War of 1812 - "Big in Canada"?

Photo taken by Gary McWilliams
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Part 3 ....

This is my final except is from an article posted in the SalemNews.com, submitted October 1, 2011 by David M. Shribman, a North Shore native and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I still welcome people to submit to our War of 1812 Celebrations website their “NOTION”. Your Notion being:  your “INSIGHT, COMPREHENSION, CONCEPT, ASSUMPTIONS, IMPRESSION, KNOWLEDGE, JUDGEMENT, OPINION, YOUR UNDERSTANDING”.

excerpt ... "Big In Canada" ... "The normal discourse in Canada is anti-American," he says. "It's a secular religion, and this is the only acceptable form of bigotry in Canada. So when we have a chance to get up on our high horse and be self-righteous and say we whipped the United States, we'll do so. It doesn't mean more than one Canadian in a hundred knows a thing about the war. They don't. Usually we have a moral superiority. This time we have 200-years'-old military superiority."

But few people on this side of the 49th parallel are likely to notice.

"Americans are not exactly fascinated with the War of 1812," says Richard J. Finch, director of the Fort Meigs State Memorial in Perrysburg, Ohio, the largest reconstructed War of 1812 site in the country. "It's sandwiched between the American Revolution and the Civil War, so it tends to get neglected." The only people in the United States unabashedly excited about this event are Navy officials, who are planning events in New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Va., Baltimore, Boston, Chicago — and Toronto.

The war ended in a draw, but the contest to conduct the most comprehensive commemoration isn't even close. The Canadians have appropriated millions, the Americans hardly anything. At this rate, the Canadians will appropriate the war entirely, at least for the next several years. Which brings us to a lesson for our time: Even forgotten wars can be lost 200 years later.”

David M. Shribman, a North Shore native and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”