Becoming Canadian

For a quite different initiative to introduce new immigrants to Canada about traditions and culture, encouraging them to come along to national park sites to try their hand at camping was a brilliant idea on the part of Parks Canada. Not that most Canadians, as it happens, take advantage of this country's wonderful opportunities to view nature up close and personal.

Admittedly, it takes a certain mindset and love of nature and adventure.

Family-type adventure, for the most part. And what better place for parents and children to bond a love for nature than out camping together, with most of the comforts of urban living at a distance. Exposed to nature in the raw, to lakes and rivers, forests and their inhabitants. Canoe camping is the next step, and once that's been mastered more or less, than why not take a stab at alpine camping?

There's more than ample opportunity to do all of that in Canada's wide open spaces where nature is protected by law in celebration of a great heritage of geography and history. The new immigrants who responded to the invitation to try out camping as a family leisure activity had plenty of assistance in helping them understand how to proceed and what to look for.

That bare and initial introduction - despite what turned out to be for most, a camping experience complete with untoward weather, cold, windy and rainy - a venture that piqued the interest of many to repeat the adventure, at their own initiative, taking advantage of weather reports that might inform that the sun will be out and warmer temperatures would make a repeat infinitely more pleasurable.

Of course it isn't possible to always predict weather outcomes and it's a lesson to be absorbed for any who might consider camping, hiking, canoeing and mountain climbing irresistible, that they will also learn to be prepared to meet weather exigencies. Coping with the need to plan well, equip themselves adequately and be prepared to meet the weather head on can only enhance the experience.

And to those curious enough and courageous enough to turn out for the experience, may many more and pleasurable adventures await them in their future as new Canadians.