Friends?

“There is no reason in the world why Canada as a Dominion, in the closest relationship to the United Kingdom, and the United States, a Republic, should not each, in its own way, go on “prospering and to prosper,” …”
-from a letter signed Strathcona, London, Eng., Nov. 32d, 1904, published in The Hub and the Spokes by Anson A. Gard, Strathcona Edition, Ottawa and New York: The Emerson Press, 1904.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The Strathcona edition of this 1904 guide to Ottawa refers to Lord Strathcona, to whom the book is dedicated, along with Sir Sandford Fleming, in a three-paragraph Dedication naming them as two of “Nature’s Gentlemen.” The Hub refers to Ottawa, and the Spokes are the outlying areas.

None of this conveys the humour of the narrator, Rube, and his companion, The Colonel, and the various adventures they make for themselves in “the Capitol.” All the same, this is a valuable research source for the novel that I am working on.

Rube plays the innocent for his fun. A tour of the tower at Parliament includes learning about the tubes and tunnels by which the building is heated. “The engineer remarked that he did not furnish all the “hot” air of the capitol. I did not understand just what he meant, but smiled anyhow, as he looked as though he expected a smile.”

But we understand, 122 years later, that in our capital, enough hot air is being generated over Canada’s relationship with the United States to possibly contribute to climate change.