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1 comments about Escape: In Search of the Natural Soul of Canada.

1. I picked up this book hoping to get some insight into the Canadian identity. I wanted to know the character traits that make us unique in the world and what we value as a society. It would be nice to have an answer to the question "who are we and what do we stand for?" "We are not American" is beginning to wear thin. In London, England the statues are of warriors and generals. France has their thinkers and philosophers and Finland, it's to architects the honour goes. But Canada - "it's cold," or "ice hockey" or "beer" is the closest I've heard. It's sad, but true.

   Ernest Hemingway once said that all American literature was a search for paradise - "the great good place where death, pain and suffering do not exist and where you don't have to work hard to survive." The song "Try to Remember" comes to mind also. But I suspect it's hard wired into all our psyches to want to return to paradise, to childhood, not just in Canadians. That Canadians can do it and at what cost to the environment is something that should give us all reason to worry. Is our quest in search of "nirvana" destroying our environment? Is that quest really satisfying our real hunger, which is to find our stillness within, to create harmony, prosperity, and peace, in our homes, our workplaces and our communities.

   I think it's time we worked some more on building our character back again and face the awful reality that we have created, the one we are trying to escape from. We can create a society that lives nirvana every day of our lives, so we don't have to play "pretend" for a week or two in the summer. Escaping never works and never will. What we are escaping from is going to be right there when we return.

   Anyone who saw the History Channel program Pioneer Quest, will know that living off the land was pure hardship so I don't buy this author's idea of trying to portray it as something wonderful and magical. It is a lot of work to live off nature in the raw, no time for sitting around on a deck drinking beer and having barbeques, like our cottagers do.

   So, I'm not impressed with the idea that we are especially unique for our escapism or that we treasure nature more than the next guy. If fact I know it's not so, that as life becomes speeded up all people everywhere long to escape. Whether it's going to the wilderness, watching TV, numbing our senses through drugs and alcohol, eating too much, and on and on, everybody seems to want to escape. We need to work on why, and not build an identity on such a concept as escapism.

   This book is nothing more than another escape, into the authors life. We have our own lives to value so why bother with his. One who is always escaping never grows up and we need to grow up as a nation and stand for something again.

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