Epilog

On this trip to Canada we only saw the Province of Ontario, but it really is a huge place, larger than the State of Texas. However, there are no roads for the northern sections of the province; the population centers and roads are all clustered in the southern regions. At some points there is only one east-west road and it carries ALL the traffic including many of the trucks, who are forever in a hurry. Since that road as well as many of the other major arteries in Canada are 2 lane highways, the driving is qualitatively different than using the Interstate system in the U.S. I was quite slow and mostly being passed rather than passing others, but the passing process is still very much necessary for driving in Canada. Canadian, drivers, unfortunately, seem rather cavalier about the no passing zones, and I was repeatedly passed despite the double yellow stripes. Canadian drivers also drove about 10 kilometers an hour over the posted speed limit, but that's about the same tendency I've noticed across the U.S. and northern Germany.

Although driving styles are important in a practical sense, the differences in political cultures that we observed are much more basic and may reflect differences in the core cultural values. The impression I gathered from listening to "talk" radio in Canada is that they generally look to the federal level of government for the solutions to social problems, and they have some confidence that the government can actually do something effective. In contrast, the last 20 years of American politics seems to be a contraction of the role of the federal government and the loss of the feeling that government can effectively address social problems such as poverty and civil rights as well as bread and butter issues such as wages, jobs, and working conditions. The role of unions is definitely different in that the Canadian unions were repeatedly striking over one thing and another, but also in that the union leaders were questioned about government programs and worker issues. In the U.S., the unions seem to be moribund after two decades of pro-business government and I never see union officials consulted about workplace policy issues, salaries, job security, or related topics.

We hope you have enjoyed reading about this journey and that the pictures have helped bring at least some aspects of our travel experiences to life. Some folks have asked why I write about our experiences in such (excruciating?) detail, and my only response is that my goal is to represent the rich texture of the real events sufficiently well that you can imagine yourself on the journey with us. To that end, I do include the good, the bad, and the ugly as well as those wonderful peak moments that we experience during our travels. We have found when re-reading our journals that the narrative and pictures are detailed enough to vividly elicit other memories of each particular day, which makes them a wonderful memory for us. We hope that the imaginations of our Gentle Readers can help bring these journals to life in a similar manner and thereby provide some measure of enjoyment.

For the future, we definitely plan to visit some of the western provinces of Canada during our trip to Alaska next year some time. Further in the future we would also like to explore Quebec, and that province might well have even more cultural differences compared to the U.S. than we observed in Ontario. However, it seems to me to be only prudent to at least have a smattering of French before I try to wander around the boondocks of Quebec as I have it from a reliable source (my sister Lois) that out in those boondocks you cannot always find someone who speaks English. We also want to revisit Prince Edward Island and the Maritime Provinces, so stay tuned for future Wanderungs that take us once again north of the border!