Ok, so after sitting for a few hours editing and completing my blog profile and format I have a subject to write about... My choice of template! Perhaps this will change over time, but as of day 1 I chose a wonderfully green and blue landscape with seeding dandelions. A definite contrast to what I see looking out my window: the snow is piled a few feet high, the sidewalks and roadways are tunnels of frozen whiteness. In fact, it is almost difficult to differentiate between the road and a snow bank while driving!
So I guess my blog background template is a form of escapism and yearning for a sunnier, warmer, greener kind of day (that is eventually on the distant horizon-the days are getting longer you know!)
So I ask:
Why, in 1754 did Anthony Henday decide that this site along the great North Saskatchewan river would be a good place to start and populate a city? I am dumbfounded by the unknown answer (well HBC is the answer, but come on... still!) I can only hypothesis of his reasons... Perhaps it was summer, mid-July possibly, when the river valley is flush with colour, the air light and fragrant from the surrounding nature... 'Cause the only other logical reason for settling any other time of year especially the dead of winter, upon frozen river, Mr. Henday must have had an automatic canoe starter or something like that!
And now 257 years later, here I am because by the luck of the lottery we call life, I was born into Canada (in fact in the dead of winter) and have grown up with fond memories of the snow filled days and cold nights. My family skied, both cross country and downhill, we tobogganed and skated on frozen lakes and ponds and fished from a hole in the ice and drank hot chocolate after doing so... all of this for entertainment...
It almost sounds crazy! Thank you Anthony Henday.
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