I’ve come up with an idea about something that seems to have helped shape and condition the Canadian Character. My notion is that since we must often function on Ice here in The Great White North we have, as a consequence, adjusted our thinking and behavior to survive on icy surfaces.
Our “national sport” is hockey, after all. We play broomball, figure skate, speed skate, dance skate, just plain skate, curl, ringette, and generally navigate through the icy environment much of the time. Ice makes people cautious. One must remain stable, go slow, be steady and alert and balanced. There is always the chance of falling. So Ice lends uncertainly to situations.
We build ice castles, sculpt in ice, fish on and through the ice. And if one includes sub-groups of Ice, there is snow!! And we also do lots on snow. From skiing downhill or cross-country to Winter camping and snow-shoeing, from building snowforts and igloos to skidooing, Canadians have developed attitudes and lifestyle technologies that take into account cold, slippery and treacherous surfaces.
The frigid environment that produces all of this Ice and Ice-consciousness is also a large factor in the Canadian Character. The very air, the wind, the water and the large amount of white, frozen precipitation makes the Canadian wary in every environment. It’s difficult to be brash and boastful in the midst of a malevolent climatic environment.
This weather produces many hazards for the inhabitants of The Great White North. From ice-bergs to avalanches to the hazards of frozen lakes to the interruption of road, air, and rail travel, we are constantly put upon by our harsh Winter conditions.
There is nothing in the frozen white landscape so disturbing as thin ice, except perhaps an avalanche of the same material. Ice brings many hazards. It can wound, injure and kill or instill an eternal chill into the bones and flesh and sinues so that “bone-chilling” becomes a familiar and life-threatening spinal experience.
Ice can take our toes, our fingers, hands, noses, eyebrows and ears. It can put us in a jam at sea and give us a “brain freeze” in the height of summer. It hampers our plans and our machinery and affects our planning. Ice can put us out of control suddenly and in many dangerous situations on roads, hills, steps and stairs, on ramps, sidewalks, or on the way to get groceries.
Yet Ice also brings an abundance of benefits and we have sought to capture this slippery element and put it in our daily service. Frozen foods and frozen dinners, desserts, drinks and juices, meats and veggies and fruits, icecream and ice cubes and frozen yogurt; all of these have become parts of our daily culture along with the technologies that support them while keeping us cool in house or car and preserving our food.
Ice has gathered to itself meaning and metaphor and significance of symbolic types. It teaches us lessons, gives us relief and hope and builds spontaneous bridges that are risky and temporary, across unpassable chasms. Ice is the solid and chilly expression of the larger part of our earthly physical environment and the bulk of our own physical substance.
Today there is freezing rain falling to beautify and simultaneously make our environment dangerous. The beautiful and shimmering coat of Ice on the majestic oak can bring it suddenly crashing down upon us. Everything becomes slippery, tenuous and unpredictable. Life slows down and requires special caution from us if we intend to survive the day intact.
Ice has not only become a part of our culture, habits and thinking. It has forced upon us the necessities inherent in its presence and in so doing has shaped our thinking, our feelings, our actions, our values and aesthetics. It has penetrated into the deep and influential parts of our collective and individual imagination and has taught us a way of life that requires co-operation and collective action. Our psyches and our society in Canada have, in many ways, been shaped by this environmental reality. Here we know that Ice can preserve us or destroy us and that it deserves our attention and respect.
Much of life is slippery like Ice.
Jake Willis - Guelph, Ontario, Canada
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