Books to learn about Canadian culture

>>9565227
This, but more exclusively British columbia culture and history.

Canada is shit, why would you even bother trying to learn about it?

>>9565271
>Stable, prosperous, left-of-centre society with great international scores for healthcare, education etc. and ample natural resources

What's not to love fampai?

>>9565262

I'm OP so I don't have any recommendations, but why do you want to learn about BC specifically?

>>9565311
Because I live right in Washington just 30 miles from the border and visited a lot over the years.

>>9565302
The oil glut and the real estate bubble is going to kill us all.

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>>9565227
>trusting Conrad Black

>>9565227
>chink-infested frozen hole with shit climate >bowl of diarrhea as a national dish
>not a single good city except for Montreal
I don't know what kind of culture you expect to hear about. It may be a nice place to live purely by pragmatic stats, but culturally it's an absolute wasteland. Aside from a few good musicians and bands it has produced nothing of value in the sphere of arts.

>>9565380

I see, is Vancouver nice? I really want to visit some day. Seems like there's loads of hiking and outdoors stuff to do, what is there to do culturally?

>>9565393

I'm not that worried about the oil glut. I think Canada's probably going to use the wealth from it more or less wisely (more like Norway than Dubai). Things are gonna get wacky when water becomes a more important resource tho...

Real estate is crazy, but I'm from UK where it's equally bad and there's less potential to do anything about it (land is more expensive and there's less political incentive to build more housing).

Anyway, do you have any book recommendations for me famalam?

>>9565413

>Being derogatory about people with the oldest continuous culture in the world.

Chinese people are pretty much the only people I ever talk with who have in depth knowledge and opinions about what was happening in their country before 1000AD. Why are they an infestation exactly?

>>9565396

I actually don't know what to think about him. Is there any reason to think he wouldn't be able to write a good history of Canada? The book got pretty good reviews as far as I can tell.

>>9565227

All of these are approachable histories, biographies and political commentaries from all political persuasions. You'll find that most of Canadian cultural output is with reference to the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal belt. Some of my recommendations identify that unsavory reality and deconstruct it.

Sorry I Don't Speak French - Graham Fraser
The Trouble With Canada... Still - William D. Gairdner
René Lévesque - Daniel Poliquin
Pierre Elliott Trudeau - Nino Ricci (Both from a penguin series. Quality varies between authors. There may be some biographies of famous people from B.C.)
Let The Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark - Mary Janigan

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>>9565413

You're absolutely mistaken. Montreal is a corrupt overpriced and under serviced shithole. Hop the fuck off.

>>9565227
Canadian culture is highly regional because it's so large, sparsely populated, and the two most populous regions that are actually close to each-other have a massive cultural & linguistic divide between them.

Canadian history & culture isn't terribly interesting though and I would suggest learning about French and especially British history up until before Canada was founded if you want to understand Canada as both were massive influences and both were massively more interesting.

I would suggest reading up on Pierre Elliot Trudeau, especially if you're in western Canada, because he is an incredibly divisive figure there that left a massive impact on Canadian history. Also because his son currently rules the country.

If you're interested in Canadian & BC culture, visit the Vancouver Art Gallery, the museums, and maybe Fort Langley. Try visiting some of the Chinese-Canadian stuff as well, like the Dragonboat festival & The Night Market. If you want to understand the Sikhs, consider stopping by a gurdwara, learning the ettiquete like around handwashing and covering your hair, and getting a free meal from Langar. Learning about Native culture is also good for being well rounded but I lack recommendations for doing this, BC has some dope totem poles, you can see a few walking around the Stanley Park Seawall. Expo '86 and the 2010 Winter Olympics were fairly important to BCs identity.
The history around Hastings Street is fairly interesting. French Canadian culture is also fairly essential to Canadian Identity but it's obviously sparse in BC, look into the Quebec Winter Carnival though.

While more "low-brow" I really suggest watching stuff like Trailer Park Boys and stuff like that because Canadians main exposure to Canadian culture outside of schools is a result of Canadian Content rules on broadcast television, stuff like Red Green, Letterkenny, Corner Gas, The Beachcombers (For old folks), Rick Mercer, Hockey Night in Canada, Kids in the Hall. While not really about Canada the X-Files series is a point of local pride in BC because it was largely made here. Try "The Greatest Canadian" series. Bad Cop Bon Cop is also on Canadian Netflix right now which while not widely seen by Canadians is a very Canadian film and alright.

>George Woodcocks "Intro to Canadian poetry".

This is pretentious and shit and Canadians themselves don't care. It's merely rammed down our throats in schools under the pretence of keeping Canadian culture strong.

Canadian literature is generally trash and the only things of note are Anne of green Gables & Atwood and Atwood is trash. Really Canadians are more likely to be familiar with British and American lit than anything else.

>>9565524
>You'll find that most of Canadian cultural output is with reference to the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal belt.

That's the most populous region but pound for pound BC is no slouch when it comes to Canadian culture if only because the film industry is so huge here.

>>9565492

>Why are they an infestation exactly?

I wouldn't call them an "infestation" but they drive housing prices up and are racist to literally everyone. They are also are some of the worst drivers known to mankind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S6GNzVJ1VU

>>9566311
>>9565262
Er, meant to mention him more than OP if he's interested in BC

>>9565492
Vancouver is nice and there is enough stuff to do there to justify a short visit.

Generally a lot of Canadian culture is blended with American culture to the point people tend to underestimate Canadian cultures strength. It is genuinely SUPER shit in terms of literature though. Music, film, and TV is practically blended with America.

>>9566324
>I wouldn't call them an "infestation" but they drive housing prices up and are racist to literally everyone.

He exaggerates how bad the Chinese are but anti-Chinese sentiment is at all time highs due to the "drive housing prices up" point. This is more than half of the reason behind the ethnic tensions. They're also populous to the point white people are minorities in Richmond and soon will be in Vancouver if they're not already. There are substantial amounts of Chinese citizens that never learn English, stick to the enclave, and never integrate, and there is generally rising resentment. One contentious issue is shops and advertisements entirely being done in Mandarin, and in one case a strata meeting with an English resident was done in Mandarin.

http://vancouversun.com/g00/news/local-news/richmond-townhouse-strata-meetings-revert-back-to-chinese-language-only-amid-human-rights-dispute

Their customs are just strange and foreign especially to older less liberal types as well.

"Fresh off the boat" rich kid mainland chinese have a reputation for rich kid degeneracy, being new money as FUCK, consumerism, cheating, racial supremacist attitudes, and such. I've had to take an exam a bunch of Chinese immigrants also took and they had SO much security because of rampant cheating and people doing shit like having their brothers take the exam. They are also perceived as less degenerate in some ways, less likely to use drugs, less likely to mug somebody, but I think the main thrust of the anti-chinese sentiment is economics more than behavior. Second Generation and later Chinese who grew up speaking English tend to be less stigmatised, seen as more Canadian, and tend to have different stereotypes around them, such as being far more likely to be self-flagellating rather than racial supremacists.

These links pretty well describe the FOAB mainland Chinese reputation though:

http://www.citynews.ca/2017/04/02/dozens-luxury-cars-impounded-reported-stunt-driving-hwy-400/

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/luxury-vehicles-impounded-for-sea-to-sky-hwy-race-1.1798320

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI56XotU8OQ

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The ideal book to understand the canadian psyche

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>>9565227
>from the Vikings to the Present

>>9565227
read my upcoming debut novel

Also, check out Northtrop Frye's essays where he talks about garrison mentality.

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>>9565227
>Canadian """"""""""culture""""""""""

>>9566402
The book is about the rise to greatness. Natives need not apply.

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If you're American, check this out.

>>9566914
>greatness
Haha oh wow. Canada is barely even a real country, though. a former British satellite that became an American satellite, thats more like it. Canada's only claim to fame is having a cuck prime minister and rivalling Sweden in the gay sharia transgender dystopia department. Seriously, the Chinese yoke would actually be a tremendous improvement for Canada. The more and more I read about those Chinese the more I am convinced of their superiority. It's like they are White people 2.0 minus the christian slave morality pussy guilt complex.

>>9566996
This post has to be ironic. It's too perfectly crafted

>>9565227
Pierre Berton various works covers from the confederacy, to the Westward expansion and such. Along with the ventures to the Arctic.

I'm not too sure how mucb Aboriginal stuff there is as its pretty controversial what with the Residential Schools and whatnot, dont know if anything with that stain has been published.


And if you read anything about Quebec it better be en francais ostie crisse

The Trouble With Canada...Still! - William Gairdner

The War Against the Family - William Gairdner

Rise to Greatness - Conrad Black

Lament for a Nation - George Grant

Goodbye Canada - Paul Hellyer

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town - Stephen Leacock

Other good authors: Robertson Davies, Alice Munro, Northrop Frye


Also, someone mentioned that you should watch The Trailer Park Boys. That is unironically an excellent idea to get an idea of what Canada is very much like (taken to extremes).

>>9565227
>wanting to learn canadian history
shits boring as fuck honestly, at least the usual way it's taught in schools.
If you can find anything interesting pre-native-treaty I'd go for that, especially about the early british/french colonization post vikings, but anything discussing the peace treaties or anything past the peace treaty era is usually boring as sin
t. canadian with a small amount of memory of his grade 12 history class

>>9566373

Thanks for the info, I've seen that asian girls thing before. I'm always amazed that people go on reality TV shows where it's obvious the producers want to make them look as idiotic as possible. Flo.Z is still waifu material tho...

>>9566390

Definitely picking this up.

>>9566402

It talks about the natives too but there's only so much you can write about a people who didn't have written history.

>>9566431

I will unironically buy and read your novel if you tell me the name/it's a real thing.

>>9566955

I am from the dissapointed father of both those nations.

>>9567081

Lament seems like it was influential. Goodbye Canada? sounds a bit dated. Why do you think the Gairdner stuff is important to read and not just the typical "Things were better in my day" rant?

>>9567145

History in Canadian schools seems to be more about using historical events to discuss sociological topics rather than learning actual history. Lots of Canadians I've talked to about Champlains spent most of their time learning about his child-bride. I'm not saying this isn't interesting stuff to learn, but the guy did so much more interesting stuff.

>>9565227
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lament_for_a_Nation

Not reading George Grant one of our only notable philosophers.

>>9568668
this looks great, why havent i heard of it before...

>>9568578
>It talks about the natives too but there's only so much you can write about a people who didn't have written history
Seriously, what does Conad Black have to say about the native americans? I'm genuinely curious.
And, by the way, they do have some written history and, even today, there's still a lot of people that can tell it.

>>9565302
>Stable, prosperous, no culture with great international scores for healthcare, education etc. and ample natural resources
*ftfy

>>9569646

I haven't started the book yet, but the first chapter is about native people and the first settlers. It seems like he talks about the major tribes, their geographical distribution and their modes of life. What more do you want fampai?

>>9570111
What about the Vikings?

>>9568578
>Lament seems like it was influential. Goodbye Canada? sounds a bit dated. Why do you think the Gairdner stuff is important to read and not just the typical "Things were better in my day" rant?

Goodbye Canada is dated, but it's a great book about the problems with the monetary system so its still very relevant in that regard. His solutions are outdated, I'll say that, but that's only a small part of the book.

Gairdner is not a grouchy-old-man author you seem to think he is. Very smart, literary kind of guy. He shows you with data what he believes to be wrong with Canada, and he does a great job of explaining the philosophical underpinnings of what has gone on historically. You'll get a good idea of how Canada has changed culturally, morally, financially, etc. especially since Pierre Trudeau (he actually voted for Trudeau back then). His solutions to Canada's "troubles" are not reactionary.

The War Against The Family is a must read for any westerner in my opinion.

>>9565227
Without going into recommendations (others have done better in this thread) Black generally has a well-deserved reputation for focusing on minutiae and dumping lots of dates and names onto the page without doing that much of a job trying to connect any dots. He's toned it down a bit in this book and has made an effort to write an actual narrative, but it's still over a thousand pages. He'll write at length over shit like warship tonnage in the navy while gliding over some other things like a lot of Atlantic history. I also think these have been corrected but when it first came out he was skewered for some blatant errors (mislabeling Cape Breton as Newfoundland in a map, for example). After WWII his own personal leanings also start to show. This isn't necessarily bad, but when he does hop on heavy editorializing the resulting history reads like one of his NatPo columns because of it. Why buy the book when I can just get that for free online?

Black was probably railroaded by a justice system looking to snag a tycoon and fight corporate corruption in spite of actual evidence but that doesn't mean that we need to excuse what is imo sloppy writing

>>9565413
Much of the Canadian experience ends with the lesson that you can't eat culture. No one gives a fuck if your crude oil or coal or auto parts or cod fish are produced by superior standard-bearers of western civilization, they care about price and quality and if you can't win at that then 99% of the world will buy from tinpot dictatorships or Islamic theocratic thugs instead of from you without a second thought to save money

>>9565524
These are pretty good, especially if one want to focus on the west and its history. Settlement patterns and political trends have always favoured a history that focuses on the area surrounding the St. Lawrence River and the West (and the far East after WWI) have been ignored as a result. I *personally* would sub out Garidner for The Patriot Game by Peter Brimelow, mainly because the two espouse most of the same viewpoints but Gardner's history is a screed where Brimelow tends to keep it together more. It's worth noting that Brimelow is generally seen as a bigger influence on the Reform Party, which was a conservative populist protest party that eventually morphed into our current Conservative Party. It's also worth noting that the book should be read solely for its history and not for its predictions, few of which came true.

>>9570430
Finally, a lot of the books in this thread are centre-right to right-wing. This *isn't* necessarily bad per se but it probably does lend itself to creating blind spots here and there. If you absolutely want to read a straightforward history that leans in this direction, a lot of Pierre Berton's books are adequate social histories of Canada around the 19th and early 20th centuries, though he has a hateboner for pig dog Amerikkkans and it shows. Instead, I personally would recommend Allan Levine's biography on William Lyon Mackenzie King. He was PM for over 20 years and the man's influence on modern Canadian Liberalism is woefully understated relative to the Trudeaus.

A LOT of what we understand to be "quintessentially Canadian" behaviours of extensive compromise and bland, steady-as-she-goes middling progressivism can be traced back to how he governed. Establishment leftism in the country was nothing more than a way of keeping the plebs from tearing the country apart and giving the Yankees a chance of annexing us.

>>9566390
Jesus, how did I forget this?

We Canadians have a thing about fucking animals and vegetables in our literature you see

>>9565518

You know you can trade favours, right?

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You want to know the real Canada? Read Yves Engler’s books: The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt

Excellent accounts exposing Canada as an aggressively imperialist nation who pretend to be humanitarians

>>9570866
*the South African apartheid was influenced by Canada's residential school "program"

>>9570153

Like I said I haven't started the book yet. It looks like there's ~20 pages devoted to them (in a 1000 page book).

>>9570430
>>9570624

Thanks for the recommendations. How would the plebs have torn apart Canada if Mackenzie King had governed differently?

>>9570641

Tell me more.

>>9570866

Are these books actually good or just memes?

>>9570886

But the PM is going to ask the pope to say sorry, so this is all in the past now right?

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>>9566373

>They're also populous to the point white people are minorities in Richmond and soon will be in Vancouver if they're not already.

Vancouver is 46.2% white, making it "majority minority." By 2031 Metro Vancouver will be 70% "minority."

>>9571008
Apologies don't change history Bucko

>>9565492
Vancouver is a beautiful city, the mountains around it are amazing as well.

T. Lives an hour out of Van

>>9571008
Justin Trudeau is the epitome of liberal hypocrisy, ie. see exploitation of miners by canadian companies in Mexico, Saudi weapon sales. Perhaps in 50 years another Trudeau will come along to offer his most sincere apologies on behalf of all canadians for those atrocities.
>>9571081
Vancouver is gonna be one dank oriental cyberpunk dystopia, maybe we can even get Nick Land to decamp from Shanghai

>>9571152
Fentanyl will kill the last of any non-Asian born there. Anyone with any serious thought should move to Vancouver Island

>>9571008
>How would the plebs have torn apart Canada if Mackenzie King had governed differently?
My wild guess is that Quebec would have separated, and the rest of the country would have developed in a much more explicitly pro-British and conservative direction, which was the policies of his predecessors. Without the eastern libs co-opting socialism in a weakened form, the country would be more polarized politically and the prairie provinces would have stayed as the hotbeds of socialism that they once were. Ontario would become the anchor of Canadian conservatism, which would be more a mirror of christian social conservatism that you see in the states. Social programs like healthcare and EI wouldn't exist except at the provincial level where they would vary more in their generosity

>>9571854
Also, an interesting postscript to this is what would have happened to Newfoundland and Labrador.

For most of the early 20th century NL was the red-headed stepchild of the British Empire. Economic problems consistently plagued both the people and the government of the colony. These problems were compounded by successive governments that were hilariously corrupt and incompetent, social divisions along catholic/protestant lines that bled into politics and social life, settlement patterns that promoted the growth of isolated communities and an economy based almost entirely on raw material exports and the fishery (farming being impossible in most of the colony due to poor soils and a short growing season).

For all of these reasons, confederation with Canada was always seen as a remedy. However many in the province (mostly those living in the capital of St. John's) still preferred political independence and there was a movement to choose union with the U.S. over Canada. The final vote on confederation passed with about 52% of the vote, and many of those people saw confederation as a way to benefit from Canada's welfare programs. It probably wouldn't have passed if, as I said before, Canada didn't develop the safety net it did during the depression and WWII.

It's hard to imagine what would have happened had we voted to remain an independent country. For one thing, Quebec *claims* part of Labrador. There were also fears that an independent NL would favour the Soviet Bloc.

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>>9571854

>My wild guess is that Quebec would have separated, and the rest of the country would have developed in a much more explicitly pro-British and conservative direction, which was the policies of his predecessors. Without the eastern libs co-opting socialism in a weakened form, the country would be more polarized politically and the prairie provinces would have stayed as the hotbeds of socialism that they once were. Ontario would become the anchor of Canadian conservatism, which would be more a mirror of christian social conservatism that you see in the states. Social programs like healthcare and EI wouldn't exist except at the provincial level where they would vary more in their generosity

Sounds like paradise.

>>9565227
I thought Trudeau decided Canada doesn't have a culture? Just like Sweden (((doesn't have a culture))).
What's their end-game?

>>9571232
Fentanyl was so last year.

carfentanyl is what the cool kids are using

>>9571152
>>9571232
i will travel to fentanyl nation for a /lit/ meet up

we should find the starbucks that william gibson goes to

>>9566311
Canadian lit has some great figures bud, you're from the deep in Canada so you've got absolutely no excuse to be this illiterate

>Nino Ricci, Alice Munro, Clark Blaise, Ondaatje, Urquhart
>Irving Layton(dirty old jewish man poetry), Robert Kroetsch (corner gas the poet), Earle Birney (ur locality's saviour)

Also while we're at it the CBC is awful and the play on government monopoly (via rail, lcbo, beer store) is so inefficient it's mind boggling.

>>9573232
Reading Fiction and Poetry because of the authors origin rather than it's relevance to your culture and it's quality is a complete and utter spook. I would also commit sudoku before I went to a poetry recital so there is no local appeal.

I have some interest in Canadian non-fiction, I intend to read "Why Mexicans don't drink Molson" at some point.

I enjoy Canadian TV, Music, Film, and Art, the latter I will shill for despite being in fairly low renown worldwide just because the nature of Canada lends itself to Artists having lots of good inspirations. I feel pound for pound in terms of population/years we've been going at it we stand up to our international competition in these Arenas. I have a lot of pride in the Vancouver Film Industry in particular and have some credits in some awful films because I have connections to the industry. I firmly believe our literature is shittier than it should be given our population/age/wealth and the only Canadian Lit I've read is the shit I've been forced to read.

>>9573232
>Government monopoly in terms of rail

Rail in Canada is inherently monopolistic because of the low population density + large size of the country + high cost of rail so pick your poison about which shitty solution you want really.

No real excuse for LCBO and Beer Store though, they're just glorified inefficient tax grabs when it's abundantly clear private sector outperforms public sector at retail. I'll fucking Ree if they even think of making marijuana stores even a public/private mix, never mind all public, when it ignores that Canada is going to have a huge headstart on marijuana retailing relative to most of the world and we should be looking to create the Galen Weston of Marijuana so we can export our expertise and drag money into the country.

Our country is filled with cucks that think business is evil and we need bigger government for more tax revenue so that a few decades from now the government can admit the public sector system is working terribly and argue we need private sector experience and thus allow the Americans to open up "The Marijuana Store" and drag money out of the country because we're fucking retards that never learn from our mistakes.

>>9565227
>Canadian culture
Doesn't exist. If it does, the last remnants are currently being destroyed/already have been.

t. cucknadian

>>9565302
Canada is truly the Last Man of nations.

>>9573759
That's still a culture you'll have to come to terms with if you want your 800 page debut novel to be any good.

Absence of a culture = A culture

>>9572439
Is it? We have a federal government that has gone to the mat with the provinces over the Canada Health Act to ensure that care standards aren't wildly different. Same thing with the Charter.

Are you willing to trade all of this for a Canada where the country's largest oil-producing region electorally leans towards a mix of old-school labourite socialism and christian fundamentalism?

>>9573232
>>9573671
>rail
what that one anon said was right, but I should also add that rail is owned privately in the country and exists almost entirely to ship shit from where it was mined/farmed/drilled/cut out of the dirt to a container port or refinery of some sort. This traffic has priority over passenger rail and results in delays that are hours long, especially if you have the misfortune of traveling through a large hub like Winnipeg
>liquor
Most of these situations are holdovers from the prohibition movements. They're shitty and inefficient because the methodists and pentecostals that set them up decades ago *intended* them to be inefficient, in the hopes that boozerinos would be put off by the inconvenience and cost and not drink the devil's mouthwash. The moral justification isn't really brought up anymore but governments have kept it around because of money (LCBO and other government-run monopolies) or lobbyist bullshit (The Beer Store)

>>9573759
As has been said in this thread before, there is no real "pan-Canadian" culture in the sense that the Americans have. There are however very rich and vibrant regional cultures that get overlooked when people shill Tim Hortons plastic nationalism