O Canada, Please Colonize the Coachella Valley

Snowbirds Have Saved SoCal's Desert Economy. Why Not Just Deed Them the Land?

Let’s give the Coachella Valley to Canada.

After all, Canadians already run the place in winter.

Over the past 40 years, snowbirds from the True North have grown into a winter fixture in greater Palm Springs. They get a lot more than an escape from cold winter weather. The California desert is a much shorter flight than Maui, and it offers an array of arts and culture—from the Palm Springs International Film Festival, to the design-focused Modernism Week, to the famous Coachella music festivals in Indio—that Phoenix can’t hope to match.

Over time, …

Staging a Life-Changing Project in El Salvador with Canada’s Stratford Festival

A Cultural Partnership Is Reviving Suchitoto, a Beautiful, Historic Town in a Troubled Nation

This piece was adapted from an interview with Antoni Cimolino, Edward Daranyi, and Mark Smith of Canada’s Stratford Festival.

The Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, is a 64-year-old Canadian repertory theater …

The Philosopher Who Showed Canadians How to Talk to One Another

How Charles Taylor's Ideas About Dialogue and ‘Deep Diversity’ Helped Keep a Country Together

Charles Taylor has been widely recognized for his contributions to philosophy, sociology, history, political science, and linguistics. But to Canadians he has given something more: A way to communicate and …

Daniel Boone’s Legend Defines the American Mystique

Why a Contemporary Canadian Author Fell in Love With the Tall Tales of the Famous Frontiersman

I’m not American. My childhood social studies curriculum covered Canada’s geography and indigenous peoples, in French (le Saskatchewan, les Iroquois).

So I didn’t grow up learning about Daniel Boone …

The Quebec Battle That Opened the Door to America

By Beating Back the French in 1759, British Colonials Defeated a Big Obstacle to Their Own Independence

You can go to Quebec City, about 100 miles from the nearest U.S. border crossing, for the spectacular scenery, fine dining, great museums, and strolls through neighborhoods that date to …

Canada’s Fort McMurray Wildfire Highlights the Trouble with Fighting Fire with Fire

Call It the “Pyrocene,” an Unprecedented Collision of Free-Burning Flames with Our Fossil-Fuel Powered Society

“And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.” —William Shakespeare

The images are gripping. Horizons glow with satanic reds squishing through black and …