Down Under Visits the North Country, Part 4

Stephanie McCarthy, Australian writer and observer of human nature and our cultures continues her observations of Canada, a trip she and her husband made this summer for her son's wedding. - GNH

Tipping, Ice Fields, Downpours and Dogs on Airplanes....by Stephanie McCarthy

We felt awkward, uncomfortable and annoyed at the pressure upon us to tip. Australians think this way – if you’ve received exceptional service from someone in the hospitality industry, you will tip that person because you really want to, and the recipient won’t necessarily be expecting it, because they earn a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. 

Steph on the Columbian Ice Fields

Result? Good feeling. BUT, everywhere in Canada we bought food or drink, even in a line up canteen with a checkout at the end (i.e. no service at all) the pressure was in the bill to tip. 

Result? Bad feeling. I believe that in Canada the hospitality staff are paid pretty well, unlike America where (quite wrongly) the waiters are forced to depend on their tips. This doesn’t mean it is right. It means the Canadian system has slavishly and conveniently followed American custom, and the American system is totally broken, and the employers in the hospitality industry not paying fair wages are making bucketloads of money. 

One Canadian told me that her waitress daughter had been fired from one restaurant because she had dared to question where the tipping $$ had ended up. And so whenever we did feel like tipping, which happened quite often due to the friendliness of most Canadian waiters, we always tried to hand the cash over personally. The ‘friendliness’ I mention was sometimes way over the top, almost a practiced performance in some cases, but when we felt we were being served by a genuinely helpful person, it was a pleasure to tip.

We loved walking the gorges and were overawed by the sheer mass of water rushing through a narrow chasm. We loved walking on the Columbian Ice-fields but didn’t love what we heard about the rate the glacier was receding every year. Hard not to be angry at the climate change deniers, one of whom is our PM, Turncoat Turnbull who seems to be happy to forget all his former ideals about the environment, and is giving in to the Nationals, who have some similarities with the US Republicans.

Steph, her son and new daughter in law, the one who informed her about tipping customs in the North Country.

We drove down to Cochrane, Alberta in the biggest rain and lightning storm we’ve ever experienced. Looking up through the glass roof made me feel as if I were underwater. My Daughter in Law, a farm girl who had regularly driven mammoth machinery in all kinds of weathers, was scornful of all those drivers who had stopped on the verge, and so we pushed on through the sleet until we reached quieter climes on the other side of the Rockies.

Cochrane is not a tourist town, and we really enjoyed our full day there – many classy and unusual shops, and with a serene ambience. My son, a master musician and maker of marimbas and vibraphones, fell in love with a mandolin finished only hours before by a man in a tea shop, the instrument fashioned from an authentic Nicaraguan cigar box. So while I was looking over an array of tea pots, Jim was testing the instrument and listening earnestly to its maker. This may give an idea of the surprises in store at Cochrane.

Maurice and I said our goodbyes to the kids who drove back to Saskatoon while we flew from Calgary, city of stampeding cowboys, to Kitchener. At the Calgary airport we discovered a lady with strange contents in her carry-on luggage – a small shaggy dog in a bespoke ‘tent’ small enough to fit under the seat in front of her. Dogs with their owners on planes, in this particular case Westjet! 

We had never heard of such a practice before. We asked ourselves ‘What if the dog went crazy and began yapping? What if the owner took pity on her pet and took him out for a cuddle and he escaped down the aisle? What if he needed to pee or worse?’ This is all still a mystery to us, so if anyone would like to explain it? However, I was very pleased for the dogs themselves, because it must be very frightening for animals in the baggage department.

Next week, Steph and Maurice arrive in Ontario!

Down Under visits the North Country!

Observations of Canada 

from a Down Under Point of View, Part 1

by Stephanie McCarthy of South Australia

My friend Glenn H has insisted that I put forward my reflections on Canada, and I don’t think he meant a banal travelogue devoid of opinion. So here I go with honest observations, some positive, some negative, some objective, some subjective. The context of our recent travel to Canada is this – My husband Maurice and I made the journey from our home in South Australia to Canada because my son was marrying a Saskatchuan girl.

Right, Maurice and Steph in a Canada hotel enjoying pre-dinner snacks. Steph is an accomplished writer and Maurice a graphic designer in Adelaide, South Australia.

Our first two days were spent checking out Vancouver, and from the air it looked fascinating with all its bays and inlets and ships big and small, logs lined up on a wide river, and snow-capped mountains making a breathtaking backdrop. We’ve always preferred townships with streets going up and down and around – it makes for more surprises - so Vancouver was a city for us. However, homeless people were begging on just about every street corner, and many loose-cannon characters obviously high or semi-conscious on drugs.

One night as we dined al fresco we watched the passing parade – individuals of indeterminate gender and mixed races, tourists and office workers, etc. One young man wandered out from a building, positioned a perfectly good office chair in the gutter, lounged in it and smoked pot, every now and again putting out his hand for money. Then an old Japanese man emerged from another building and set up a tray table with a soft esky underneath, and proceeded to offer samples to and sell (sushi? spring rolls?) to the pedestrians, some of whom seemed to know him.

One morning we went up Grouse mountain, not on foot I admit, because that steep track is called ‘The Grind’ and is respected by folk younger and fitter than Maurice and me. Grouse Mountain gave us our first glimpse of tourists in greater numbers than we had ever experienced. In the gondolas plying the mountain we were packed in like sardines, a disturbing feeling for Aussies familiar with wide open spaces of the outback and our genteel spacious city like Adelaide.

We took a taxi to Vancouver airport for the trip to Saskatoon, and our driver was a Hindu Indian well-versed in political issues of the day. He was deeply concerned that the Canadian government was allowing Chinese to buy up an enormous number of properties in the city, and then to ‘sit’ on them until they could push up prices on the home buyers and rental markets to exorbitant levels.

Our driver kept repeating ‘It is just wrong’, followed by a prediction that soon he would no longer be able to afford to rent a home for him and his family, and that there would be even more homeless on the streets of Vancouver. The night before we had talked to some Kiwis who claimed that the same practice is being allowed in New Zealand, especially noticeable in Auckland, and one of them said darkly ‘The Chinese will take over the world all right – by stealth’.

Magnificent Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

I remembered the controversy increasing back in Australia – the same thing happening in Sydney, and the public mumbles when the Chinese bought a few of our more modest cattle stations, then erupting into open rebellion when the Chinese tried to buy the largest in Oz, one of the Sidney Kidman stations bigger in size than many small countries. 

The Government was forced to step in and stop that particular sale, but guess what? Mining magnate Gina Reinhart bought it with a Chinese firm as equal partners, and so she just put an Australian face to the deal. And why are our governments allowing this? It seems they will do anything for a quick buck, and bad luck about the big picture consequences. Like Canada, Australia and probably NZ has soft corruption from top to bottom.

Part 2 follows soon....