#canadian-identity

#canadian-identity

Gord Downie was sweating under the weight of a thick khaki shirt, hair plastered to his forehead, breathing heavily into his microphone. Thousands of people had turned up to a field next to the Molson Brewery in Barrie, about an hour north of Toronto, for the first of two shows the Tragically Hip would headline in one day on opposite sides of the country. The young crowd was half-drunk and baking in the midsummer sun, and Maple Leaf Flags billowed lazily in Downie's eyeline.

These words sound like a response to the tariffs and annexation threats posed by US president Donald Trump this year, but they were printed more than a century ago.