Featured Story The Passing Show

An RV, a bear and Alberta – all because of COVID-19

Written by Norris McDonald

Years ago, and I mean years, I had a friend, the late Rae Corelli, who was mentoring a journalism student. I won’t say which journalism school, because this is embarrassing.

We were out for dinner one night and she was hanging on his every word as he was regaling her and two other students with stories about the good ol’ days. Suddenly, she said: “You’re making this up.”

“I’m what?” he said.

“You’re making this up. There are no places in the world named Flin Flon. Or Moose Jaw.”

After recovering from surprise; shock, actually – this young woman was in university, remember – he explained to her that they were towns in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The next time I saw her, I gave her an Atlas. “Read up on Canada,” I said. “If you want to write about this country for newspapers, or be a producer on The National (just about all the journalism students I’ve talked to recently want jobs on The National), it might be a good idea to know the geography of the place.”

Unfortunately, she isn’t the only one. Canadians, as a whole, don’t really know their country.  I can say that without doubt. This starts with the politicians, who fly everywhere. They go here, there and everywhere in Canada but they look down on most of it.  I guarantee that a railroad engineer or a cross-country bus driver or a long-distance trucker is going to know more about the country than a Cabinet minister.

And ordinary Canadians – I hate that phrase; what is “ordinary” about anybody? – aren’t any better. Often, it’s not their fault. When I was young, and we went on vacation, my dad had two weeks off and we always drove to Nova Scotia because he’d been a kid there and still had family. It wasn’t till I’d started in the newspaper business and was in my 20s that I made it west of Ontario.

Yes, Canadians might know where Ottawa is, and Fredericton, and Edmonton and, yes, Flin Flon, but that doesn’t mean they really know anything about those places.

But the expression, “every cloud has a silver lining,” couldn’t be more true than when applied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What’s that, you say? There’s something good to say about COVID-19?

Well, yes. Kind of.

The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine, Roxane Barry, who works in automotive. After we got the business out of the way, I asked her how she was dealing with the pandemic.

“I went on vacation,” she laughed. “My partner and I got on Air Canada and we flew to Calgary and we rented an RV and we explored Alberta. It was wonderful. The RV had been disinfected and it was our home. We felt very comfortable and safe.”

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(Originally published in the Toronto Star on Sat., Sept. 5, 2020)