On the 10th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Great singers singing
Brave heroes striving
Real smart inventors
Artistic creators
Writers a-writing
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
Stan Rogers Ian Tyson Tom Jackson Gordon Lightfoot Joni Mitchell
Buffy Sainte-Marie Stompin’ Tom The Rankins k.d.lang Leonard Cohen
On the 9th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Brave heroes striving
Real smart inventors
Artistic creators
Writers a-writing
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
Soldiers and diplomats; military and civilian; men and women; immigrants, indigenous people, everyone else; living and dead; individuals and groups.
Selected Billy Bishop Medals
Vimy Memorial
Laura Secord memorial
Terry Fox monument
On the 8th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Real smart inventors
Artistic creators
Writers a-writing
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
So many to choose from. Here are a few:
And, of course, there’s Pablum, the BlackBerry, Alexander Graham Bell, the snowmobile, the guy who invented the plastic garbage bag . . .
Seemingly random snippets of memory surface at odd moments, don’t they? Or is it just me?
The bass-baritone stylings of Ernest Jennings Ford define the Sunday afternoon TV of my childhood memory. I don’t remember what show he was on, but I do remember his deep, deep, resonant voice, and my introduction to the rapacious extremes of unfettered capitalism. Of any unfettered power, maybe.
Another day older and deeper in debt.
– 16 Tons; Tennessee Ernie Ford
Inuk video makers, famous painters (indigenous and not), and people doing a variety of artistic pursuits: Canada has a wealth of artistic types.
On the 7th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Artistic creators
Writers a-writing
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
Finally, we’re into the verses where the originals were working a bit to scan properly. As a result, the pressure is off me.
On the 6th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Writers a-writing
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
Think of Robertson Davies.
Stephen Leacock.
Alice Munro.
Richard Wagamese.
Pierre Berton.
And Mordechai Richler.
OK, in re-imagining the classics, sometimes you have to work hard for indifferent results, but sometimes the right words just come to mind.
On the 5th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
High sugar treats
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
On the 4th day of Christmas
Canada gave to me
Professionals
Athletic stars
Far northern sites
And a nation, bounded by seas.
First office of Wardair in Yellowknife’s Old Town.
Twin otter of the type used by Kenn Borek Air
St. Albert Place, by Douglas Cardinal
And Doug Golosky, for whom I have no Creative Commons images . . .
Today I learned that having the same number of syllables isn’t necessarily enough: “3 athletes,” for example, somehow doesn’t snap off the tongue the same way that “3 French hens” does. Something to do with the hard sounds at the start/stop of “French,” perhaps? Or something to do with “French” being drawled out to slightly more than one syllable?
Whatever. Continue reading
Posted: 2025 Jun 13
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
