Your Very Own Canadian Scene!

While noodling around the Government of Canada website today (it was work! The Defence Team Newsletter told me to go there!) I came upon a Cut Past and Colour activity for kids that allows you to, yes, create your very own Canadian scene.

Here are some highlights. I've noted those images which either display some degree or ingenuity, or a heavy borrowing from the CanGov Dept of Cliched Images Vault.

Fisherman having a tender moment with what appears to be a cod. Pity the cod fishery has collapsed.



Prairie grain elevator. Like cod, a dying species. I've driven a large chunk of the prairies and these are pretty much all gone, like the Canadian Wheat Board. A few tatterdemallion specimens still survive. The concrete silo thingys that have replaced them are quite ugly. Bring back the grain elevators!



Inuit igloo. Thanks, CanGov, for promulgating the idea that most Canadians live in these.



Actually, many of our Inuit and northern first nations live in derelict housing in communities like Atawapaskat:



Cow. Actually, I don't think of cows as being especially iconic images of Canada. Unless you are an Alberta Beef cow. Although most Alberta cows are contained by barbed wire fences, so I'm not sure if this is an Eastern cow or a Quebec vache. If so I am compelled to ask, what's wrong with Alberta cows? Why did you need to hire some snooty Eastern cow?



CN Tower. If snooty Eastern cows don't get Western Canadians riled up, then an image of Toronto is sure to incense many westerners. As they say, Toronto gives unity to the rest of Canada, since it is the one thing we are sure to hate. Still, I have to admit, the CN Tower is a better choice than one of our curiously shaped (Calgary Saddledome, Toronto SkyDome before it became named whatever it is now) or collapsing (Montreal Olympic Stadium) sports structures.



Mountie. OK, this image I like because it's an innovative and progressive take on an old Canadian icon. Just don't be fooled by this image into thinking that all Canadian Mounties look like supermodels. We do have many female Mounties and they are quite capable women. Some of them are not suing the Force for sexual harassment.


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Images that the Feds could have used but, thankfully, didn't, because they would have been confusing images and probably hard to colour:

Provincial and federal ministers arguing over Health Care funding

First nations people and environmentalists arguing against oil pipelines,

Oil and gas industry spin doctors arguing that hydraulic fracturing, Tar Sands and oil pipelines are a good thing

NHL spin doctors minimizing hockey violence and concussions

Parliament on a rare day when it is actually in session

Trade mission to China selling Canada while trying to slip in that annoying UN veto

Feel free to mention your own iconic image that you would include in Your Very Own Canadian Scene. And, dear American readers, remember, you aren't really colouring if you don't spell it with a "u".