This Land Is Our Land

You bring together a couple hundred or so folks from across the country, you quickly find out what a vast land it is that we all call home.
It's a virtual geography lesson everywhere you turn.
Jeffrey Buttle's home town is listed as Smooth Rock Falls, a small burg in northern Ontario. Fellow Canadian champ Joannie Rochette hails from Ile-Dupas, a tiny village of about 500 about an hour this side of Montreal. And on and on it goes.
Just last night, I learned all about the famed Cherry Festival in Blenheim, a town of 4,800 in southwestern Ontario, not far from Chatham (Shae-Lynn Bourne's home town, don't ya know). The highlight of the festival is the Pit Spitting Contest, from which a winner emerges to contest a world championship somewhere in Michigan.
Of course, all of this was amusing to moi because I spent a number of years working in St. Thomas, which happens to be about an hour's drive east of Blenheim (with hotspots such as Dutton, West Lorne, Rodney and Ridgetown along the way).
St. T was a major railway hub back in the day, and its biggest claim to fame is that P.T. Barnum's largest elephant (the aptly named Jumbo) met its demise on the Grand Trunk line there in 1885. There is even a life-sized statue in the west end of the city that was erected in memory of the giant pachyderm. A former mayor once had 'Jumbo' as his licence plate (no, I'm not making any of this up).
But I digress ...
My source for the Blenheim gem was none other than Skate Canada's fine young 'facility manager' at the Halifax Civic Centre (a.k.a. the Forum), which is serving as the practice rink here. The word is that, like most practice rinks at Canadians, it's colder than ... well, outside ... there. In other words, like a lot of the small-town iceboxes I used to cover junior hockey in during my St. T. life.
I don't doubt the Forum fits into the same category, given the source.
After all, Sarah is from Blenheim.
(though she happily — and wisely, I might add — now calls Ottawa home).