This week­end is Cana­di­an Thanks­giv­ing, six weeks before our Amer­i­can neigh­bours have theirs. We also beat them to the idea by 43 years. The Pil­grims feast dates to 1621. Sir Mar­tin Frobisher’s expe­di­tion to find the north­west pas­sage held one in present day Nunavut in 1578, to give thanks for the safe­ty of its fleet. Today, the list of “thank­ful-fors” is so pre­dictable it’s almost back­ground noise.

It might be more uplift­ing to be thank­ful for what we don’t have, at least for we descen­dants, both direct and oth­er­wise, of the orig­i­nal celebrants.
It seems a fair bet none of the descen­dants of the indige­nous peo­ple who were around for the Fro­bish­er and Pil­grim feasts are very grate­ful for the occasions.
On a per­son­al basis, I’m thank­ful that by Thanks­giv­ing, there is almost no one else around. Boats have been stored, the docks pulled on shore to be safe from the com­ing ice pack and cot­tage win­dows are shuttered.

As often as not in the autumn I’m the only per­son on the water, and while this place is any­thing but untamed wilder­ness, pad­dling along the shore, I can almost feel a line from Gor­don Lightfoot’s anthem, Cana­di­an Rail­road Tril­o­gy: “Long before the white man/And long before the wheel/ When the green dark for­est was too silent to be real”.
It’s also a thank­ful thought that while we have a prime min­is­ter who’s more “woke” than awake to the tribu­la­tions his poli­cies are inflict­ing on a large swathe of the pop­u­la­tion, and a leader of the oppo­si­tion who’s court­ing the extreme right, nei­ther they nor their respec­tive par­ties come close to the Repub­li­can clowns, char­la­tans and just plain evil fools who pro­lif­er­ate in Washington.
                           GOOD FROM BAD
An anom­aly that sums up the premise of this week’s blog is the weath­er we’ve had here for the past week.

Being able to rev­el in the fall colours by hik­ing or pad­dling under clear skies, with light winds and tem­per­a­tures in the mid-20s was a bless­ing, if you can leave aside that it was cour­tesy of the not-to-be-thank­ful-for curse of cli­mate change.
With a gloomy tone belied by a grin, the “locals” here invari­ably caveat com­ments on the unsea­son­able gift of warm weath­er with a wis­dom borne of expe­ri­ence: “Means she’s gonna be a bad win­ter. You can bet on it.” One gets the dis­tinct impres­sion that in a per­verse way, they don’t hate the idea.
Before the snow comes, the loons and oth­er water­fowl will head south.

See­ing a pair with a chick that made it to migrat­ing stage is rea­son to cel­e­brate. It  also makes me grate­ful I’m not a migrant. No doubt some things for which I will not be grate­ful are skulk­ing in the future, but they will almost cer­tain­ly pale to insignif­i­cance next to being a human migrant risk­ing my life to find safe­ty and the chance claw out of poverty.
The fall colours are also a rea­son to be thank­ful you’re not a deer. Hunt­ing sea­son is about to open.

Even if chang­ing your coat from tawny brown to match the dull­ness of the soon-to-be-leaf­less for­est fools the humans with guns and a per­mit to kill you, the wolves are wait­ing to move in once they’ve gone.
It also brings to mind anoth­er neg­a­tive for which to be grate­ful, curbs on gun own­er­ship. Not every­one agrees with the laws, but every­one appre­ci­ates the fact that Cana­da has suf­fered only three “mass shoot­ings” so far in 2023, as opposed to near­ly 500 in the U.S.
Along with fam­i­ly and friends , a de rigeur bless­ing for which we need to be thank­ful, expound­ed by every­one from the heads of turkey-laden tables to preach­ers, poets, colum­nists, com­men­ta­tors and what a friend here quaint­ly refers to as “pains in the drain”, is freedom.
Those who protest that we don’t have it, might want to con­sid­er that if we didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to com­plain pub­licly, or in many coun­tries even pri­vate­ly, that we don’t.
One remain­ing neg­a­tive for which I am grate­ful is that the present day menu for Thanks­giv­ing doesn’t bear any resem­blance to the first one, which his­to­ry says cen­tered on salt beef and mushy peas.
All Pho­tos: Author
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