When the gates creak open on our pandemic prison I plan to take a long, peaceful road trip. 

When I think long road trip my mind usually swings south. Trips like Route 66 with all its great history and its wonderfully varied scenery. 

The Canada-U.S. dollar difference sometimes dampens enthusiasm to travel in the States, but the Loonie has been gaining strength against the Greenback over the last year. Auto fuels are cheaper down there. So are motels and food, and the people who serve you smile and make you feel welcome.

However, I’m a bit down on the U.S. these days. Actually, I’m a lot down on the U.S. these days. 

It’s a place that seems to have lost its sense of purpose. Some days it looks like a country gone insane.

The politics have become so radicalized and polarized that you wonder whether the United States should be two countries, instead of one. Longstanding biological racism, and now growing cultural racism, are tearing the place apart. 

It used to be that if you stayed out of ‘bad’ places in the U.S. you didn’t have to worry about being caught up in violence. That’s no longer the case. There is so much violence, much of it gun violence, that you could become a victim anywhere in the country.

The Gun Violence Archive reports there have been 14,500 gun deaths in the U.S. to date this year (roughly five an hour) and 180 mass shootings, which is more than one a day. 

Just staying in your vehicle during a U.S. road trip will not guarantee your safety. There are roughly 100 traffic deaths every day in the U.S., a large part of them attributed to texting and to impaired driving. 

But that’s negative stuff. Positive images are pulling me toward a Canadian road trip. 

Positive images like those brilliant Newfoundland travel TV ads - flowers dancing gently in an ocean breeze, people hiking spectacular coastlines and kids exploring caves built by Vikings. Images of colourful houses, colourful people and happy calm.

Maybe all of us should be thinking Canadian road trips. Or, better still, thinking more Canadian, period.

Canadian culture is not as strongly definitive as it should be. It’s like a tulip struggling to grow and be noticed under the thick canopy of an oak forest. And that canopy is the suffocating American culture spilling over from the south.

We have the same language, similar geography and some of the same customs as Americans. On top of that we listen to American music, watch huge amounts of American television, drive American cars, eat American food, follow American sports teams and buy huge amounts of American goods at American stores like Walmart. 

Canada is ranked one of the highest countries for education, yet only a small per cent of educational book publishers are Canadian. 

Especially worrisome is the trend toward less Canadian produced and reported news and more news from the U.S. A mix of news sources can be a good thing, but my guess is that Canadians probably watch more news from CNN, ABC, NBC and other American networks than they do from Canadian channels. 

Canada’s newspaper industry is failing and a couple of major American newspapers see opportunity in that. They see readers and revenues in the news deserts created by the closure of 250 Canadian newspapers in the last seven years. Cutbacks in Canadian journalism resources increase by the day. 

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times have been increasing Canadian coverage. Their digital editions easily let them direct Canadian advertising at Canadian readers, therefore eating the lunches of our news outlets. 

Canadian news, reported on Canadian news outlets by Canadian journalists, is a lifeblood of Canadian culture. 

We all need to think about how we can start doing more to stop American culture from washing away our Canadian culture, and how we as individuals can strengthen our culture. 

When Covid is over I intend to do that with a Canadian road trip and by spending as much money as I can in small Canadian businesses that have been suffering so deeply under the many restrictions made necessary by this terrible disease. 

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The lessons of hunting

Three brittle jeers break the blessed stillness of the woods.

I am found out.

I was enjoying the stillness, feeling totally alone and unnoticed. Observing, presumably without being observed. Now I am the centre of attention.

It is a blue jay, of course, that has sounded the alarm, warning everything with ears that I am slinking through their territory. I can’t see it, but it hears and sees me from some hidden perch.

I was hoping to spot some game. The day certainly is right. A bold blue sky with an abundance of late autumn sunshine illuminating the darkest corners of these woods.

The jay’s screaming has lessened my chances of spotting anything. I have a feeling that there is not much to spot anyway. There are few tracks and little other fresh sign.

The winter-like weather of early November seems to have alerted birds and animals to start moving to winter quarters. The bears likely have gone into hibernation; the deer are moving off to winter yarding areas where they have a better chance of avoiding starvation.

The official start of winter is three weeks away, but the signs of it bearing down are everywhere.

Bare-branch oaks and maples surrounding me are shivering. It’s not really that cold so I assume they are shivering in anticipation of what is to come.

From the ridge where I am standing, I see the lake below. It is frothing and spitting to protest the lashing it is taking from the wintery north wind. Soon the lake will be calmed and stiffened by relentless overnight freezing temperatures.

The freezing and the heavy-duty storms that accompany it will lock in winter for the coming five or six months.

I think about how lucky I am to be enjoying these woods before the big snows close them off.

Then it hits me: this is the first time I can remember being in the autumn woods unarmed. No shotgun for partridge, no rifle or bow for deer, moose or bear. In fact, I don’t even have a hunting licence, for the first time that I can remember.

I have decided not to hunt this year.

Some folks say age reduces the urge to hunt, but I still have that urge and still know the excitement of hunting.  

I guess I am hunting during this walk in the woods. I hope to see a deer running down the ravine that leads to the lake. Or, hear the rush of a partridge flushing from beneath an evergreen. I’m just not carrying a weapon.

I have decided not to hunt this year because I see game numbers steadily decreasing in the woods that I travel. I have seen only one partridge this year, and if I saw it again while carrying my shotgun, I could not in good conscience shoot it.

The same applies to deer, although their numbers fluctuate from year to year and location to location. They could be abundant next year or the year after.

Not so the partridge. Where I wander the flocks no longer exist. The decline is a trend that I, and other hunters, have seen develop over the past 20 years.

My decision not to take any game this year is strictly personal. In no way do I advocate it as a decision to be followed by others.

Hunting is a valuable part of Canadian culture. It provides enjoyment and food for many people and is an effective management tool in areas where game management is needed.

Also, the licensing of hunting provides governments with money, which hopefully is used to better manage wildlife resources and ensure that hunting can continue for the many thousands who enjoy it.

None of my favourable thoughts on hunting apply to one aspect of the sport – trophy hunting. Killing any animal specifically to pose with its corpse, or simply to wall mount its head or horns, is not hunting. It is killing to feed one’s ego.

Hunting is about learning to become part of nature. That involves understanding that everything in nature – including you – is equal.

Parts of nature kill other parts. They do it out of need.

Humans kill animals, plants, fish and insects.  When they do, there should be some form of need, and a great deal of respect.