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Written by Lethbridge Herald
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Monday, June 29 2009, 10:49 PM |
What does it mean to be Canadian? How would you describe Canada in 100 words or less? What image is unmistakably Canadian?
Good questions with no single answer.
But one website affiliated with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games is doing its best to challenge all of us to provide an answer.
Canada CODE (Cultural Olympiad’s Digital Edition) is a website launched in May inviting anyone of any age to submit text, photos and other content for the rest of the world to see. At its launch, the 2010 Winter Games Secretariat described Canada CODE as a “constantly morphing online portrait of contemporary Canada created by Canadians.”
The website itself (canadacode.vancouver 2010.com) suggests the site will eventually reveal “our mysterious blend of diversity and connection.”
“And let’s face it, we are a bit of a mystery to the rest of the world,” the site explains. “We all know there’s more to share than those well-known images of ice and snow, moose and mountains.”
The site, bear in mind, launched in springtime, so there aren’t a lot of ice and snow photos just yet. There are, however, plenty of wildlife snapshots and lots of mountains.
Lethbridge photographer Dorrit Zaroba’s image of Lethbridge’s High Level Bridge is featured, as are beautiful photos from elsewhere in the great nation. Viewers might have to do some homework of their own, though, to learn about where to go to see these sights and what is unique or significant or stellar about them.
Further, the site offers up poll results on such age-old Canadian questions as: ketchup vs. gravy sauce; powerboat vs. sailboat; and tent vs. hotel.
Meanwhile, high-profile Canadian artists and writers have been asked to help out the project. The site says it will pose a “thought-provoking question” to these celebrity contributors and then anyone can join in on the same topic. Sample questions include, “What object says Canada to you?” and “What do you do outside?”
Anyone can submit photos or verse, assigning to their submission a colour, an energy level, an intention and other “tags.” What these various tags mean is a bit of a mystery, too.
A quick look through the photo entries reveals a good number of Canadian cats and dogs, snapshots of children and scenic vistas and shots of people posing and smiling. In other words, it’s like a Facebook photo album for a nation.
If it all seems rather odd, well, maybe that’s Canadian, too.
If the site hasn’t seemed to catch what is truly Canadian just yet, feel free to do something about it. Submit a photo or a poem or something that is quintessentially Canadian.
That task is not as easy as it seems.
And if you solve the question of what it is to be Canadian or how you might introduce someone from another country to what Canada is in a single image or phrase, drop us a line, too. We’d love to hear it.
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