International Year of Forests.

Over 1.6 billion people around the world — almost a quarter of humanity — depend on forests for their livelihood. Forest products are a source of employment and economic growth, accounting for some US$ 270 million in global trade annually, sustaining communities around the world. Home to some 300 million people worldwide, forests are also integral to regulating the climate and supporting biodiversity. Yet the world's forests, and the people who depend on them, are under increasing pressure from unsustainable logging, and agriculture and biofuel producers competing for land.

Each year 130,000 km² of the worlds forests are lost, mainly through conversion to agricultural land, unsustainable harvesting of timber, unsound land management, and the creation of new human settlements. Covering over 31% of the world's total land area, the Earth's forests and forest soil store more than one trillion tons of carbon, twice the amount found in the world's atmosphere. Forests offer the quickest, most cost effective and largest means of curbing global emissions, while deforestation accounts for up to 20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Not only impacting carbon emissions and climate change, forest degradation also destroys animal and plant habitats, contributes to soil erosion and siltation of rivers and streams, frequently destroying the livelihoods of the poorest among (forest dependent) people. Harbouring 80% of the world's biodiversity, providing habitats for about two-thirds of all species on Earth, the continuous deforestation of closed tropical rainforests in particular could account for the loss of as many as 100 different species every day. Which is why the United Nations is launching the 2011 International Year of Forests at the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) to raise awareness about sustainable management, conservation, and sustainable development of all types of forests.

However, it seems that in Canada — proudly displaying a leaf as its national symbol — the current Conservative government is happy to mark the International Year with a mere pat on the Canadian forest industry's back. Claiming to have more protected forest, and more "third-party certified" forest than any other country, as well as some of the "toughest" forestry regulations in the world, Canada's government and forest industry seem quite content congratulating themselves for the country's position as the world's most successful exporter of forest products.

The Canadian forest industry's inroads in Asia are fodder for a government hungry for any signs of its dismal policies' successes, with Canadian wood exports to China, for instance, tripling in value over the past five years — from C$ 109 million in 2005 to C$ 385 million in 2009. Yet what government and industry frequently fail to mention is that less than 10% of Canada's forest are fully protected, and that logging of one of the world's three largest remaining "frontier forests" (the other two situated in Brazil and Russia) as well as clearcutting account for nearly 90% of all logging activity in Canada.

It may therefore be worthwhile to consider the importance as well as the future development of Canada's forest industry, especially at a time when logging remains the dominant activity in the country's forests. An estimated 50% of Canada's vast boreal forest, the "northern" forest which occupies 35% of the total Canadian land area and 77% of Canada's total forest land, is now accessible by highways and logging roads. Simultaneously, the Canadian Forest Service has experienced dramatic reductions in budget and staff, making access to information about the state of Canada's forests, as well as oversight and promotion of sustainable land management more difficult than before. In other words, it's now easier for Canadian's to find out exactly how large profits the forest industry is reaping than it is to see the forest for all the wood.

Comprising nearly 45% of the total Canadian land area, the forest's animals, plants, and products affect each Canadian every day, from the products we consume and depend upon on to the air we breathe. The "productive" forest areas of Canada total almost 2.5 million km², or roughly a quarter of Canada's total land area. Forestry is Canada's largest natural resource industry, with forest products' trade surplus almost eclipsing the combined surpluses of agriculture, energy, fisheries, and mining, making our country the largest exporter of wood products in the world.

Representing almost 2% of Canada's GDP, worth C$54 billion annually, the forest products industry is one of the country's largest employers, providing 240,000 direct jobs across the country (in silviculture, logging, wood industries, paper and allied products), as well as thousands of indirect jobs through purchases of goods and services. The Canadian forest industry is the economic heart of some 200 communities across the country — communities which have limited alternative economic and employment opportunities.

Clearly, there are many more reasons to take the opportunity over the coming year to consider the asset as well as natural wealth Canada's forests represent, and how we are managing the over a third of the world's boreal forest, the fifth of the world's temperate rainforest, and the tenth of the total global forest cover which lie within our borders. Clearly, our forests deserve more than a round of sanctioned cheers to celebrate how fast we’re managing to sell them.

Canada Book Day.

April 23 is Canada Book Day, as well as World Book and Copyright Day, devised to raise awareness and interest for books, to promote reading, publishing, and — in the case of the international day — the protection of "intellectual property" (an unfortunate euphemism that leads to all manner of faulty reasoning about knowledge.)

The day is intended to be a celebration of books as a key instrument of knowledge and freedom, as well as an opportunity to consider the contribution of books to humanity's wealth and cultural heritage. Canada Book Day was first organised through the Writers' Trust of Canada, a national, charitable organisation supporting anglophone literature. Which — for the second year in a row — has no plans for any special events this year worth communicating to the general public.

No other organisation or level of government has stepped in to lead celebrations, and the day has been preceded by no promotion whatsoever. In fact, most Canadians are unware the day has supposedly been the focal point of Canada Book Week since 2003.

World Book and Copyright Day on the other hand is organised by UNESCO, which adopted the day at its General Conference in 1995. The date was selected as it had been celebrated since 1923 as el dia del llibre (The Day of the Book) in Spain. There, a thrifty bookseller in Barcelona — the publishing capital of both Catalonia and Spain — had begun to promote April 23, also known as el dia de la rosa (The Day of the Rose) or St. George's Day, with a combination of books and roses.

The idea was ostensibly to honour the nearly simultaneous deaths of Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare; the date also happens to be the date of birth of other prominent authours such as Halldór Laxness and Vladimir Nabokov. It has since become one of the world's largest book swapping events, with half of the the total yearly book sales in Catalonia (estimated at 400.000 titles) taking place on April 23.

This year, UNESCO hopes to highlight "the need to preserve creativity from piracy" during the day, hoping to impress readers worldwide that "there can be no book development without respect for copyright". Yet the agencies' botched website mainly reveals a most casual interest in the issue, perhaps fostered by the assumption (particularly in the so called "developed world") that the business of books is thriving, and reading therefore in no need of special support.

Despite the arrival of e-books and the ascendency of electronic media, printing is still a booming business with more than half a million publishing houses worldwide. Rather than replacing the traditional media the new technologies seem only likely to augment and complement printed reading matter, presenting no more a threat to its existence than elevators do to stairs.

Certainly, in the so called "developed world" books and reading do not appear imperiled. Only 31% of Canadian adults reported not reading a single book for pleasure in 2007, while those who read regularly consumed more than 20 titles during that year. On average Canadians spent 4.5 hours reading per week, though with roughly 50,000 titles published annually in Canada that's barely time to keep abreast. Little wonder the Writer's Trust perceives no need for a day of special events and celebration.

Nevertheless, the glowing numbers in Canada and elsewhere obscure the glaring imbalance and extreme difficulties in accessing books that persist worldwide. Even in Canada access to books could easily be threatened: in 2006, Indigo with 230 stores nationwide accounted for 44 % of domestic book sales — 67% if online, mail-order, and sale at university and college bookstores are excluded. Which potentially means that if Indigo choses not to carry a book the publisher of that title loses access to half of the Canadian retail channel.

Since special events appear to be few and far between this coming Canada Book Day, and World Book and Copyright Day, one suggestion would be to simply read at one's own behest. Another, as the date alludes to the Catalonian tradition of book swapping, would be to gift someone a book. Or to visit a local library — maybe even bring a contribution or two to its collection.

Note: this is a slightly updated version of an article originally published on April 21, 2009.

Freedom to Read Week.

Now in its 26th year, Freedom to Read Week is an annual event aimed at raising awareness among Canadians of the intellectual freedom guaranteed them under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19). Organised by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council (an umbrella organisation for associations of writers, editors, publisher, manufacturers distributors, sellers, and lenders of books and periodicals in Canada), it's marked with numerous events across the country between February 21 and 27.

Most of us take our freedom to read for granted, but even here, in Canada, books and magazines have been banned at the border, and are frequently challenged and removed from libraries, schools, and bookstores. These infractions on our freedom of expression are seldom reported widely, yet affect the right of all of us – not just Canadians – to decide for ourselves what we chose to read. Although government-instituted censorship has apparently been abandoned in the Western world, public concern over "offensive" literature hasn't subsided.

In Canada, a majority of us accept the Supreme Court's authority and prerogative to restrict reading material; we trust the court to interpret the Charter and determine the reasonable limits to our freedoms. A majority of us also accepts that a stable, vibrant democracy can withstand disagreement and a wide range of beliefs. However, this doesn't prevent private entities and individuals from attempting to limit, sanitise, and censor literature and information that doesn't fit their particular position. These attempts to "protect" society, by arbitrarily deciding what others can read, merely smother creativity and stifle open debate of controversial issues.

Public libraries are in fact expected to act as benevolent guardians of literature in many places, particularly concerning books for young readers. Even in notoriously "liberal" countries like Norway and Sweden, which introduced some of the earliest laws regarding freedom of the press, scrutiny of public and school libraries remained a concern throughout the 20th Century. The die-hard tradition of literature surveillance in America is perhaps less surprising, where various groups intent on choosing what others should read constantly demand the removal of books they deem contain "questionable content".

Canada is no exception: the Canada Border Services Agency, parent groups, and religious organisations have all tried to ban books for reasons varying from sexual orientation, racial or religious content, to explicit language and witchcraft. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series remains among the most challenged books in this country; Robert Munsch’s Thomas' Snowsuit was banned by a Catholic school board because Thomas' refusal of a snowsuit was deemed disrespectful to school authorities.

Only last year the Toronto District School Board, having removed Deborah Ellis' Three Wishes from its public school libraries on the grounds that its inclusion of interviews with Palestinian as well as Israeli children offended the Canadian Jewish Congress, considered restricting access to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale - winner of the Governor General's Award in 1985 and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, and a seemingly permanent top-40 fixture on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books in the 1990s.

The undermining and obliteration of independent, local booksellers by large chains of big-box retailers poses yet another serious challenge to what literature and information we can access. Take Canada's largest bookstore chain Indigo Books & Music Inc. for example, a retailer with the publicly stated goal of becoming "the world's first cultural department store", which doesn't shelve books or magazines its owners personally object to, and whose profits are funnelled into dubious martial projects that have little in common with literature, never mind Canada.

Like their electronic counterparts, Indigo isn't a library but a business, with a right to stock whatever it wants. But it's a right that becomes problematic when a bookseller dominates the market like Indigo, Amazon et al do. Any titles they, and the other three or four major players, decide not to stock become harder to find, and - by extension - to publish. Supermassive booksellers can also exert pressure on publishers (as Amazon has done in the past) to offer greater discounts, and interfere with publishers direct sales, thereby undercutting the profitability - and ultimately, the existence - of small publishers in particular. It's censorship by proxy.

However, Freedom to Read Week serves not only as a reminder to remain vigilant of the challenges, but also as an opportunity for Canadians to celebrate our freedom to chose what we read, and to reach out to our neighbours across the world. We can acknowledge it by reading and making up our own minds about some of the books challenged in Canada, patronising our remaining local independent booksellers, or checking up on the state of libraries and information in the rest of the world. We could even indulge in some banned literature online. After all, the only thing worse than suppressing, banning or destroying books is not reading them.

Note: this is an altered, updated version of an article originally posted on February 19, 2009.

National Child Day.

November 20th is National Child Day in Canada, enacted a mere 39 years after the UN called upon its members to establish a national holiday celebrating childhood on November 20, 1954, and proclaimed that date Universal Children's Day. It was in fact first celebrated in October 1953, at the request of the International Union for Child Welfare, to promote children's welfare and foster contact and understanding among the world's children. It's also the anniversary of the UN's adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed on the same date in 1989, and has since been ratified by 193 states. Though only two – Somalia and the USA – haven't ratified the Convention, many of those that have (including Canada) haven't fully implemented the Convention in domestic laws, or have done so with numerous reservations. (The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts has only been ratified by 130 states, while the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography has only been ratified by 135 states.)

This year the 20th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Celebrating Children's Rights is the theme, meant to raise awareness of the fundamental rights to which children are entitled. In Canada, we may also be reminded that November 24th (four days after National Child Day) will mark the 20th anniversary of the unanimous parliamentary resolution to end child poverty. Especially as Canada's child poverty rate - despite decades of unprecedented economic growth - currently stands at 9.5%.

Out of 784,738 Canadians relying of food banks to survive in March 2009, some 280,900 were children and youth under the age of 18 - an 86% increase since 1989. In First Nations and Inuit communities one in four children grow up in poverty; nearly one in two children of recent immigrants to Canada live in poverty. While the current, Conservative government attempts to address the problem with paltry, monthly handouts it has the gall to call a "child care plan", and lower taxes for parents who can afford to enroll their children in sports, 760,000 Canadian children (one out of every nine kids) live in poverty.

While National Child Day may be a good opportunity to familiarise yourself with what your state's actually signed on to, or reminding your elected representatives of their commitments, the day could also be spent actually listening to a kid (doesn't have to be your own, they're all worth your attention) and perhaps doing what they'd like to do for a change. Give them a break – they get told what to do practically every other day of the year.

Note: this is an expanded and updated version of an article originally published on November 19, 2008.

A War to Remember.

On November 11, they were almost halfway, having left Québec nearly two weeks earlier. Volunteers from all across Canada, heading for a theatre of war on the other side of the globe. For some of them, who'd barely traveled outside their home province, it may as well have been the end of the Earth. For some of them, it'd be the last place they'd ever go. They had signed up to defend peace, justice, progress, and civilization itself, against an enemy who — they'd been told — threatened all with his backward religious zealotry and militant aggression. They were the vanguard, the first 1,019 Canadians out of 7,368 (including 12 female nurses) who'd fight for the British Empire in South Africa over the next two and a half years.

The Second Boer War, known as the South African War in Canada, began 110 years ago. Canadians' awareness of this conflict, its causes and consequences, isn't particularly acute — though given our current involvement in Afghanistan, and the parallels between the two conflicts, we could do with a reminder. Especially as we once again find ourselves governed by reactionaries hellbent on reshaping the identity of our nation to one that better suits their jingoist stance — as evidenced by the current Conservative governments new, revised citizenship guide, and its greater emphasis on Canada's military history. Though don't rely on it for mention of Canada's "adventures" in South Africa, given that our exploits there aren't much to brag about.

That war was precipitated by the British Empire, having already annexed the Natalia Republic (today's KwaZulu-Natal) in 1843, setting its eye on the remaining independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal). Situated between the Orange and Vaal rivers, by 1870 the Orange Free State had yielded impressive diamond deposits, while the Transvaal, north of the Vaal river, was the destination of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, following the discovery of the largest gold-bearing deposits in the world. The South African gold may not have been as pure as that produced in Australia and Canada, but it was a lot easier to extract. As for diamonds, they wouldn't be discovered in Australia and Canada until a century later.

The only obstacle between the British Empire and this new sources of wealth were the Boer (black South Africans certainly didn't count). The Boer, descendants of Dutch, German, and French settlers were weary of the influx of mainly British prospectors into their states, and — having gained their independence — certainly not interested in becoming British subjects. The situation came to a head when British colonists launched a disastrous raid into Transvaal towards the end of 1895. Though ostensibly a private enterprise, it had been backed — until the very last moment — by the British government. The Boer successfully repelled the raid, but their predicament was exacerbated further by an unexpected expression of support from the German Emperor.

To the British this was simply further evidence of German meddling in "their affairs", and a perfect pretext for full-blown conflict. As British troops began assembling along their borders, the Boer gambled on a preemptive strike, launching an offensive in October 1899. However, by January 1900, colonial reinforcements from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, gave the British the upper hand, and by September 1900 the Boer republics were overrun. Refusing to surrender, the Boer engaged in a protracted campaign of irregular warfare, lasting until May 1902.

Canada's Prime Minister, Wilfrid Laurier, initally attempted to steer clear of a conflict which had no bearing whatsoever on Canada's national interests. But a majority of English Canadians were rearing for a jolly good "adventure", with the sole opposition emanating from Québec, and a few vocal English Canadian labour unions and farmers' groups. French Canadians in particular were not only worried of setting a precedent for involvement in future conflicts, but could also sympathise with the Boer — small nations struggling for independece in a sea of Anglos. Laurier eventually bowed to pressure, and agreed to a compromise which saw Canada provide volunteers, equipment and transportation in lieu of conscription.

Though Canadians had participated in the Nile Expedition of 1884-85, this was the first time large Canadian contingents participated in armed conflict abroad. Many signed up beliving they'd fight alongside other Canadians, commanded by Canadians even. As it turned out, the Brits called the shots from beginning to end, minding to quickly get out of the way once the actual shooting started. A scenario Canadians would experience for much of the First World War as well. As it happened, the first significant British victory of the conflict was won by Canadians, in the Battle of Paardeberg. Though as wreaths are placed at the South African War memorial in Toronto, the Boer War Memorial in Montréal, and other points of rememberance throughout Canada, let's remember that this particular "victory" — like most of them — was the result of pure luck.

Having experienced their worst day of losses during the entire conflict (8 dead, 60 wounded) in their very first combat, and bungled a nighttime sneak attack which saw most of the Canadian battalion retreat, two Canadian companies managed to convince 4,019 Boer men and 50 women (roughly 10% of the Boer army) to surrender. The battle could've easily gone the other way. Today there aren't many obvious reminders of this specific conflict in Canada, beyond its most infamous commander — Horatio Herbert Kitchener — being the namesake of many a street, park, school, and public building throught the country, even a city in Ontario.

The Mennonite community once known as Berlin, was violently intimidated to change its name after the racist Field Marshall's death in 1916. No German name would be tolerated by the rabid pro-Empire Anglos — despite the fact that the conflict fought at the time was (ostensibly) against German Emperor Wilhelm II , the first grandchild of British Queen Victoria. But Kitchener is perhaps best remembered as the mustachioed Big Brother staring down from a recruitment poster — like a British Stalin — intimidating citizens of the Empire to go get killed in the First World War, the pointless conflict which spelled the end of the era of empires. (Though we're often told to revere those fallen in that war for their sacrifice to peace and democracy, let's remember none of the participating nations were democracies in any modern sense of the word.)

What is less known is the tactics Kitchener employed in 1900, once the British offensive had failed to subdue the Boer. Apart from a "scorched earth" policy, which saw the devastation of Boer farms and ranches, their livelihoods and livestock destroyed, as well as using Boer prisoners as human shields to protect trains, Kitchener also turned refugee camps into concentration camps. Though similar camps had previously been established in the Russian Empire prior to the first partition of Poland, in the USA to concentrate Native Americans, and by Spain in Cuba and the Philippines, Kitchener's concentration camps are distinguished for being the first to actually be termed such.

The internment of Boer women and children in 45 tented camps (and an additional 64 for black South Africans of various ethnicities who lived in the two independent Boer republics) was meant to deny the Boer "guerillas" access to supplies, food, and shelter. Those interned also served as a means to extort: families of Boer men still fighting received smaller rations than others, causing mass starvation. Combined with poor sanitation, lack of food soon made diseases — measles, typhoid, dysentery — endemic in the camps. Shortage of medicine and medical care quickly led to large numbers of deaths.

According to the Canadian War Museum's resident historian Cameron Pulsifer, any comparison of these camps with the more infamous ones established by the German Nazi-regime is "grossly exaggerated and unfair". An opinion that easily calls into question the point of said museum. Whether or not the British — with ample help from Canadian volunteers — had intended to perpetrate a genocide is beside the point. They waged a war on two independent states for the purpose of annexing their territories and forcibly assimilating their populations. Regardless of the stated intentions, the end result ultimately speaks for itself: nearly 25% of the Boer population, 50% of all Boer children under the age of 16, and an estimated 12% of the black South African populations died in Kitchener's camps.

Starvation, disease, and exposure killed 27,927 Boer — of whom 24,074 were children — and 14,154 black South Africans. Though as no attempt was ever made to keep records of black South Africans, their deaths were likely underestimated. As many as 22,000 of the nearly 107,000 black South Africans interned may have perished in the camps. By comparison, only some 3,000 Boer men were killed in actual combat. Additionally, of the nearly 28,000 prisoners of war taken by British forces, some 25,630 were sent to prisons overseas. While not as purposeful as the Holocaust, it's a genocide that's left a lasting effect on the demography and quality of life in the region.

Why does this matter to us now? Because Canadians participated fully in these genocidal actions, taking active part in the "suppressive" policies during the entire duration of the war. Military fetishists like Pulsifer and his fellows at the Canadian War Museum may lack the courage to admit it, but not one among all these people — men, women, children — ever posed a threat to Canada in any way whatsoever. The Canadian War Museum's obfuscation of the atrocities and war crimes committed by Canadian volunteers is disingenuous and dishonest.

Ironically, once awareness of the appalling conditions in camps had been raised, primarily by Emily Hobhouse, Kitchener allegedly issued a "take no prisoners" order to prevent overcrowding. This only came to light during the court-martial of three Australian soldiers — one of whom happend to be folk hero Harry "Breaker" Morant — put on trial for executing Boer prisoners. Kitchener denied ever issuing the order, promptly signing the death warrants of the Australians. This didn't prevent Canadian scouts from wearing black feathers to indicate they'd shoot any Boer captured under arms. And what do we have to show for our participation in this "grand adventure"? 267 Canadians killed in action, 252 wounded, three Victoria crosses, one scarf crocheted by the Queen, and a springbok on the cap badge of the Royal Canadian Dragoons.

Though the legacy of the Second Boer War also taints the dress uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, whose distinctive Stetson hats and Strathcona boots were first officially sanctioned for use by Canadian South Africa volunteers. Canada also "gained" a Minister of Militia and Defence in South Africa veteran Sam Hughes — a reactionary hothead who not only helped convince Prime Minister Laurier of the necessity of getting involved in the South African war, but would go on to whip up nationalist fervour in the build up to the First World War, goading Canadians to yet again sacrifice themselves in a foreign conflict that had little to do with them.

As we're asked by our parliament this year to pause for two rather than the traditional minute of silence on Remembrance Day, let us remind ourselves of the chauvinist forces that are in fact one of the leading sources of conflict in our world. Let us remind ourselves how easily we can be decieved to lend our support to armed aggression in far away places, against people we don't know and have never met, who pose little — if any — threat to us.

As the martial sentimentalists in our current government and in our society attempt to institutionalise militarism in our country, to ritualise rememberance ceremonies, and imbue them with chauvinist platitudes and historical revisionism in order to turn future generations into willing recruits, let us remind ourselves that in 1899, the (Liberal) government of Canada claimed the overseas expediton to South Africa would not be a precedent. Time has clearly proven otherwise. It is in our power to change that.

Joseph Wiseman, 1918-2009.

Canadian actor Joseph Wiseman has passed away. Best known for portraying James Bond's first nemesis, Dr. No, Wiseman had a long career in theater - having arrived on Broadway in the 1930s - in addition to his many film and television appearances. He was predeceased in February by his wife of 45 years, American dancer, choreographer and teacher Pearl Lang (1921-2009). Of his most famous role, Wiseman claimed he had no inkling of what he was letting himself in for, saying "I thought it might be just another Grade-B Charlie Chan mystery."

Wetaskiwin water tower.

Like grain elevators - the true skyscrapers of the plains - water towers were long the signature landmarks of prairie communities. More than simple storage containers, they signaled the locations of human habitation, displayed the names and mottos of villages and towns, and provided a spectacular and practically irresistible venue for adolescent shenanigans. The need for water may have been the main motivation for their erection, but the desire to express pride in hometowns and relationships eventually altered their significance from that of mere utilitarian structures to symbols of home.

As new technology came to replace them, these once immovable giants began to disappear. No longer useful to the communities they had served, the cost of maintaining them quite often outweighed the benefit of preserving them. Though standpipes (cylindrical water storage tanks) remain quite common, only 36 water towers remain in Alberta. Out of these, fewer than half are still in use. Among those, the Wetaskiwin water tower stands out as Canada's oldest functioning municipal water tower - having continually served its community for the past 100 years.

Originally painted black - like most of its contemporaries - its riveted steel legs support a 450,609 L (119,038 gal.) capacity steel tank - holding enough water to fill an average, 25 m public swimming pool. The original wooden sheath protecting the tank from cold winter winds has been replaced by a steel enclosure, topped by a blue, octagonal peak, while steel tie rods and turnbuckles ensure the 45.72 m (150 ft) tall structure (54.86 m including the antennas on top) doesn't topple.

The tower was erected during the 1906-1907 building boom, which saw Wetaskiwin grow from a tiny town to "the smallest city in the Empire". The Calgary division of the Dominion Bridge Co. was responsible for construction, while the Ontario Wind Engine and Pump Co. furnished the tower's equipment. Both companies were involved in erecting a large number of similar structures across Canada, constructing towers in neighbouring communities like Camrose and Lacombe - though apart from Wetasksiwin, only nearby New Norway has retained its Dominion-built tower (erected in 1947).

The Wetaskiwin water tower stood unconnected and unused for a year and a half following construction, as the town's water and sewage system didn't actually reach it until 1909. Today it primarily serves the western end of Wetaskiwin - now a city of 12,285 inhabitants - drawing water from Coal Lake. Formed on the Battle River roughly 13 km east of the town, the lake has served as Wetaskiwin's municipal water supply since 1968, and had its level regulated for this purpose by an earthen embankment and dam in 1972.

Threatened by demolition six years ago, the now refurbished water tower became a subject of great dispute in Wetaskiwin when initial renovation estimates were drawn up. Ranging from C$1.22 to 1.38 million, compared to the C$250,000 cost of tearing it down, the figures left many citizens feeling that the money could be put to better use. A problem architectural conservation faces everywhere, not just in small prairie communities; the public doesn't mind preserving its cultural heritage as long as it doesn't have to pay for it. Preserving aesthetically spartan, utilitarian, industrial structures - such as water towers - presents a particularly difficult challenge.

The costliest part of the renovation appeared to be the removal of the lead paint coating the tower, though once it was established that it was possible to largely seal rather than remove the original paintwork, by February 2004 the city was able to reduce the total cost to C$748,000. As it turned out, the singularity of the project required very specific scaffolding to envelop the structure, raising the total cost by July 2004 to C$988,710 - leading concerned citizens to vent across the pages of the Wetaskiwin Times Advertiser, generating well over 40 articles and countless letters on the subject of the water tower.

What began as concern over spiraling costs erupted into a full-blown scandal, once the complete tally of the delayed project was revealed. Though optimistically scheduled to be completed between August and October 2004, work on the the tower wasn't finished until October 2005. Following many delays and several gaffes, the restoration of the city landmark totaled C$1,918,362 - leaving even the city councillors responsible dismayed. Though the city had committed nearly C$739,000 to the project, the Wetaskiwin Memorial Fund had raised C$130,000 in private and corporate donations (from as far away as Arizona), while the provincial and federal governments contributed C$236,000, that still left (roughly) an C$814,000 hole to fill. Even with the rejuvenation completed, the debate over whether the water tower's new white garb represented money well spent continued - until the controversial renovation of Wetaskiwin's National Historic Site, the 1907 Court House, overtook it in 2006.

Unlike the Gleichen water tower, erected in 1911, the Wetaskiwin tower hasn't yet been added to the Canadian Register of Historic Places - probably because it remains a fully functioning component of municipal infrastructure. Its new exterior incorporating the official city colours - designed by local students in competition - will likely enable the tower to serve the community for at least another half-century. Dominating the city skyline, visible for ten kilometers, it also stands as a striking reminder of the vital role water towers played in the survival of many prairie communities.

My Winnipeg.

Winnipeg.

Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Winnipeg.

Heart of the continent. The Winnie in the Pooh. Slurpee Capital of the World (tenth time in a row in 2009). Home of the world's longest skating rink, Dickie Dee ice cream, Domo Gasoline, Canwest, Porno Pizza, Ben Moss Jewellers, McNally Robinson, Salisbury House restaurants, and New Flyer buses. Cradle of K-tel, E-Children, Harlequin Enterprises, Nygård International, The Guess Who, the Crash Test Dummies, and Motor Coach Industries.

Home to the Royal Canadian Mint, western Canada's oldest civic gallery (world's largest collection of Inuit art), Le Cercle Molière (the oldest continuously running theatre company in Canada), the first Hudson Bay Company department store, and the first A&W in Canada. Winnipeg - the capital of a frigid prairie province, held in winter's grip two thirds of the year. An isolated outpost surrounded by a landscape so prostrate, it's said you can watch a dog run away for three days.

Winnipeg: where Tommy Douglas witnessed the General Strike of 1919; where A. E. van Vogt began writing science fiction; where Marshall McLuhan switched his major from engineering to English; where Neil Young formed his first band. The place where Canada's first school patrols were established, and the 9-1-1 emergency telephone number was introduced to North America. The only city on the continent occupied by "Nazis" during the Second World War.

Birthplace of Louis Riel, William Stephenson (the real James Bond), Robert Hunter (co-founder of Greenpeace), Bob Rock, Terry Fox, and - incontrovertibly - G. Arthur Maddin. For nearly a quarter of a century, Maddin - the banker turned auteur - has endeavoured to resurrect once avant-garde techniques like iris shots, breathless titles, shock cutting, staged poses, and melodramatic acting, through hermetic, studio bound celebrations of cinema's artifice. His style seems at first regressive, but is quite cleverly postmodern and surrealist in a very Magritte manner.

Four years ago, Guy Maddin managed to weasel funding from the Discovery Channel for a feature film about his city of birth. Though only a documentary of the metropolis in Maddin's experience, My Winnipeg presented a place so enchanting, it could quite frankly strike anyone who's never actually visited it as the most exciting city in North America. So exotic was Maddin's vision, born and bred inhabitants had problems identifying that positively enthralling place with the dreary, frigid black hole most of them have unsuccessfully sought to escape all their lives.

"Back in Winnipeg's earliest years, the Canadian Pacific Railway used to sponsor an annual treasure hunt. This contest required our citizens to wander the city in a day-long combing of our streets and neighbourhoods. First prize was a one-way ticket on the next train out of town. The idea being that once someone had spent a full day looking closely at his own hometown he would never want to leave."

Now, Coach House Books has published the script - or, rather, the guiding narrative - of My Winnipeg, and as if to compound the reputation of the "gateway to the prairies", they've done so in a flimsy quarto paperback (complete with typos). Although some copies have had pockets containing the DVD pasted into them, the presentation seems to reinforce the pulpiness of Maddin's fiction. Despite claims of extensive annotation, and "a cornucopia of illuminating arcana", those interested in Maddin's process will learn little new.

The annotations mainly consist of further outrageous claims, either excised from the filmed version or simply added for heightened befuddlement, while the "illuminating arcana" shed but brief light on the contents of the darkest recesses of Maddin's mind. Lovers of ephemera, in particular (North American) cinema and hockey trivia, will have a field day - as will the select species of Winnepegophilists. Scholars of drama and the moving image will likely gain more insight attending one of Mr Maddin's lectures at the University of Manitoba.

However, the book - like the film - does indeed contain a number of quite true (or, at least, difficult to disprove), curious and interesting facts about Canada's seventh largest municipality, as well as a lovely introduction of Ann Savage - who's last film My Winnpeg was. It doesn't reveal how Maddin managed to cajole out of retirement that most fatal of cinema's femmes - capable of making even Bette Davis cower - to play his mother, nor how he convinced her to do so in a city frozen in amber (never mind ice) time and again when commerce found alternative routes across the continent.

The conversation with Michael Ondaatje and the contributions of several Maddin collaborators that supplement the volume, further adroitly blur the line between fact and fiction, leaving lifelong Winnipeggers - even those acquainted with the most obscure city lore - on an equal footing with everyone else: flabbergasted. If not bamboozled. But Maddin's intent is far from malicious; his isn't a quest for achieving trivial superiority.

Infamous for his loathing of research, Maddin has minted myth from a handful of actual circumstance and a truck-load of half-remembered rumours to not only re-awaken its sleepwalking inhabitant's interest in their surroundings, but also explain what keeps them - and Maddin in particular - in Winnipeg. Emulating what Canada's neighbours to the south have elevated to a science, Maddins fanciful cinematic ode to his hometown tries to remedy a deficiency in Canadian culture: the ability to revel in the history and contemporary culture of the places we inhabit.

In a nation made up to such great extent by the uprooted, leading a protracted nomadic existence - always en route or desirous to go somewhere else - in self-contained bubbles imposed by an almost implacable, immense physical remoteness, Maddin's mythmaking is license to rediscover our shared cultural geography, and consider it as exciting, inviting, unique, and worthy of reverence as that of other nations.

Rear View: eXistenZ.

In the dream house of the year 2000, Mrs. Tomorrow will find herself living happily inside her own head. Wall, floors and ceilings will be huge unbroken screens on which will be projected a continuous sound and visual display of her pulse and respiration, her brain-waves and blood pressure [... ] all these will surround her with a continuous light show.

J. G. Ballard, The Future of the Future, 1977

Ten years ago, David Cronenberg's fifteenth feature film, eXistenZ, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. It's Cronenberg's first original film since Videodrome, which premiered almost exactly sixteen years earlier, and they're thematically similar. Where Videodrome explored our growing engrossment with television and video, eXistenZ probes our fascination with emerging media like video games and virtual reality.

Yet upon general release in April 1999, eXistenZ was eclipsed, in Canada as well as everywhere else, by The Matrix — a visually much more advanced, and certainly much more lucrative foray into similar territory. Apart from timing, the comparative simplicity with which the Canadian film was made probably contributed to its obscurity. Where The Matrix relied heavily on expensive computer-generated imagery and wire stunts, eXistenZ was created with trim sets and queasy effects.

True to Cronenberg's habit of creating hermetic little worlds, it's a very small film, shot almost entirely in a Toronto studio, with additional exteriors in surrounding rural areas. Despite being his first feature to employ CGI, Cronenberg's emphasis on the tactile ensured that the majority of its C$31 million budget (the second most expensive Canadian film at the time) was devoted to advanced puppetry: a warehouse staffed with 90 specialist created its mutated creatures and devices.

Furthermore, Carol Spier's set designs blur the distinction between the genuine and the artificial, contrasting anodyne triteness with nauseating novelty, placing the action firmly at an undetermined point in time, while Peter Suschitzky's use of a single lens throughout the film lends it an odd visual unity, keeping the framing off-kilter and modelling pools of soft lighting to provide rich contrasts. The resulting texture and depth provide an almost three-dimensional quality.

Though thematically quite advanced, eXistenZ contains only 45 scenes performed by a small ensemble of characters. The eclectic cast, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Eccleston (the ninth Doctor Who), Canadians Sarah Polley and Don McKellar, reflects Cronenberg's preference for mainly employing character actors he already had experience working with rather than the latest, greatest stars.

The plot revolves around master game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose inventions tap into the user's psyche, utilising his body as a power source, blurring the boundary between reality and game, with the resulting game experience directed by the player's own emotions, fears, and fantasies. These highly involving and addictive games are considered a threat to normal life by a faction of "realists" intent on stopping their designers at any cost.

Following a foiled attempt on her life during a demonstration of her latest creation, Geller finds herself on the lam in the company of inept marketing trainee Ted Pikul (Jude Law) — possibly named after the Shulgins' infamous compendium of psychedelic alkaloids — drafted impromptu as her bodyguard, forcing the brilliant cybernetic mother figure to find a way through the labyrinthine plot with a technical virgin in tow; a digital Eve forced to educate her analogue Adam.

The story was inspired by an interview David Cronenberg conducted for Shift Magazine with Salman Rushdie. Cronenberg found the concept of the artist having to live with his creation once it's assumed a life of its own a very "Burroughsian" concept, adding to it the necessity of remaining perpetually on the run as the creation violently clashed with the views of people inhabiting a reality different from the artist's, completely obliterating what the artist thought he had done.

As their conversation had turned towards the impact of computers on art, Cronenberg was intrigued by the proposition that gaming can be as emotionally and intellectually engaging as any work of high art. With eXistenZ he explores this through philosophical illustrations of existentialist principles, without becoming heavy, deep, or depressing. On the contrary, the film has a much lighter, almost playful, tone, with a visual and verbal humour that surpasses the comic moments of Cronenberg's earlier films.

It's also sensual in a much more human way than, for instance, the coolly detached exploration of alternative sexual practices that characterised his adaptation of J. G. Ballard's Crash. Which ultimately highlights the fascination with change that Cronenberg and Ballard have in common. Both create futures easy to visualise, largely devoid of moralising, dire "warnings". Like anything new, they argue, the future can be unsettling and alienating, yet also arousing and inspiring, and not necessarily negative.

Another intriguing aspect of eXistenZ is its brief examination of game characters' moral boundaries. Players accept, for instance, the unbridled violence they're compelled to impart to facilitate a game's progress because they're indulging in a fantasy. Death in a game is unreal, therefore acceptable. But should the distinction between game and reality suddenly dissolve, and the consequences become irreversible, the player's actions could become increasingly difficult to justify.

eXistenZ's particular brand of biotechnology is perhaps its most disturbing facet. Devices made from a creature's organs rearranged, surgically altered to become useful tools in human hands blur the line between the animate (human) and the inanimate (machine). Representing hybrids of the two, their existence questions which is which, and poses a challenge to the value of life itself; the devices "living" without significant autonomy as tools are juxtaposed with the vast herds of animals designed to feed us.

If "living" tools and devices are still decades away (though the recent application of organic material in video displays and screens certainly brings them nearer), the concept of the human body as a machine to be augmented as we please is hardly novel. The type of direct neural interfaces envisioned in eXistenZ aren't that far removed from the currently common modifications — piercings, tattoos, prosthetics — with which we seek to compensate our real as well as perceived deficiencies.

Because the body incorporates life and the certainty of death, modification also serves as an attempt to flee our mortality — a primary source of inspiration for most of David Cronenberg's work exploring the inevitability of change, and his characters' varying degree of success in coping and adapting to it. Despite the metaphysical somersaults, eXistenZ is no exception, borrowing its fairly conventional structure from traditional video games.

Beyond the down-the-rabbit-hole story, which has characters leaping from one challenge to another within a virtual world indistinguishable from a real one, lies an exploration of how we use technology to recreate ourselves (for instance, as Sims or Second Life avatars), highlighting our use of technology and how it shapes, distorts, and changes what it means to be human, exposing the special bond we have with the tools and technologies that have come to define and control us.

Toying with Cartesian Dualism — the concept that mind and body are distinct and separate, yet complement each other through interaction — Cronenberg asks the existential question "How do we know what is real?" by submitting his characters to the same treatment he already submits his audience. In the film, the game players remain stationary and seemingly lethargic while immersed in an active game — much like a movie audience may appear while actively processing what its seeing.

Unlike most other late 20th Century films probing the existential nature of reality — a trend that possibly began with Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup in 1966, if not earlier — eXistenZ examines the negative impact of immersive virtual realities while remaining on the side of art, artists, and imagination. Where The Matrix and its ilk portray the heroic recovery of "reality", eXistenZ imagines realists battling against illusion, without positing an escape from the perpetually recursive game in which their struggle takes place.