Rain splattered against the kitchen window. I peered through rivulets streaming down the screen. Water-logged trees and bushes in my backyard were whipping back and forth in strong gusts of wind. Feeling chilled despite the warmth of a summer afternoon, I picked up my sweater from the kitchen chair and pulled it on. I felt bored and restless. There were plenty of household chores that I could do, but I didn’t feel like doing them. 

My daughter, Tammie, was sitting on the sofa in the living room busily doing a Japanese thread craft called kumihimo. I glanced around at the dim lighting and turned on a lamp. Chuckling, I said, “I’m turning into Grammie Altmann. Do you remember how she’d always tell us to turn on the lamps because doing close-up work in poor lighting would ruin our eyes?” 

Holding up the braid she was working on for me to admire, she admitted, “Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I’m starting to understand where she was coming from. My eyes feel a little less strained when the light is on.” 

Pulling the drapes shut and turning on another lamp, I complained, “I feel bored. There are plenty of things I could do, even fun things like working on my latest jigsaw puzzle, but I don’t feel like doing any of it.” Sinking down onto my favorite chair, I pointed the remote at the television and turned it on. Flipping from one channel to the next, I quickly concluded that there wasn’t much that was interesting to watch.  

One channel featured a reporter standing on a busy, big city, street corner, asking people passing him to answer some basic questions. Curious, I paused my channel flipping. The reporter asked a young woman which country was north of the United States.  She frowned, scratched her head and after a long pause uncertainly questioned, “Ummm. Alaska?” My daughter and I exclaimed in disbelief. 

Other questions the reporter asked were just as simple. He asked, “How many eggs are there in a dozen?” “How many quarters would you need to have two dollars?” “How many ounces are there in one cup, one pint, one quart?” “What country borders the USA to the south?” No one gave the correct answer to any of the questions.  

I exclaimed, “Don’t people learn any of these things in school anymore? This show makes me wonder. At the hospital, to determine if a patient is confused, nurses often ask patients questions like, ‘who’s the president of the United States?’ If someone just doesn’t know, does that mean they are confused?” 

Shaking her head, Tammie suggested, “Maybe the show only featured the people who gave the wrong answers.” 

Years have passed since that rainy afternoon. Recently, my two daughters and I planned a cruise that would stop at the Canadian ports of Halifax, Sydney, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. In preparation for the trip, I poured over maps of our neighbor to the north. After a short study, I came to the terrifying conclusion that other than knowing the country of Canada is to the north of the United States and Mexico is to the south, I knew very little beyond that! My lack of knowledge is embarrassing. The following is a small sample of what I learned.  

Canada doesn’t have states: it has provinces. The country has ten provinces and three territories. Two of the provinces claim French as their official language. Some of the other provinces have pockets of French speaking citizens. Nova Scotia means ‘New Scotland’ and a very large proportion of citizens living there are of Scottish decent.  

After the Titanic sank, many bodies recovered from the icy north Atlantic water were taken to Halifax in Nova Scotia. There are 150 Titanic victims buried in Halifax cemeteries. 

During the first world war the French steamship SS Mont Blanc was loaded with a huge amount of wartime munitions. While still in the Halifax harbor, it was struck by the Norwegian steamship SS Imo due to confusion over who had the right of way. A fire resulted from the collision, and that ignited the explosives. Over one square mile of the city surrounding the harbor was flattened. About 2,000 people died and over 9,000 were injured.  

Sydney, Nova Scotia, is found on the north side of craggy Cape Breton Island in the north Atlantic. It has a rich Celtic culture. Coal was mined there during the 19^t h and 20^th centuries. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell lived on that island for most of his life, and Guglielmo Marconi came to Cape Breton in 1902 to use the location as a hub for his new wireless telegraph technology. 

Sitting back after reading some of the history of Nova Scotia, Canada, I was shocked to realize that I’d only been looking at one province and that what I’ve learned, barely scratched the surface of fascinating things to know about our neighbor to the north 

The next time I hear about a man on the street corner asking strangers basic facts that they can’t answer, I won’t be critical. I now know that all that they need is a rainy afternoon to do some studying.