Vancouver. Photo by neil1877, Flickr
At first, Vancouver, didn’t fit within my plans. Honestly, I’ve only been able to locate it on a map for about three years now, and it’s all thanks to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Let’s face it, Canada’s West Coast remains a mystery to most French people, whereas Quebec has a reassuring ring to it because they speak French, and we are “related”. My arrival to Canada was consequently via what some people call “our cousins’ province” and, more precisely, through Montreal.
It’s hard not to compare. We like to see things through what we already know and are used to, and for me that means looking at things through France. It’s nothing to be bothered by, just a way to familiarize myself and tame the unknown.
After several months spent in Montreal, the idea of discovering Canada grew on me. It was time to go ahead with it. I’d heard so many good things about Vancouver, and I was musing on my final destination – a city lodged between ocean and mountains.
At the end of summer, the Trans Canada Highway beckoned me towards new adventures and discoveries. Through its small towns, capital cities, and national parks, Canada – this larger than large country – was unveiling its many facets to me.
Every Canadian city is different, every province has its own identity and Vancouver has a flavour of its own – in this case, Vancouver is even more special. Once I crossed the Alberta-B.C. border, I noticed the absence of French signs, and once I arrived in Vancouver I discovered that the city has an American feel to it. Evidently no other Canadian city possesses such a panorama, but its distinction goes further.
Once again, I started to compare. It’s not a matter of which is better than the other, but simply of identifying differences – observations that allowed me to find where I fit in. However, the lens is no longer France, but Montreal, simply because Montreal is in Canada. After spending several months in Montreal I know that Quebec is a place onto itself, where French is spoken and people feel themselves to be Quebecois before being Canadian.
Having said that, whether they are French-speaking or English-speaking, Canadian or Quebecois, all are equally open, friendly and disciplined.
My mistake was to think, thanks to a geographical and national logic, that I would have been able to compare the two. I barely opened my mouth when I immediately realized my error.
My first contact with Canadians made me smile. They would ask me if I was a French from France or from Quebec. And therein lies the difference with Quebec. In la belle province my accent belies my origins, and points to my nationality at the second word. There’s no question about it. Something else I find surprising is that my accent amuses people and Canadians try on me a little phrase of welcome or one of thanks in Moliere’s mother tongue.
In Montreal the French accent no longer holds the degree of seduction it once did. Quebec has been overcome by hordes of French and their sometimes conquering spirit who, on the basis of language similitude, do not adapt to the province’s ways, but instead bring with them their own habits and beliefs. Here, the French language doesn’t hold much weight, and therefore still confers a bit of an exotic character upon France, as do other countries embodied in Vancouver. The French become visitors among other visitors, albeit more unusual than those of Asian countries.
Contrary to Montreal, and despite the fact that French is the country’s second language, bilingualism is different in Vancouver. The English language accompanies an Asian one. The little French person that I am melts into the crowd; its diversity will triumph over my nationality.
This ethnic diversity more concretely resurfaced crossing the Alberta border, but it is here, in Vancouver, that one realizes the specificity of this land of immigration. If Montreal is a magnet to the French, the prairies’ capitals are mostly scorned by non-Canadians. Here borders melt and we have Asia, Africa and Australia together at the dinner table.
A short stay will never enable anyone to define the provinces, a lifetime neither, most likely. However, one thing’s for sure: Vancouver is not like the rest of Canada. It is a Canada unlike anything else outside its own borders.
Translation Monique Kroeger
