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If nothing else, Canada is a land of imaginative storytellers, especially when our parents catch us sneaking in way past our curfew. Let's be immodest for a minute: There's just something about the long winter nights and wide open spaces that makes us so good at weaving an entertaining yarn. So what better way to celebrate the new millennium than by taking a trip on The Great Canadian Story Engine? Conceived and created by some pretty creative people at the Canadian Film Centre, the Story Engine encourages Canadians of all stripes to share their stories online with the world. They're also planning a trip across the country to capture the life stories of people along the way in a big bus, which is an interesting story in itself, we think.
Speaking of interesting stories, did you hear the one about this humongous drill out in the middle of the ocean? It's no fairy tale, it's called Hibernia, and since 1997 it's been pumping 150,000 barrels of crude oil production per day. Not bad for a platform that, we estimate, stands 224 metres high (which is half the height of New York's Empire State Building, or 33 metres taller than the Calgary Tower). Lots of pictures and facts about life aboard the rig await, so check it out.
Not feeling courageous enough to work in the middle of an iceberg-infested ocean? We don't blame you; we're hardly from heroic stock ourselves. Truth be told, we're usually just one paper cut away from crawling under our desks and crying like a Bre-X investor. But that doesn't mean we don't enjoy a good tale about Heroes of Yore and Lore: Canadian Heroes in Fact and Fiction. Even though our history is full of stories about people doing some pretty heroic things, Canadians have had a reputation for not giving them their due -- scholar and smart guy Northrop Frye once said we are "a country which has manifested a great deal of courage but has never responded with much warmth to charismatic leadership." Maybe, maybe not -- but here's a site that at least lets us know who those charismatic types were.
Our heroes? Shucks, we wouldn't know where to start. Banting and Best. MacDonald and Laurier. Siegel and Shuster. Wayne and Shuster. Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Casey and Finnegan. And let's not forget those crazy kids named Scott, Mark, Dave, Kevin, and Bruce. We've got all their adventures on tape, but if you need a pick-me-up during the day, the Kids in the Hall Audio Archive is the next best thing, with all the classics ("I am crushing your head!!") we know so well.
But if you want to talk about heroes and the stories about them, you can't forget to mention the coal miners of Cape Breton Island, or the site, History of Coal Mining in Cape Breton, that remembers them. Dangerous working environments... frequent cave-ins... bosses who put profit ahead of safety... hazardous health conditions... The coal miner's life story, as the site suggests, is full of enough heroism for anyone to take.
Finally, we end our story this week with a site that reminds us that not all stories are welcome in Canada. As A Chronicle of Freedom of Expression tells us, Canada hasn't always been the "true north strong and free" that it strives to be. In fact, there have been a lot of times when our governments have banned or censored books, magazines and movies without letting us decide for ourselves if they're worth looking at. Which is scarier -- books with disturbing images or someone deciding what you should see before you get to see it? A little something to think about when you snuggle down tonight with a good book. All in all, the story of not seeing stories is a pretty interesting story in itself.
Sites featured in this week's Canadian Picks
Previous Weeks' Picks: [ June 12, 2000 | June 5, 2000 | May 29, 2000 | May 22, 2000 ]
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