Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Christie and I am in my final year at UBC pursuing a major in History, with a concentration in Canadian History. This will constitute my first serious attempt at a blog and I relish the chance to delve into a new area. I have been a reader of various blogs for years, primarily fashion or the like, so this is a bit of a step outside of my comfort zone.

English 470 caught my eye first due to the content, but this idea of blogging having such an integral role within the course definitely drew me in. When I watched the welcome video of the course and realized it was to bear the tongue-in-cheek title of “Oh Canada!… Our Home and Native Land?” my desire to take English 470 was solidified.

Now, when it comes to myself and my relationship with Canada, my family has long standing roots in Canada, and I have written several papers in the past discussing them and their impact on me. My maternal grandmother’s family goes back eleven generations within Canada, (we even have a lake named after my family in the Okanagan), and yet she married a first generation Italian immigrant. As this occurred in the early 1940’s, her family was absolutely distraught. He was not Canadian enough for them, not Christian enough, and not good enough. Luckily she ignored them, married him, and a generation later here I am! If my grandmother had not seen around her own family’s narrow description of Canadian then I would not be here today. Here’s a picture of the happy couple:

My Grandad + Nana!

As a History major I have spent a fair bit of my time at UBC discussing not only what is and what isn’t ‘Canadian’, but also looking into indigenous cultures from around the world and I have developed a definite interest in both subjects. In a previous course I delved into the idea of oral history as a legitimate one and we discussed its use in Canadian courts, so I am intrigued to take a look at storytelling and everything it can mean once again. I have also read a few of the books I noticed on the syllabus already, and look forward to going over them in a more academic context than reading in my spare time.

With this course focusing on Canada I thought it pertinent to look into what the general public sees as being ‘Canadian’, and was somewhat surprised by the two following articles, take a look and tell me what you think! They both seem to be focused on saying more about what isn’t Canadian than what is.