My name is Jill and I’m a 14th generation Canadian. That’s not a typo. Fourteenth. My life is like a Heritage Minute. The Belland Canadian roots go all the way back to 1640 when good old Guillaume Couture came over to New France.
Wait, there’s more.
Elk Island National Park is where I spent my early years. Dad built a solar-powered house on an acre of land an hour outside of Edmonton. Free roaming bison, moose, deer, and elk made regular appearances in our back yard. Beaver Pond was a hop, skip and a jump away I kid you not.
My sister and I grew up pretending to be characters from The Beachcombers (I was Relic and Jana was Bruno). Mom cooked banana chips on a wood-burning stove. We went canoeing on weekends and ate tourtiere at Christmas time. Doesn’t get more Canadian than that, does it?
But you don’t have to be from a National Park to appreciate our country’s beautiful landscape.
I am grateful for the opportunity to live in a place where the true north wild and free is a mere 45-minute drive from my condo in the city. Talk to anyone after Canada Day and chances are they went to the cabin, for a hike, or rafting down the river.
This year on Canada Day, I just might call Mom up to break out the banana chips and celebrate.
