The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 29

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
27
But were we in personal attendance
at the birth of the United States? For
all we know, Ithings may well have been
that simple for the father of the U.S.
It’s their story, anyway, and they’ve
stuck together in sticking to it.
George himself may not have been
that pure, of course, bult the people
were, and the folk of a Puritan cult
endowed the first hero they owned as
a nation with the virtue they treasured
most. The people have an uncanny
talent for picking their man, and once
they find him lie is the symbol that
unites.
We Canadians may never find it in
our souls to enhance an ideal with a
purifying lie, but we should resist the
scholarly purism that is robbing our
past of its glamor. Who, for example,
needs historical proof that Laura
Secord crossed enemy lines behind a
cow for the love of a cause?
Whether she did or not is of no con-
sequence. What does matter is that the
fighting men of her day could see her
doing ft. As the daughter of a long
line of women, I am proud of Laura,
and I’d like to sic a cattle dog to the
pundits who have taken a microscope
to her passport into history. Laura is
as true as the fighting men’s confidence
in the womanhood that backed their
campaign.
The telling incidents in the lives of
people who occupy our national lime-
light must be cherished if we are to
develop those unique peculiarities that
might give us distinctive flavor as a
nation.
I think that when our vintage ripens
so that we can taste our own flavor,
we may find our national symbol in
Lady Macdonald riding the cow-
catcher on our first cross country rail-
way train. This is an indisputable
trultih of history, though seldom recall-
ed. The better half of the foremost
father of Confederation defied danger
and official decorum to fully savor
that great moment of our history.
Here was magnificent achievement;
here was romance — a fabulously
courageous enterprise taking its first
steps toward bringing together this
vast country from coast to coast. The
first of Canada’s first ladies was part
of it and felt the surge of excitement
in her blood. In tune with the mom-
ent she rode gaily into the future on
the obstacle remover, for that’s what a
cow-catcher is to a train. This woman
was possessed with the dauntless spirit
of a budding nation, and her spontan-
eous behavior that day interpreted the
spirit, a spirit we need not be ashamed
to hand through the bloodlines down
the ages.
Just a look at thalt girl through the
rainbow mist of history should be
enough to knit Canada’s womanhood
into the better half of a great nation—
a nation that knows its nature and
rides (the obstacle mover toward a
destiny that must surely have some
importance to this planet and its
people.
—Courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press