Today is a big day at HOK. It’s the day we celebrate our offices to the north: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Toronto, as we celebrate Canada Day. If you’re new to the office or visiting today, you would have noticed the Canadian flag displayed outside of the various HOK offices, and the reason why everyone is wearing red and white — it is customary to wish anyone wearing red a Happy Canada Day. As we at HOK celebrate all of our offices, and the wide range of locales they may be in, I myself can’t wait for the American Independence Day. Especially because we have been granted the day off to celebrate with our American friends.

If you’re not familiar with Canada Day, as most people are not, it is the most important calendar day, besides my birthday, of the year.

Canada was founded in 1867, although people were already settled in the land to the north for more than a century before becoming a country. We celebrate Canada Day on July 1 because it was the earliest day our government could think of in July to take their summer vacation.

Now what many people may not know is that Canada was originally part of the Commonwealth, associated with the mother hen herself, Great Britain. Years ago, around the 1700’s, Britain established two nations to send its people who they believed didn’t fit in with the British lifestyle. The juvenile delinquents were sent to the penal colony of Australia because of the nice beaches and potential party atmosphere. Meanwhile, the shy, timid kids were sent to Canada because it was cold and lonely.

One day around the year 1850, a drunken sailor named John was bound to go to the land down under with the other bad kids, when the British government made a mistake. See Johnny had been drinking gin the night before deployment, and ended up passing out. The guards, unsure of what to do with this sleeping little boy, decided to put him on the boat for Canada, because it wasn’t possible for anyone to pass out from drinking alcohol at the time.

As you can imagine, when Johnny arrived at this frozen tundra he was enraged at how lonely and desolate of a place it was. He was expecting to go to the beach and play with these mythical creatures that have pouches and bounce around. All he could find was a goofy looking creature that had a flat tail and ate wood all day. Worst of all was that all the kids he was with were boring and intelligent. All they wanted to do was study the land and hide in the bush.
So one night, after a somber night of drinking tree sap and clean water, Johnny told the boat captain from England that he was tired of the people he was bringing him. He wanted a trophy wife and children that couldn’t be smarter than him. So he declared the land bounded by a rock to the west, a pond to the east, some white stuff to the north, and an imaginary line to the south, was all his. He would be the only one who could decide who was allowed to come onto his land.

Meanwhile, the kids out in the bush had no idea what was going on. They awoke one morning to this mumbling drunken fool, saying words only someone to the south of Canada might understand. As it was from that day forth, the country of Canada was created — with highly intelligent people and idiots for a government.

Years passed and as the country evolved. It is still tradition for each and every Canadian to return to the wild on the first day of July. While the Americans fire up the bbq, grill dead meat, and blow up the sky, we Canadians sit in solitude, quiet as can be, being one with nature. Listening to the wind, looking at the stars, and thinking if Kumbaya could talk. What would he say?

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Justin Zawyrucha’s other blog posts:
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