The Walrus Magazine

Canada is an Arctic country. The region accounts for 40 percent of its landmass and 70 percent of its coastline. Its northern archipelago alone beggars the imagination, encompassing some 1.4 million square kilometres, scattered across thousands of islands. But is Canada an Arctic power? Does it have the capacity to secure and defend such a vast territory?

“Do you have any interest in graduating?” It was the spring of 2013, the last semester of high school, and I was sitting in my guidance counsellor’s office. A usually kindly older woman, she gripped a sheaf of papers like a pissed-off lawyer. My attendance record, printed. The usual twinkle in her eye had been replaced with something harder. The question sent a familiar heat to my face. It was not my first time in her office.

“The number of targeted AI ads I get as a student is really insane,” Eden Daniel told me over coffee. Every time she opened YouTube, she was hit with a barrage of offers to take shortcuts on her schoolwork, especially during midterms. Daniel has a visceral aversion to the technology, framing it as plague on society that enriches tech billionaires and destroys the environment.

I came of age loving the works of Milan Kundera and Derek Walcott. Now, as a professor of literature, I have to ask tough questions

“You are at war when you get attacked. We got attacked,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said when meeting reporters on August 22 after his decision to end intensive negotiations to avert fresh American tariffs. So how does Canada fight back? In his fifth-century BCE classic The Art of War, Chinese general Sun Tzu argued that the greatest victories are achieved not by beating the enemy militarily, but by defeating its strategy. This rule holds especially for smaller powers.

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In the fall of 1969, a young, unidentified woman was found brutally murdered in Los Angeles. Without a name, she was called Jane Doe #59—the fifty-ninth unknown female homicide victim in a year like no other, when a rash of gruesome, unsolved killings had the City of Angels gripped in fear. The only possible clue to Jane Doe’s identity was a label in her jacket that said “Made in Canada.” However, no one in Canada had reported a woman missing who matched her description.

Three decades later, a cold case detective picked up the file on Jane Doe #59

A highlight of my recent vacation in Halifax was watching The Odyssey with my son Jack. We were especially lucky to be among the relatively few viewers able to experience the film in all its IMAX 70 mm majesty; Halifax is home to one of only a handful of theatres in Canada equipped to show it in that format. We loved it. Even if you have not seen it, you likely know the basics of the story. Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic poem is a touchstone of Western mythology and storytelling.

In an online sex forum, users exchange tips on their pursuit of Indigenous women on the streets of Canadian and American cities. “Picked up a nice looking tall native girl . . . Was pretty drunk . . .” reads one post. Other posts encourage avoiding white women, as they could be associated with law enforcement, and to target Indigenous women instead.