Never Been Abroad

Country: Canada

Canada arrived as cold air and wide quiet — Vancouver and Toronto, walled Quebec City, and the mountain lakes at Banff, cities I have watched from the opposite side of the world.

  • Charcoal sketch of Montreal under snow seen from the mountain, grey rooftops running down to the wide frozen river, the great dome of the oratory faint on the high ground - never been abroad

    Montreal

    Montreal is the city I think of as a clerical error — a piece of Europe entered, somehow, in the wrong column of the atlas.

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  • Charcoal sketch of a glass skyline along the shore of a vast flat frozen lake, a tall needle among the towers, cold clear light - never been abroad

    Toronto

    Toronto is a flat, orderly city on the shore of an inland sea — the whole world resettled politely along a frozen lake, the New-World city so many like me went to.

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  • Charcoal sketch of a glass-tower skyline on the water with snow mountains rising right behind it, a seaplane low over the harbour - never been abroad

    Vancouver

    A young city where the mountains come straight down to the sea — glass towers under snow peaks, rainforest and ocean pressing in at the green edge of the New World.

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