We just got back from an extended weekend trip to Edmonton, Alberta. We were there for Game Con Canada, where I was tagging along with my husband as he helped out at the Logomancy Media booth. They’re a group of content streamers who do a lot of TTRPGs and related videos and podcasts, fundraising for charities like Make-a-Wish and the Trans Lifeline.
It was my first time ever in Canada, and two things I really appreciated about a nerd convention there: the opening ceremony included a land acknowledgment by a performer named Dallas Arcand Jr, and the tag-line for the show was “Bring Your Eh-Game.”
The first night in Edmonton, we went to a bar where every screen was playing the game in the Stanley Cup final between the Oilers and the Florida Panthers. At least 2/3 of the people in the bar (and throughout the city) were wearing Oilers jerseys, and asking me what I thought of that 2nd period, eh? (I had to admit that I know even less about hockey than I do about most sports).
When the Oilers won that game, it was the best thing, possibly the highlight of the trip for me. The entire bar seemed to erupt, and previously mild-mannered guys were now screaming and hugging each other. The bar sound system started blasting “La Bamba” — along with “Informer” by Snow, which didn’t make sense to me until I found out Snow was Canadian — which became the Oilers’ victory song to pay tribute to locker room attendant and fan Joey Moss, who loved the song, after his death.
I realize that forming an opinion about Canada based on a single weekend in Edmonton would be kind of like forming an opinion about the whole of the United States after a few days in Des Moines, but overall my impression was that Canada was like the US if everything were about 10-15% better. It’s not a magical, perfect, paradise, but there’s just a baseline level of kindness and sanity that hasn’t been rotted away by the last couple of decades of fringe groups in the US throwing absolute tantrums whenever anyone proposes making things better.
And I admit I already had a positive impression of Canada, at least as far back as working on the Kim Possible project at Epcot. We were working out of the Canada pavilion with a bunch of cast members from Vancouver and Alberta, and there was just a relentlessly good vibe through the whole project. I admit I still like to linger around the Canada pavilion to listen to the background music loop, which contains a flute-heavy instrumental version of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot. It’s corny, yes, but it never fails to bring back great memories of good people working on a very special project.