paris soon, I think of trips in the past and wonder-will this one be my last to that special place.
Oh yes! We also miss the US “detour” of so many outstanding parks and people as our way to connect from west to east. Right now we are visiting family and friends in Toronto and Prince Edward County—from BC where we moved 12 years ago. Every trip to Toronto fills me with exclamation marks of awe—both positive and negative. I hope someday to embrace my native land again (now fully renounced as a full fledged Canadian) and enjoy its many treasures. But as you know, Rona, we have no shortage of them here. 😍
Yes, Canada has many wonders. For road-tripping from Toronto, it offers much less flexibility than the U.S. our road trip to Calgary took us north of Superior, then back through the U.S. Once per trip is enough for north of Superior, as far as I’m concerned.
A bit off topic, but if you are on Instagram, my brother @ericmencher posted a series of pictures yesterday about Bloomsday that I thought you might enjoy (since you mentioned Ulysses). His accompanying descriptions are entertaining! Eric and my sister-in-law moved to Spain and plan to live there permanently. It hurts my heart to read your words, Rona, and hurts to know I might not see my brother again. Thank you for sharing.
Not off topic at all, Robyn. I’ve been in Canada my entire adult life, but stories like yours will become more common as Americans pack their bags for other countries. A stack friend is moving to Portugal. I am sorry for this rupture in your family and many others.
Canadian author Stephen Marche, a self-described “professional worrier about the U.S.,” has an essay just out in The Atlantic about the real, senseless and tragic possibility that the U.S. would invade Canada, unleashing an insurgency war. As recently as a few months ago, Marche predicted this would never happen. He now quotes an expert on insurgencies at the University of Toronto:
“Canada has the most educated population in the Group of Seven advanced industrial nations, which for a resistance movement would be ‘an asset in being able to identify pressure points, in being able to know what critical infrastructure is, in being able to develop technology and weapons that can be highly disruptive,’ Ahmad said. ‘The scale and the capacity would be so much higher.’ If only one in 100 Canadians took up arms against an American occupation, that force would be 10 times the estimated size of the Taliban at the outset of the Afghan War. And that force would consist of machine-learning specialists and petroleum engineers rather than shepherds and subsistence farmers.”
Canadians are less gentle than supposed. One in four Canadian households own a gun. Canadians are a proud people and made sure the last American invasion of their country did not go well for America.
Rona, you do not disappoint, ever. What a glorious and melancholy essay. That America is disappearing faster than I ever thought possible. It's a scandalous mess. I have to tell you, though, that were you to ever end up in a Salvadoran work camp, your jailers will have met their match in you. Would you make me a reservation in the hotel around the corner? I won't rest until we meet in person, one fine day. And I love lilacs. xo
Nan, I so appreciate your warm-hearted response to what I simply had to say. We will meet one day in the so-called “real world.”
I have no doubt!
Even those of us in America are missing America. But we're also building a movement, powered by elder women I might add, to stop the destruction and rebuild the goodness.
Yes, I have noticed that older women here are speaking out with confidence and courage. More power to you all.
My stepmother was a nurse who married my British father, a surgeon. After too many years together they separated. My father took early retirement in an old folks home. My mother took off by car on an annual trip from Brantford , Ontario to Palm Springs, California. I drove her twice, leaving on Christmas Day with a small cooler of egg salad and ham and pages and pages of route directions carefully created by the CAA. The first year she got a ticket for speeding through Missouri. The second year I rebelled against the stale egg salad and treated us to a stop in a woebegone restaurant in the Texas panhandle. We passed signs pointing to The Grand Canyon. We never saw it. She was too set on her goal of Palm Springs by day four. There was a lot we never saw. But my mother lived the route nineteen years in a row. And I will never forget it.
Oh, my! What a grim way to see (and not see) America. I hope you made it to the Grand Canyon in better company. Its vast grandeur is almost terrifying.
I'm going to be going to Canada (British Columbia, on our sailboat) for the first time in my life this summer...though my grandfather was born in Sheatown, Ontario. We love Canada and are devastated by the harm that Monster in the white house has wreaked. I hope and trust that we will still be welcomed by your country.
Jennifer, most of us understand that most Americans, including Republicans, did not vote to annex Canada. B.C. is stunning. It formed my father’s creative imagination. For him no other place compared.
I hear you, Rona. I miss America too and I’m right here.
A wold of sadness in one short sentence.
A few years after I lost my soulmate a great friend and I took a roadtrip. He from Northern Ireland, me from North Carolina. We met in Chicago and followed small roads, (almost no big trucks). We followed a lot of Lewis and Clark route. I especially loved the Black Foot rez where we spent a couple nights in a tee pee. Sounds so hokey, but was wonderful. I became instant friends with a child from NY whose mom brought him there because he’d been studying about Native Americans. They had the most beautiful art gallery, all Native American artists. We travelled to Seattle and the outer peninsula where I saw such spectacular mountains. We ended in Portland and flew back to NC. Portland is a lovely city.
I turn 81 next month. I hope to revisit Northern Ireland again. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving there and celebrated with friends who had never celebrated that holiday. Such wonderful people from County Down.
What a trip, in both senses of the word (daughter of the 60s speaking). We too followed some Lewis and Clark routes, and these half-remembered characters from school days captured my imagination. I read a book about them, Undaunted Courage, that revealed their complexities. One of them suffered terribly from depression and took his life.
Several summers ago I drove from my home in Oregon to Louisiana. I'd never made such a trip (having previously flown such distances) and it shocked me. Dead/dying town after dead/dying town. Close-up views of poverty. The further we traveled, the more distressed I felt. I began to understand our divide in a new way. I began to grieve the loss of us in a new way. I support your decision not to come here this summer. I wouldn't if I lived elsewhere unless absolutely necessary.
I can picture what you saw, having driven through hard corners of rural America. Things will only get worse there. By the way, we would cross the border to see someone who’s very ill or very old. I am approaching a “now or never” moment with a couple of special people.
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of as "absolutely necessary." Wishing you the best, in whatever choices you make.
This piece is heartbreaking and so touching. But I think it’s smart for Canadians and others to avoid traveling here as a protest of this current horrific administration. We will lose so much tourist income and that’s one of the consequences of his cruelties….A Canadian friend recently visited and told me “no offense but I deleted anything negative you said about you know who in case they looked at my phone.” We are living in very sad times.
Gah, it breaks my heart, all that is going on, to think of you wary to visit your home country, to think of neighbors and dear friends like Canada seeing the US as dangerous.
May we come to the change that will right all this (or begin to) sooner than later.
And whatever the case, may we one day sit across from each other for a cup of tea, whether in our shared home country or your new one . 💕
None of us guessed, as recently as a few months ago, that the U.S. might actually invade Canada. It would be insane, and catastrophic for both countries, but this administration has shown a gleeful tolerance for insanity.
It is, at once, grim and hard to believe. Every new step has me thinking THIS can’t be real, though. Sigh.
As a fellow American-Canadian, I share similar feelings. I’m encouraging my American friends and family to come to Canada this year. I’m musing about a trip to Quebec in the summer.
Quebec! There’s an idea.
You’ve captured the joy of travelling and being welcomed and the sadness of disappointment and letting go. When we spoke recently we touched on some of these themes. This spoke to my traveler’s heart.
And as I head to Paris soon, I think of trips in the past and wonder-will this one be my last to that special place.
Thank you, Frieda. Along with “Will this be my last trip to…?” there is “Will I ever return to…?”
Melancholic in the shadows of what once was. We’ve scuttled our US destination travels as well. Writing this from the UK.
Well, there are many other inviting places to see—some of them here in Canada.
Absolutely!
Oh yes! We also miss the US “detour” of so many outstanding parks and people as our way to connect from west to east. Right now we are visiting family and friends in Toronto and Prince Edward County—from BC where we moved 12 years ago. Every trip to Toronto fills me with exclamation marks of awe—both positive and negative. I hope someday to embrace my native land again (now fully renounced as a full fledged Canadian) and enjoy its many treasures. But as you know, Rona, we have no shortage of them here. 😍
Yes, Canada has many wonders. For road-tripping from Toronto, it offers much less flexibility than the U.S. our road trip to Calgary took us north of Superior, then back through the U.S. Once per trip is enough for north of Superior, as far as I’m concerned.
A bit off topic, but if you are on Instagram, my brother @ericmencher posted a series of pictures yesterday about Bloomsday that I thought you might enjoy (since you mentioned Ulysses). His accompanying descriptions are entertaining! Eric and my sister-in-law moved to Spain and plan to live there permanently. It hurts my heart to read your words, Rona, and hurts to know I might not see my brother again. Thank you for sharing.
Not off topic at all, Robyn. I’ve been in Canada my entire adult life, but stories like yours will become more common as Americans pack their bags for other countries. A stack friend is moving to Portugal. I am sorry for this rupture in your family and many others.
I wouldn’t come to the USA for a vacation right about now, but I live here.
I’m sickened by the government now. It’s all very sad.