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Her politicians are unknown outside her borders.  Her history is subdued; even the most jarring social movement of the last two hundred years is called the “Quiet” Revolution.  But her culture?

Hockey.  Mounties.  Maple Syrup.  Molson Dry.  We know her culture.

If we know her culture, we must know her citizens.  Constable Benton Fraser, Dudley Do-Right, Sergeant Bruce, and Sam Steele taught us.  Canadians are decent, polite, trustworthy.   When Australian farmer Ray Mullen found a vagabond woman sleeping in his sheep barn he was understandably suspicious.  “You’re an American.”  Not a question, but a statement.  Only Americans could be so disrespectful.  The woman shook her head.  “Canadian,” she said, correcting him.  “I graduated from college and figured I’d see the world.”  Her declaration of Canadian citizenship changed everything.  Now she was a good neighbour, fellow citizen of a Commonwealth country.  She was Canadian.  She was decent, polite, trustworthy.  He believed her immediately.  How could he not?  Annie was a fine young woman from a fine country.  Ray knew he could trust her with his money, with his farm, with his very life.  What could possibly go wrong?

Ethan Rom – from Ontario

Hurley called him “Lance,” until the soft-spoken man corrected him.  “I’m Ethan–Ethan Rom.  From Ontario.”  Hurley’s response was in line with our own thoughts, and in keeping with Ethan’s hope:  “Right on, love Canada, great.”  Who could not love Canada?  Therefore, who could not love Ethan Rom?

Anthony Cooper also said he was from Ontario.  Ben traveled with a Canadian passport identifying him as Dean Moriarty.  When some of the Others asked about Greta and Bonnie, Ben told them they were “on assignment in Canada”.  Charles Widmore gave John Locke a new identity as Jeremy Bentham and new citizenship–in Canada.   Sawyer told the woman he was trying to con that he had a business partner “in Toronto”.  Kate, just before she stole Ray Mullen’s money and nearly killed him, said she was Annie, from Canada.

Canada was referenced ten times in the span of 121 episodes.  Not a single character–even a minor character among the otherwise international dramatis personae–was actually Canadian.  So notorious were Ethan and Kate’s fabricated citizenship that by the time Nathan claimed in “The Other 48 Days” to be from Canada, we were immediately suspicious.  Even in Season Two we knew a claim of Canadian citizenship meant the character was almost certainly lying.  When Ben told everyone that Greta and Bonnie were “on assignment in Canada”, we knew this meant they were anywhere but Canada, and they would be found in a location Ben wished to keep secret.  This turned out to be precisely the case:  Greta and Bonnie were in the semi-secret Looking Glass Station, awaiting Ben’s confidential command.

The deception was effective.  But why?

I blame Sam Steele, and with him, the entire tradition of the NWMP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP

His name is Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, played by Alberta-born actor Paul Gross.  Fraser was a Mountie very much in the tradition of Sam Steele and a sympathetic but over-the-top caricature of the polite, trustworthy, and self-sacrificing Canadian.  The dog’s name is Diefenbaker, though I don’t know why.  I imagine some residents of Saskatoon may attribute the name to the dog’s faithfulness.  I think maybe the dog got the name because he’s deaf.  But Friday, February 20, 1959 (“Black Friday”) was a long time ago.  If Fraser could forgive and forget, we can, too (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow and also http://www.amazon.ca/Arrow-Dan-Aykroyd/dp/B000065ILG/).

Fraser came into our living rooms every Thursday evening from 1994 to 1998 on CBS in the series Due South.  Stationed at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, Fraser and sidekick Chicago cop Ray Vecchio solved the most difficult of the Windy City’s crimes.  In four years on U.S. television, Constable Fraser fired a weapon only once–when the Great Lakes freighter he boarded sailed into Canadian waters, meaning his sidearm was (finally!) legal and he could disable the bad guy’s equipment with a perfectly-aimed shot.

Always-polite Constable Fraser is not the only reason for the success of the LOST deception.    If a confidence man has his way with us, it is not because of some independently verifiable fact of life in Canada, but due rather to something internal, something askew in our understanding of the world.  The confidence artist plays to that incorrect understanding, exploits it, and achieves her nefarious ends.

Appearances and Underlying Truth

The mysterious man at Jin and Sun’s wedding should not have been able to speak Korean, but here he was, not only wishing them well in their marriage, but doing it in flawless, perfectly fluent Korean.  Jin and Sun were amazed.  They thought they understood the world and the way it worked.  A man of European ancestry–a man who should have had no understanding of Korean–broke through the bonds of appearance and gave them a glimpse into the underlying truth of his mission.

We need to break through to that underlying truth if we are to understand the con artist’s game.  It is not enough to laugh and say, “I know Constable Fraser is a caricature; Canadians are not always polite.”  True enough.  But as I said above, the problem does not derive of some independently verifiable fact of Canadian culture–it derives of a deficit in our understanding of the world.  It’s internal, not external.

I served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, for two years.  The culture of West Africa, the way people speak, understand, and carry themselves is very different from what I experienced growing up in the Midwestern United States.  One day toward the end of my service I was in a crowd of people in Lomé.  Everyone was walking with me in the same direction, and I saw only the backs of people’s heads.  One man stood out from the crowd.  He was wearing African clothes, wore his hair close to the scalp as the other black men around him.  He was of average height and build.  I could not see his face.  But something in the way he carried himself, in the way he held his head high, shoulders back, moved arms and legs with purpose–gave me confidence, inner knowledge, that he was not Togolese.  He was American, maybe European.  When he and his friends stopped to purchase some Ghanaian chocolate from a little girl, my curiosity forced me to quicken my stride.  “Cent francs,” the girl informed him.  Twenty-five cents.  I looked at the man.  “It’s the going rate for Ghanaian chocolate,” I told him.  “You live here?” he asked with a heavy British accent.  I tried not to smile.  He was from Charlie’s city, Manchester.   Two years in West Africa had given me the ability to understand mannerisms, even to the point of pulling a black man from the UK out of a sea of black men from Togo.

I knew the man was from England, but did I know anything else?  His motivations?  His ideals?

I visited Munich in the summer of 2006.  It was a time when Americans were becoming less welcome around the world and some travel experts were advocating a bit of deception:  try to make people believe you’re Canadian.  As I returned from my one-week stay I gave up my seat on the subway to a woman just boarding.  The man in the seat in front  of me asked where I was from.  “North America,” I said.  It was not deception–it was the way I was thinking.  But my response could mean only one thing to the German fellow:  I was Canadian.  Americans simply don’t identify themselves as being from “North America”.  He turned to his girlfriend and said something to the effect that he didn’t like Canadians, but liked Americans even less.

What were my motivations for saying “North America”?  I was born and raised in Minnesota, I carry an American passport.  But I speak and write using Canadian rhythms and norms.  I did this for many years before my visit to Germany, and I will be doing it for the remainder of my life.  Can anyone say they understand the rationale for my adoption of Canadian sensibilities?  Does it even matter that I have U.S. citizenship?  Does it matter that I might be able to write my name as Pearson Moore, U.E. (United Empire Loyalist;  my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel Smith (Smith #1 in the New Brunswick Provincial Archives), was a resident of Connecticut, fighting for King and Country in 1775 when hostilities broke out.)?  We need to look deeper if we are to understand the Canada deception invented by Damon and Carlton.

I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota

He said the words with a wondrous combination of conviction and fear:  “I’m Henry Gale, from Minnesota.”  Henry Gale, probably much better known as uncle and legal guardian to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Vincent.  This Henry Gale was from Wayzata, western suburb of Minneapolis.  Wayzata’s only claim to fame, as far as I know, is that it is the city in which Greg Lemond, three-time winner of the Tour de France, decided to raise his family.

If Sayid hadn’t found that Minnesota driver’s licence, the deception might have worked longer than it did.  The discovery of this first of many lies was the beginning of what must have been five dozen or more beatings of the Dharmaville master of manipulation.

Why Minnesota?  The original Henry Gale was doing just fine from his home in Kansas.  Why did Darlton make the conscious decision to change his domicile to a location in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes?

The state sport in Minnesota is hockey.  The state bird is the loon.  The first Europeans to visit its shores were French fur traders in the 17th century.  If you replace the word “Minnesota” with “Canada” and “state” with “national”, the truth of the first three sentences of this paragraph remains unaffected.  Canada and Minnesota share history, languages, culture, and social institutions.

The ties between Minnesota and Canada are commonly recognised.  Rick Mercer, maybe the best-known comedian in Canada, a few years ago gave his humorous take on the placement of professional hockey teams in southern U.S. cities.  “Now teams from cold places, like Québec, Winnipeg, and Minnesota, are moving to warm places, like Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Nashville.  These are places where hockey is about as popular as bull riding, or women’s bowling.  People who live in the desert don’t like hockey.  They’d rather shoot rats at the dump.”  The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcj7dH2rSHA) is hilarious.

Darlton recognised, with Rick Mercer, that Minnesota and the provinces north of its border share more than five-month-long winters.  There are deep cultural connections affecting the way people in these places think, behave, and interact with one another.  Kansas wasn’t going to cut it on the Island of Mittelos.  The Island’s most notorious deception artist would have to hail from a location indicating decency, politeness, and trustworthiness, but it would have to be a location not as blatantly obvious as Ethan Rom’s Ontario.  It had to be Minnesota.  And the way Michael Emerson said it–I could almost smell the air.

Knowledge, Truth, and Understanding

The Smoke Monster knew even the master manipulator could be made to act on incomplete knowledge, that he could plant in Ben’s mind the idea that Jacob was not sympathetic friend but ruthless and uncaring enemy.  Cerberus’ plan worked perfectly, and Ben ended Jacob’s life with very little prodding in their first and only confrontation.

The Canada deceptions share much in common with the MIB’s fabrications about Jacob.  Smokey told Ben the truth, but only those truths that would support his goal of building Ben into the willing and eager assassin of the MIB’s arch enemy.  The last two sentence pose a juxtaposition of thought you may not have anticipated.  After less than a few seconds of reflection the careful reader will take exception with the first statement in this paragraph.  Kate was from Iowa, not from Canada.  John Locke was not “Jeremy Bentham”, and he was from California, not from Vancouver.  So how could the Canada deceptions in LOST be anything other than the most blatant of lies?  How can I say any truth is contained in these deceptions?

If we consider only the obvious aspects of the deception, we will see only the lie.  But every good deception contains solid truth, or the deception would not hold its own weight.

We must endeavour to think about the deception in new terms to grasp the reason for its success.

Is Pearson Moore citizen of the U.S. or is he Canadian?  I submit we need not make a choice.  He is U.S. citizen, but he thinks, moves, and breathes as Canadian.  What is Canada, anyway?  What is the essential stuff of the country where you make your home?  In high school I was told repeatedly that the United States is an idea.  So too, I think, Canada is an idea.  It is an idea much different from ideas I have come to know in my life, and certainly quite different from the idea that claims its birth 234 years ago this day.  The truth of any person’s allegiance is not found in cursory knowledge but in deepest understanding.

Sir Sam Steele, Superintendant, Northwest Mounted Police

What is the truth of any single person’s allegiance?

I wrote at the beginning of this essay that I blamed Sam Steele for the effectiveness of Darlton’s Canada deception.  Unlike the other Mounties I have invoked, however, Sam Steele–Superintendant Sir Samuel Steele–is not a fictional creation.  He was, for fifty years, the flesh-and-blood leader of the Canadian Mounties.  In order to understand why the Canada deception worked, you need to understand Sam Steele, his attitude about police work, and the tradition that flowed from his example.  The most striking truth–possibly outside of the realm of belief, even for Canadians, was this simple fact:  In his fifty years of police work, Sam Steele did not draw his service revolver.  Not once.  I trust historian Pierre Berton (Canada’s most widely-read authority on Canadian history, frequent television personality, and author of roughly three dozen tomes in my personal library) to have researched the facts surrounding this most famous of Mounties.  Steele believed police work was accomplished by force of character.  Modern-day RCMP officers who go about tazering people–literally to death sometimes–could learn deep truths from this man.  He faced greater challenges (e.g., the Klondike gold rush) to peace, order, and good government than any of his successors.

Sir Sam Steele is real.  His life is stranger than fiction, beyond even the over-the-top perfection of Constable Benton Fraser.

We have to move beyond caricatures to truth.  Sam Steele is real, stands for something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years and three days that have passed since Sir John A. MacDonald became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada.  Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom and “Jeremy Bentham” stood for something, too.  They did not make deception their goal.  It was a means to an end.  Occasionally even Ben would speak the truth.  “Everything I did, I did for the Island,” Ben said into his walkie-talkie.  Ben and Ethan and Locke served something greater than themselves, something real, something that has endured even longer than the 143 years of Richard Alpert’s immortality (that one’s for Nikki).  They served the Island.

Service to King and Country

Even those we considered for many years to be human refuse, the putrid vessels of all that is and can be corrupted, turned out instead to be fighting for the existence of the one thing above all others on this planet that must be protected.   The fought for the idea inscribed on the cork stone, that human civilisation, the work of human hands and joy of human hearts, labouring for the good of all humankind, shall not perish from the earth.  Peace, order, and good Island government.  It’s a new idea, born in the land of hockey, Mounties, Molson Dry, and Bombardier.  But it’s as old as Samuel de Champlain’s handshake with Grand Sagamo Anadabijou in 1603, as old as the hieroglyphs at the time wheel, as old as Jacob and the Man in Black.

The illustration opening this essay has no artistic merit (Dammit, Jim, I’m a scientist, not an artist.  Or was it “bricklayer”?), but it does express the thoughts I had after a particular July First on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  We heard them before we saw them, the Canadian Forces 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, better known as the Snowbirds, roaring over the Peace Tower and then instantly veering into the signature “Maple Split” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBsl0g7qXck&feature=related).   The never-ending contrails of the precision jets, reaching out toward infinity, signify something unbreakable.  The Maple Leaf Forever, as it were.  It was the best way I could imagine to begin an article on the Canada Deception, an article that would end with the thought that just as all of us carry a bit of the Source’s Light in our hearts, so too, all of us carry a bit of the Maple Leaf in our hearts–even Benjamin Linus and Ethan Rom.  And I knew it would make a fitting and heart-felt tribute to the land I love on the weekend of her birth.

PM
Canada Day Weekend, 2010

Related posts:

1. Humanitas Insulae: The Culture of LOST by Pearson Moore
2. Dying Light: Counter-Culture in LOST 6.15 “Across the Sea” by Pearson Moore
3. Principal Purpose: Culture and Meaning in LOST 6.07 “Dr. Linus” by Pearson Moore

Tags: Benjamin Linus, Ethan, John Locke, Kate, Pearson Moore