{"id":8085,"date":"2016-03-12T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T16:27:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T20:27:47","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Canada … Featuring Cassia, Tracey, & Adriana"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nIt’s time for this month’s So Your Character is From Another Country! This is a monthly or bimonthly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last month’s So Your Character is From Australia …<\/a> be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nI’m very excited about this edition considering I just went to Canada for the first time! It was an amazing experience. I talk more about that in my <\/span>The Tag of Happiness & The Dragon’s Loyalty Award<\/a> and <\/span>Monthly Summary: February 2016<\/a> posts. In Alberta, Canada, I visited my good friend Cassia and we did many a Canadian adventure. It was great research for <\/span>Red Hood<\/a><\/i> and <\/span>Silver Hood<\/i> and all around an amazing experience. Since I got to see her in person her answers to the questions will be in a ten minute video interview at the end. I’m so happy to have her and two other awesome Canadian bloggers here today!<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nLet’s welcome Cassia, Tracey, and Adriana to the stage!<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nDisclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nMy name\u2019s Cassia Schaar<\/b>, I\u2019m 19, and I\u2019m from a rather unheard of suburb outside of Edmonton, Alberta known as Sherwood Park (shout out to anyone who lives in an unheard of town!). Currently, I\u2019m attending university as a full-time student, holding a job at a bookstore and working hard to make it into the world of the novelists. So far, I’ll be published in Focus on the Family\u2019s Clubhouse magazine and have won an award for my Flash Fiction work. My hope is that I can inspire and guide other aspiring writers who have dreams bigger than the real world itself.<\/span> <\/span><\/span>Check out her guest post on short stories<\/a> here on the blog!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nBlog<\/a>\/\/<\/span>Facebook<\/a><\/div>\n

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\nMy name is Tracey Dyck<\/b>, and I live in Manitoba, Canada. I\u2019m a 20-year-old homeschool graduate, the oldest of four children. Working in retail, I get to meet all sorts of quirky people (none of whom have any idea they\u2019re being observed by a novelist!). I dream of writing full-time. Fantasy is my literary homeland, so it\u2019s no surprise that my work-in-progress series falls into that category. Sporadic sketches and gardening and books fill the cracks of my life, and Jesus is the One who makes all the difference.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nBlog<\/a> \/\/ Google+<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nHiya! My name is Adriana Gabrielle<\/b> and I\u2019m an 18 year old cashier, fangirl, bookworm, and aspiring author. I live in lovely Southern Alberta, Canada with my parents and seven younger siblings!<\/span><\/div>\n

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\nBlog<\/a>\/\/Blog 2<\/a>\/\/Twitter<\/a>\/\/Instagram<\/a>\/\/YouTube<\/a><\/span> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


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\nWhat do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/b><\/div>\n

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\nTracey: <\/b><\/span>Canada is a vast and beautiful place. Its landscape is as varied as the people who live within it. Famous landmarks include Niagara Falls, Hudson Bay, the CN Tower, the Canadian Rockies, Banff National Park, and Parliament Hill. Besides Canada Day on July 1st, most of our holidays are shared with the U.S.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\nIt\u2019s difficult to sum up Canadian culture or to describe what makes us unique, because it\u2019s a subtle thing. We\u2019re similar to Americans in some regards, and yet there are marked differences, which you\u2019ll read about in further answers. Perhaps what makes us the most unique is the huge variety of ethnicities and cultures all living within the same country.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\n<\/span>Adriana:<\/b> <\/span>Well, landmark wise, Alberta has got some pretty gorgeous mountains and some STUNNING places to go hike up them or just bask in their glory. Those three places are Waterton, Banff and Jasper.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nSome other GORGEOUS locations are the Hoodoos in the Milk River and Drumheller area and also the Coulees. Which I only just discovered are only found in southern alberta\u2026 But seriously guys, they are cool!<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nWell besides hockey (which is a big thing in Canada\u2026) Alberta has some huge events that draw tourists in but I think the biggest one is the Calgary Stampede. I myself have never been to the Stampede\u2026but it\u2019s a pretty big deal every stinkin\u2019 year. I should probably go one time just to say I\u2019ve been, ya know?<\/span><\/div>\n

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Banff, Alberta (<\/span><\/span>Image not mine.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Jasper, Alberta (<\/span><\/span><\/span>Image not mine)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Waterton, Alberta (<\/span><\/span>Image not mine)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nTell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nTracey: <\/b><\/span>The beautiful Rocky Mountains in the west descend into the central prairies, which then turn into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, and finally to the rugged east coast. Tundra comprises the northernmost reaches, but most of our population lives within 150 kilometers (93 miles) of the U.S. border. Coastal areas experience mild seasons, while the interior of Canada can range from -40 \u00b0C (-40 \u00b0F) in winter to 30 \u00b0C (86 \u00b0F) or higher in summer. Up north it can get even colder. We have more lakes than any other nation, and are the second largest country in the world.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nOne of my favorite places is home\u2014Manitoba. The flat prairie land is perfect for viewing the most gorgeous sunrises and sunsets and starry nights. Then there\u2019s the wild beauty of B.C., the unique Hoodoos in Alberta, and so much more. I\u2019d love to visit the east coast one day as well. I hear it\u2019s amazing.<\/span>
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The Hoodoos (<\/span>Image not mine)<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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The Coulees (<\/span><\/span>Image not mine)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nAdriana:<\/b> Chinooks (Native to Alberta as far as Canada goes)  are the best thing in existence, ok guys? Chinook is a native name meaning \u2018Snow Eater\u2019 and that name describes them pretty well, because usually the strong Chinook winds will blow in and melt all the snow and its pretty dang fabulous. All the technical details on how a Chinook works is stuff I don\u2019t really pay attention to, because as long as it gets rid of the snow, I don\u2019t care how it works \ud83d\ude1b <\/span><\/div>\n
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The Hoodoos (Image not mine)<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\nTell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
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\nTracey:<\/b> It\u2019s not that different from American food, really, though I suppose the stereotypical things like maple syrup and poutine are a bonus! Because we\u2019re a mosaic of so many cultures, food differs from place to place and home to home. My area has a strong Mennonite influence, so I enjoy many of the cultural dishes: perogies, farmer sausage, borscht, etc. (If you\u2019re hungry, ask for definitions\/details in the comments! Mennonite food is chock full of calories.)<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nAdriana:<\/b> Well, in Canada we eat a lot of food that Americans do. We don\u2019t really have our own specific dishes and such that are different from any American food or anything\u2026 BUT Poutine is (apparently) a Canadian food that originated in Quebec and then there is the whole, yummy, sticky Canadian Maple Syrup. (Ontario) Also, Beef is kinda an Alberta thing\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n

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\nTell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nTracey:<\/b> <\/span>This sort of thing I find endlessly fascinating! Here\u2019s some of our slang:<\/span><\/div>\n
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