Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
Today marks the 23rd year that I’ve lived in Canada, I arrived here from Scotland in 1983 on an Air Canada L-1011 [C-FTNL], with Captain J.P. McDonald at the helm. My sister was only a few months old and I was a just a kid.
A lot of people don’t realize how thankful I am to be a Canadian. Our national anthem and our flag represent the values and the kindness that Canadians in general portray. It’s our diverse culture and ability to keep social values of the old land and mix them with the new values learned here that makes Canada such a fantastic place to live.
We settled in a small town outside of Toronto and while it was only a few hours to the big city, it seemed as though we were worlds apart. The first few years were rough. A chubby brown kid with a Scottish accent doesn’t really take well around small town Ontario. But I survived. I made a lot of friends before leaving to make my mark on the world, many of them whom are still my friends today.
The hotel that we stayed at during the first few weeks was on a river. I loved to fish but never had much luck catching anything but tadpoles in Scotland. My Dad, knowing that I was itching to catch a fish, took a sewing kit from my Mom, bent the needle and made a hook. He then took a cork and made a float for me and gave me some bread for bait. After a bit of trial and error I was able to get the bread to stay on the hook when I threw the line in the water. The water was so clear that I could see the fish swimming around. I can still remember watching a sunfish slowly move up and take my bait.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life and also my first day in Canada.
A lot of people don’t realize how thankful I am to be a Canadian. Our national anthem and our flag represent the values and the kindness that Canadians in general portray. It’s our diverse culture and ability to keep social values of the old land and mix them with the new values learned here that makes Canada such a fantastic place to live.
We settled in a small town outside of Toronto and while it was only a few hours to the big city, it seemed as though we were worlds apart. The first few years were rough. A chubby brown kid with a Scottish accent doesn’t really take well around small town Ontario. But I survived. I made a lot of friends before leaving to make my mark on the world, many of them whom are still my friends today.
The hotel that we stayed at during the first few weeks was on a river. I loved to fish but never had much luck catching anything but tadpoles in Scotland. My Dad, knowing that I was itching to catch a fish, took a sewing kit from my Mom, bent the needle and made a hook. He then took a cork and made a float for me and gave me some bread for bait. After a bit of trial and error I was able to get the bread to stay on the hook when I threw the line in the water. The water was so clear that I could see the fish swimming around. I can still remember watching a sunfish slowly move up and take my bait.
It was one of the happiest moments of my life and also my first day in Canada.
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