I have a lot of affection and feeling for Toronto and Montreal, which is maybe a little strange given their role as ostensible poles or opposites.
I was a little kid in Toronto, and doing things like taking a field trip to the CN Tower or going to see WWF at Maple Leaf Gardens was a big deal for me. My parents would get me coffee table books about Toronto and I resented our outdated, 1970s set of Funk & Wagnall encyclopedias that claimed it was the "second city of Canada". Every '80s Toronto kid knew we were #1.
We then moved to Halifax, which I never developed a lot of fellow-feeling for. I was introduced to the phrase "from away" despite being in fifth grade, and the best friends that defined my time there were a Brit and a Texan who have both since moved. I didn't gel with Halifax or the Maritimes, but looking back it was a good place to be a teenager and an interesting city. It just didn't speak my language in those years.
Then there was Montreal, and that was a big chapter. I crossed the Cartier and knew that I would give everything to this place, learn everything about it. I would learn things
for it, and put down the sort of roots my family didn't have.
Long story there. Sixteen years, n'importe quoi, far too many things to get into. A good portion of it was documented on this very site in different ways. Montreal got into my head, it sparked my imagination, it was to my eyes Canada's only example of... a certain type of image I was craving very badly. But in the end I had to run.
Montreal gives me phantom pains but it is a bit heavy to be in, even still. Toronto is where I have family, where my Canadian trips are centred; it is assuming a much larger role in my "Canada", but I became a man in Montreal and will always be joined to that city and its ways and manners in the post-referendum decade and into the current boom.
I have a lot of affection and sorrow for that young guy walking among the icy ruins of Griffintown in 1997, headphones in and dreaming, nothing much to do.
So those are my cities, and that was my Canada. I liked watching the Juniors here in Sweden, and lifted a glass when Canada won, but Canadian patriotism isn't a huge part of my life. Most people assume I am American until we get to know each other, and I don't really care because the nature of my differences from people here are somehow very "American", and meeting Americans "feels like home" nearly as much as meeting Canadians. Scandinavia is probably easier to admire than to love for me, but it's comfortable, and after a few years of hard soul-searching, I now feel like I will probably wind up remaining in Europe, perhaps forever.
I have a lot of hopes and loves for Canada, but the shape of my thoughts is becoming less Canadian. This forum is the only place where I really read about the country and its affairs. I find myself drifting into a phase of heavy criticism for the English-speaking peoples and the world they have made, so many of the ideas most dominant in Canada are not among my favourites right now.
I still think it is the most glorious physical country in the world. It is so magnificent. Don't forget about those things in all the urban burrowing; there is no wilderness like the Canadian wilderness, no expanse like the Canadian expanse. I hope we do something great with all of that one day.