Tom Brokaw Explains Canada to Americans

This past week I’ve been on summer holiday in the Okanagan valley in British Columbia.

I love coming out here for many reasons but one of them is because it allows be to reconnect with nature and disconnect with technology.

While I have been enjoying streaming episodes of Modern Family thanks to my hulu plus account on my iPhone, I have also enjoyed spending time with my thoughts, idea as well as visiting with friends, family and making new friends with the people we meet along the way.

During one of the many visits with a new Canadian friend I found my self reminiscing about the amazing trip my girlfriend and I took at the last minute to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Games.

You see, back in 1988 when I was a young buck living in Calgary I choose to go to a birthday party instead of the Olympic ski jumping event.

Although I do remember the goodie bag from that birthday party being pretty amazing I always, as an adult anyway, regretted not going to an Olympic even on home soil.

In 2010, I decided I was not going to make that mistake again and boy was that a great decision. We got to watch the Canadian men win gold at the curling:

We watched Warren Shouldice hold the lead at the Men’s Aeriel event:

We got to celebrated with all of Canada the Canadian Men’s hockey team brought the gold medal home to Canada after Iginla passed the puck to Crosby leading to the golden goal:

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Here is what the streets of Vancouver looked like after the Men’s hockey won GOLD!!!

Taking in the events and the patriotism first hand was an experience I’ll never forget.

Beyond the sports there were a few things that I really enjoyed about the Olympic games and those were the excellent segments that feature how great of a country Canada is.

The one i particular that I remember was when Tom Brokaw did a piece on Canada.  It’s a beauty.

Tom Brokaw Explains Canada to Americans

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Some of my favorite parts of this video are:

• Canadians won the war of 1812 against the Americans yet in 1921 we erected a monument to commenerate the treated the ended the war of 1812 and it is inscribed with “may these gates never be closed”
• Canada and the USA have the largest trading relationship between any two countries in the world topping over $1.5 billion per day (per day!)
• Canada is the United States’ largest oil supplier
• The USA is Canada #1 tourist destination
• Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world
• The coldest day on record in North American was recorded in 1947 in Snag, Yukon with the temperature dropping to -81C (-114F)
• The Highway of Heros
• Ken Taylor and Canada’s roll in the Iran Hostage Crisis
• Operation Yellow Ribbon on September 11, 2001 & the hospitality shown to the 33,000 passengers re-routed to Canada
• The peaceful relationship between Canada and the USA (excluding the war of 1812 I guess)
• What blows my mind is that after all of that… the other journalist says “you know what struck me … there are more people in California than all of Canada”  REALLY?!?!? That is what struck you?!? Oh well…

Another favorite part of the Olympics came during the opening ceremonies with slam poet (spoken word) Shane Koyczan performed his original piece title “We Are More”.  It’s really worth the 3 minutes and 15 second to give it a listen and then share.

Shane Koyczan: We Are More

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Shane does a great job summing up what it means to be Canadian in a form of art and expression I was not previously familiar with.

A couple of years later we took in one of his live performances in Calgary and if you ever have the chance to see Shane live I highly recommend you do.

As you have noticed, this is not a typical post here at How To Get It In Canada.

I’m not sure if it was because of the long open water swims I’ve been taking in the Okanagan Lake or if it’s seeing the scenery that BC has to offer or if it was how looking up at the stars made me feel like a kid again that inspired this post about Canada and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Whatever it was I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me and maybe a thing or two about Canada that you didn’t know before.

I’ll resume the regular scheduled guides on unblocking websites from the USA and around the world on Tuesday.