Canada Day Author Feature

What do you like best about Canada? Do you have a favourite food that you think is Canadian? What will you and your family do to celebrate Canada Day on July 1st? We asked four Puffin authors the very same questions! Read below to see what their answers are...

Shane Peacock is the author of five books, most recently The Bonebeds of the Badlands. The newest book in the Dylan Maples Adventures series, Monster in the Mountains will also be out this fall.

What will you and your family do for Canada Day 2003? We have three small children and we like to talk to them a great deal about what a great country we live in, so we will certainly be doing something together on Canada Day. We will probably go to celebrations in a nearby town on the shore of Lake Ontario. Often the "Snowbirds" fly by and we take the kids to the beach to see them zoom in from the lake. At night we'll likely visit with friends who live on a hill in the countryside near us. They have a beautiful view of the neighbouring towns and the whole surrounding area of rolling fields. From their front porch, we'll have an amazing seat to watch the local fireworks displays.

What food or dish comes to mind when you think of Canada? My family goes back seven generations in southern Ontario and most of us have been farmers. So, when I think of Canadian food I often think of the meals I used to have as a child on my grandparents' farm. They often had big haying crews for dinner at harvest season - the big farm kitchen was just filled up with big men with big arms eating massive home-cooked meals. It was a real meat-and-potatoes kind of occasion with the world's best apple pies with either cream or cheese on top. Everyone ate until they were bursting. No one worried about calories. That's Canada to me - solid, hard-working and unpretentious. And of course, I can't forget the butter tarts. Apparently they are indigenous to Canada. I love that! And my mother makes the best!

What do you love most about our country? I like so many things about Canada that it's hard to pick out one. It's just the best place in the world to live. But I think what stands out the most is the fact that we are a country of compromise and inclusion. Anybody can come here from anywhere and feel at home. We don't demand that you conform to anything, and you have a say from the day you arrive. Instead of fighting with each other or running around the world going to war with others, we always try to compromise, to see things from others' points of view. We were created that way - we had a country of English and French folks, Protestant and Catholic. Traditionally, those sorts didn't get along. But we sat down and worked things out. We're still trying to do that. I think we are a unique country, an unsual one. Most country's are born because of revolutions or great passions or because everyone in that country is similar. We weren't, and we aren't. There's room for everyone here. We seem kind of polite and even boring on the surface but we are boiling with ideas underneath and have made all sorts of progress as a nation that makes us a place that other countries look to... The fact that we can kick anyone's butt on the ice, in the world's fastest and most dramatic sport—hockey—is pretty cool too.

Bestselling author Eric Walters has written seven books including Royal Ransom and Camp X.

What will you and your family do for Canada Day 2003? We will be in Nova Scotia—where we go every summer—visiting family and taking part in a wedding.

What food or dish comes to mind when you think of Canada? Back bacon, beaver tails, lasagna and pizza (you can't get any more Canadian than that).

What do you love most about our country? I am proud to be a citizen of the greatest country in the world. This is not just my opinion but the opinion of the United Nations which has voted us the best place to live four of the last five years. But if you think about it we SHOULD be the best. If the Toronto Maple Leafs could go to any team in the NHL and take whatever players they wanted can you imagine what a great team it would be? Think about what Canada did - we went to England, France, Germany, Sweden, Latvia, Jamaica, China, Poland, India, Pakinstan, Russia, Ethiopia and said "Give us your best", and that's what they did. Look around, that's what we have here in this country — the best!

O.R. Melling grew up in Canada but she now lives and writes in Ireland. Her most recent book is called The Chronicles of Fairie., a compendium of the first three books in the series, The Hunter's Moon, The Summer King and The Light-Bearer's Daughter.

What will you and your family do for Canada Day 2003? Half my family are in Canada and half are here in Ireland. I am a member of the Irish-Canadian Society here. They haven't announced their Canada Day celebration yet but usually it's a barbecue, Canadian-style (the Irish aren't big into barbies). Sometimes I go to the Canadian Embassy as they hold Open House.

What food or dish comes to mind when you think of Canada? The Irish don't eat grilled cheese sandwiches or Western sandwiches. I have introduced these to friends and to my daughter and they love them. Also, here you don't get hamburgers with all the trimmings - tomato, lettuce, onion, plus relishes and ketchup. Before I became a vegetarian, I passed on this hamburger secret to European friends who loved it. Oh, while gravy on your french fries is very Canadian, Irish people don't find it too strange the way Americans do. Irish people put curry sauce on their fries (yum) and canned corn on their pizzas (yuk)! What I miss the most, however, is plain potato chips! Here the 'plain' are onion-flavoured. Here french fries are called chips and chips are called crisps.

What do you love most about our country? And what do you miss the most living in Ireland? The thing I love most about Canada is the thing I miss the most - the mixture of cultures. Though there has been emigration to Ireland recently due to the improved economy, it is still basically a one language/monotone country, i.e. most people are white and speak English (with a bit of Irish thrown in). I love the way Canada contains the world with all its cultures and languages.

I also miss the snow! Here it rains in the winter. I was so happy to be in the Northwest Territories last year for Children's Book Week in November. The snow, the cold, the frost, the ice, the Northern Lights—C'´etait mervellieux! I miss my friends and family in Canada but I do get to see them at least once a year as I return often. I miss Toronto where I grew up, the Big Apple. Right now I am living in the small town where I was born which is beside the sea. A bit small for a Torontonian, I have to say.