Live drawing installation at Project 165 of one of my Canadian-themed illustrations. Photo by Chico Gupta.
While experiencing my first official wander with resident Wanderer, Alex Bowron in Ottawa (an appropriate locale for my research if there was any), I took the opportunity to pick her brain about her perspectives on Canada. We sparked a discussion about Canadian pride, citizenship and stereotypes. When it came to stereotypes, like many people, she listed the beaver as the first Canadian image to come to mind. This came as no surprise to me, having been obsessed with drawing not only the noble beaver, but also otter, deer, bear, moose and squirrel as my first attempts at my Canadian-themed project.
As Todd Falkowsky writes on the Canadian Design Resource blog, “Canada is one of the few countries that consistently use their native animals in identity work as opposed to historical people and human achievements.” Case in point:
Beaver Gas logo
Husky Oil logo. Very Great White North.
Waterfront Trail logo in situ
Waterfront Trail logo
Having made a few cross-country tours in my lifetime, it makes a lot of sense to me that many Canadians would first and foremost identify with the native flora and fauna.
Majestic Dempster Highway in August, Yukon Territory. Photo by Rocco de Giacomo.
It occurs to me that perhaps the reason why many historical Canadian figures and human achievements are often overlooked in Canadian pop culture is because of the presentation. Compare if you will the Grade 10 History textbook to the works of Pierre Berton and Chester Brown (to name but a couple). I was bored to tears in high school but imagine if I was given Pierre Berton’s books to read! During tour preparations late one night while researching
all things Canadian on Historica, I discovered a plethora of rich Canadian folklore and fascinating human interest stories of Canadians past. I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing to have patterns that illustrate Canadian people and their achievements? More on that later.
The infamous Dionne Quintuplets, born in Quebec, the first quints to survive infancy.
—-xoxo, crew member Lisa
