Category: life

This morning, I began my Christmas shopping. In this respect, I’m like our American cousins to the south, in that I buy presents. Traditionally, Canadians make their own gifts, which are usually sewn from furs or skins. Hats, mittens, mukluks, wallets, purses, umbrellas, interesting underwear — all are hand-made for each person on our Christmas list.

In Canada, everyone is involved in the fur industry, and we enjoy the limelight it attracts. Why, every year we get hundreds of tourists hoping to take part in Vancouver’s famous seal hunt. They come in droves from all over the world to encounter nature in its majesty. When you return with a sledful of baby seal pelts after a long day out on the ice, it’s a glorious feeling — especially if you clubbed them yourself!

Now, I’m not very handy with the leatherwork, so I threw on my snowshoes and hiked from my parents’ igloo south to the ice floes of the mighty Fraser River. At the trading post by the river’s edge, a clever shopper can haggle for all of the skins, furs, and handicrafts they need for the season at a very reasonable price.

Caveat emptor, Canadians often say. In fact, I believe that’s even engraved on the side of those used subs that we bought from the Royal Navy. That motto particularly applies to shopping for seal furs, because some unscrupulous vendors will substitute any shiny, fur-bearing animal in its place. For example, last year my parents gave me a sweater that turned out to be knitted with possum fur! Oh, the embarassment that caused. Fortunately, the sweater is quite warm and I can now play dead when the need arises.

I wandered between the aisles and kiosks of the market, breathing the heavy scent of fried blubber and tanning seal skins. Even before noon, the market was thronging with furriers, shoppers, foodsellers, and tourists in North Face parkas taking photos of absolutely everything. At one point, a tourist asked for directions to the nearest corner store. A silence fell and confused looks were passed around. In Canada, you see, there are no “corner stores” — in fact, there are no corners at all in our villages, because our igloos are round. A dozen or so helpful villagers directed him to the nearest depanneur while apologizing profusely.

By afternoon, I had an armload of baby seal products and a few blubber snacks to hold me until dinner. Christmas is only seven days away. So much to do, and so little time! I wonder how Doug is making out with that emu?

The search for Peter Mansbridge continued until about ten o’clock last night, when somebody noticed that Peter was reading the news on The National. Baffled by this, we abandoned the search.

This morning, we walked over to the prime minister’s place to get some answers. We arrived to find Jean and Aline stringing up their arctic hares for Bonhomme. It was a touching moment, and we hated to intrude on their Christmas preparations, but this was important.

As any Canadian knows, it’s tough to get a straight answer from Jean. Doing so usually involves sitting around the fire listening to Jean babble incoherently while he waves his Inuit sculpture threateningly. Jean likes reliving the glory days when he could personally attack citizens at will.

Eventually we got some answers, but only after agreeing to let him throttle Premier Campbell. It seemed like a good deal to us, but things got messy when Gordon pulled out his pepper spray, making Jean cry, “Dat’s no fair! For me, pepper, I put it on my plate!”

As it turns out, the Peter Mansbridge we had seen on the National was a clone. Moreover, we haven’t had a real Peter Mansbridge since the 80s. Well, the clones are doing a fine job — possibly better than the original, although, according to Jean, they have a repulsive habit of polishing their forehead with oolican oil.

Amazing. I’d just assumed that Peter liked Old Spice.

With that settled, we trudged home to continue our Christmas preparations.

Tragedy struck in the night. Several beavers broke through the Mounties’ defenses and dragged off Peter Mansbridge. There was a short delay before launching a search and rescue attempt — apparently some people felt that Ralph Benmergui deserved more airtime anyway, while others didn’t think we should direct more public resources towards the CBC.

In light of the morning’s events, we chose to forgo tonight’s planned festivities. The dwarves are disappointed, but I think they understand our reasons.

Success! After a long vigil behind the emu blind, our quarry took the bait. The spotted snow emu emerged from its burrow only long enough to drag the keg underground. An hour later, armed with shovels, we extracted the giant avian from its hole and lashed it to the largest of our dogsleds. The feast would be very flavourful this year — the emu had consumed the entire keg.

The trip home was full of song and laughter. Our arrival at the village was marked with fanfare and cries of G’day, eh! After unhitching the dogs and lemurs, Doug slipped off to see his family, while the other Doug and I beat the emu senseless with the Barenaked Ladies box set.

Tonight, Sunday night, will be a quiet one. That is, as long as the Mounties can defend the village perimeter from the roving packs of beavers, which, at this time of year, leave their dams to raid villages for food.

By nightfall, the Dougs and I set up camp near the habitat of the spotted snow emu. We quickly built a roaring campfire on which I prepared a quick meal of back bacon, smoked salmon, and poutine. After the meal, Doug (the older one) pulled out his accordion and played a beautiful rendition of Be My Yoko Ono with the other Doug accompanying him on the spoons. We fell asleep with the silence broken only by a distant whistling marmot. I think it was whistling Stormy Weather, but I couldn’t be certain. That wouldn’t bode well for the hunt.

We awoke to strong winds that made the lemurs nervous. Camp coffee and a brief meal of bison jerky started the day before we set out on snowshoe.

The best way to hunt the spotted snow emu is to surprise it with a free keg of surprisingly strong Canadian beer. We placed the bait and settled behind the blind to wait for darkness to fall.

I imagine that the villagers of Steveston have almost completed their igloo. Even as I write this, the children are probably preparing the offerings of arctic hare. Making an offering of a hare, it is thought, will appease the wrath of Bonhomme: the fearsome snow creature that wears a sash and toque stained red with the blood of naughty children. At the coming of Bonhomme, all children must chant the refrain, “Salut Bonhomme, Salut le Bonhomme cannibale…”, lest they be carried off to Bonhomme’s kingdom and eaten on snow with hot maple syrup.

Dusk approaches. I should stop writing and help Doug and Doug with that flask of CC.