The Right Honourable John Napier Turner was in Nova Scotia on this date in 2002 to deliver the annual Allan J. MacEachen lecture at St. Francis Xavier University. After paying eloquent tribute to the lecture’s namesake, whom he had known through four decades of political life, Turner described Canada’s natural beauty and wonder. An avid canoeist who had paddled Canada’s greatest rivers from coast-to-coast-to-coast in a storied life and career, the 17th Prime Minister painted his own picture of the nation he loved.
“Geography and climate still hold sway: limitless, vast, rough, cruel, relentless,” he said. “The human condition exposed to the relentlessness of nature. But also, the benign seasons: the languet summer and the glorious autumn... And with this vastness we still have in this country the gift of solitude. Being alone. Or with the family at the family cottage or the chalet or the camp. The long evenings over the barbeque. A quiet evening paddle. Watching the sun go down. Watching the moon come up. No where else on the face of the earth can one as easily be alone with oneself as we can in this great country.”
You can read Turner’s entire address at this link: https://www.stfx.ca/department/political-science/canada-vanishing-identity
