Lament for a Neighbour

By: Marsha Faubert

Lake Huron, one of the four Great Lakes shared by Canada and the United States, narrows rapidly at its southernmost point, funnelling its waters into the St. Clair River. Two cities border the mouth of the St. Clair—Port Huron on the U.S. side, and Sarnia on the Canadian shore. I was born in Sarnia, and spent my youth there until I left for university. Many family members remained in the city, working in the petrochemical plants that line the river a few kilometres south of the lake.

It was (and still is) common for people in Sarnia to cross the river on the Bluewater Bridge to shop for cheaper goods, or visit bars and restaurants (or even family and friends) in Port Huron. My family rarely made the trip, or any attempt to visit the rest of the country either.

We had no money for travel. Our holidays consisted of an annual stay at a tiny cottage north of the city on Lake Huron, shared by my father and his brothers. Americans on the other side of Lake Huron had the same summer pastimes we enjoyed – swimming, sunbathing, fishing, boating. Why bother making the trip?

Even so, our neighbours on the other side of the river were a constant presence in our lives. We consumed a steady diet of American culture from television and radio stations in Detroit—news, music, movies and television shows were almost exclusively American. Motown was the music of my youth; on weekends, I helped my brother roll up the Detroit News so he could toss it at his customers’ doors from his bicycle.

In school, we memorized all the states and their capitals, and compared our different histories: Canada with its prolonged adolescence as a colony and then autonomous country in the British Commonwealth, and the United States in its violent rupture with the British, proclaiming its independence after much bloodshed.

When thinking about their national identity, many Canadians first describe themselves as “not American.” It’s a vague and unhelpful definition to outsiders, but clear enough to Canadians. Despite our common colonial histories, the differences in our national temperaments and ways of life were noticeable even to my ten-year-old self.

It was almost as if the violence that severed the bond between Americans and British wove itself like a thread through the lives of Americans, signifying a major difference from Canada among so many similarities. This thread was frighteningly obvious on the November afternoon in 1963 when I arrived home from school to watch Walter Cronkite on the news, declaring in shock that President Kennedy had died of gunshot wounds from a sniper’s fire during a motorcade in Dallas. I witnessed the murder of his accused assassin on television several days later.

Closer to home, the Detroit riots were among the most violent and destructive of urban race riots that rocked the United States in the summer of 1967, and we watched anxiously on the other side of the border as a city was torn apart. The following year, the deaths by gunshot of Kennedy’s brother, and of Martin Luther King, echoed the tragedy of 1963. Images of the war in Vietnam, and war protests, were nightly events on the Detroit news stations. We were as shocked as Americans when four student protestors were killed by the National Guard at Kent State. Ordinary citizens and leaders; nobody was safe there. It seemed to be a nation intent on tearing itself apart.

In all those years, I made no effort to visit the country closest to my own, as if it were some kind of hot stove I knew better than to touch. When I finally gave up my embargo and began exploring America, my childhood prejudices fell away. I encountered a country of immense variety, energy, and ambition that enthralled and delighted me, and I forgot about my early dark impressions.

My first visit took my husband and me through the northeastern states: the Adirondacks, the forests and mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, and the coast of Maine. We swam in the Atlantic waves at Ogunquit, and sailed in Penobscot Bay. We waded in rocky rivers in New Hampshire, surrounded by tall forests, and stopped at Ben and Jerry’s in Vermont to sample their famous ice cream. Towns and villages exuded a gentle charm. Camping our way through the states, we were surrounded by beauty in a wilderness that was somehow tamer and more refined than the one we knew in Canada. We were smitten, so much so that we took our children on the same tour about ten years later.

Eventually, we hiked, swam, skied and cycled through more of the United States than of our own country. I loved the big city energy of places like New York and Chicago. In Philadelphia, we saw the Liberty Bell and Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture, powerful symbols of the country’s aspirations. We were inspired by the scale and ambition of gardens created on estates donated to the public by wealthy industrialists in the northeast, and awestruck at the stark beauty of the desert while hiking in the red rocks of Sedona. We swam in the Pacific at Mendocino, and in the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

When we took our children to ski in Vermont, we were charmed by the hospitality of the people in the resort; “we want you back!” they said, and so we returned. It is no exaggeration to say that I fell in love with the country I once avoided.

The spell was rarely broken, but reality intruded when we encountered a guide in the desert, carrying a rifle as if it were a backpack. For what, we wondered. We saw no wildlife on our hikes, although there must have been some around. It was a fleeting reminder that we were in a country where guns are as numerous as people, and an accepted part of daily life. We knew this, of course; school shootings had become tragically common, with regular and pointless calls to control gun ownership. But tourists are usually sheltered from reality, and we were no different.

The line drawn through the Great Lakes to mark the border between Canada and the United States was the work of a joint (American and British) boundary commission created to survey, map and determine stretches of the border that were still unresolved following The War of 1812. The border agreement marked the beginning of almost two hundred years of peaceful coexistence between Canada and the US.

But now, Canadians find ourselves in the midst of an existential challenge from a predatory president who believes that sovereignty only belongs to those with the greatest power, and who wants to eradicate that line. Our complicated neighbour, once an ally, has become an adversary. The violence that I first noticed in childhood might now be directed at us. I know that most Americans are as shocked at this as we are in Canada, and have to reckon with the abuse and violence their government is directing at its own people and at foreigners deemed to be a menace. I mourn for all of us who have to reckon with the unimaginable. I mourn for that beautiful country.

After many years away, I have returned to live on Lake Huron. It’s an easy drive south along the lakeshore, about one hundred kilometres to the Bluewater Bridge at Sarnia. But I no longer believe I will ever cross the bridge again.

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Marsha Faubert is a lawyer and writer. After decades living and working in Toronto, she has returned to live along the shore of Lake Huron, not far from her hometown of Sarnia. Her book, Wanda's War (Goose Lane Editions) explores the civilian experience of war—forced labour, exile, and loss—through the lives of two Polish immigrants to Canada.