I’m the Canuck of the group, living somewhere north of NY State. And there are some weird names up here, certainly. My area was settled with a mixture of french and First People’s (that’d be the Canuck equivalent of a Native American)…anyway, the two languages get mishmashed sometimes, resulting in names like Gananoque (Gan-ah-nah-KWAY) and Cataraqui (which SHOULD be Cat-ah-rah-kee, but comes out Cat-ah-ROCK-way)
THen, since I live close to Quebec, there are a lot of French names I see on a regular basis. Places like Montreal (Mon-Tree-ALL if you’re english, Mon-ray-al if you’re french.) There’s a skit on one of the TV shows which shows a Canadian radio announcer…every time they hit a french word, they say it…properly, avec accent. It’s hilarious…and we all do it.
In the middle of this, I have given my children all very Celtic/Gaelic names. The rest of my family have chosen very biblical ones. Yeah, my kids stand out with Luke, John, Jordan, Christopher…(I could go on, I have a huge family.) My youngest is Graeden. I might be making a statement. Perhaps.
And Canada is the strangest place I’ve ever lived, and I love it. We have things like poutine (which is french fries with gravy and cheese curd on it) and Beaver Tails (which are a deep fried pastry dipped in sugar). We pick what we like of British and American English, and therefore can call people ‘fucking wankers’ with panache.
The town I live in…is a University town. We have what amounts to an “Ivy League” school, a college, and a military college all in one town. We also have 8 prisons. So the population is weird, diverse, and fascinating. THere’s a coffee shop downtown you can walk into at just about any time and you’ll find bohemian artist types sitting at one table having a conversation with the buttoned-up lawyer types at the next.
It’s a youthful population in a city steeped in history. And THAT is what I love most about where I live: the contradiction. The freezing cold in winter, the boiling heat in summer. I have an art gallery in the store next to my house, which is so out in the country I have a cow-farm two blocks down. Dichotomy. I love it 
June 20th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I have never been to Canada…but would lurve to visit one day!
June 21st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Is it weird that I never thought of Native Americans in Canada as being called anything other that Native Americans?
I was thinking North American rather than United States of America with the Native bit. Ah, well. Learn something new every day!