Different

By George Russell

THE CANADIANS by Andrew H. Malcolm Times Books; 385 pages; $17.95

Andrew Malcolm, an American son of Canadian immigrants, remembers with warmth his first visits to his parents' homeland. Canada in the 1940s and '50s, he says, was a quiet and rustic place, with "swarthy Indians living just down the dusty, curbless road, chickens clucking by an asparagus field, pictures of funny little crowns on mailboxes, stamps and road signs." Even then, he recalls, Canada was "very familiar, very friendly and very nice, but different."

Decades later, when he returned as a New York Times correspondent, Malcolm discovered that Canada was more different than ever. In subsequent voyages by car, jet, helicopter and dog sled, he found an immense, diverse continent-country, thinly populated by a talented but strangely self-deprecating people. The sheer size of their land is intimidating: its smallest province. Prince Edward Island, is almost twice the size of Rhode Island; to drive west from Toronto to the next large Canadian city, Winnipeg, takes 36 hours nonstop. Canadians, he learned, are literally a nation apart, their identity splintered by endless geography into ethnic and regional tributaries that do not form a national mainstream. Malcolm finds a large cultural significance in the small fact that one of the most popular imported beers in the U.S., Moose-head Canadian Lager, is available in 50 American states but only four of Canada's ten provinces. Perhaps because of the barriers that divide them, Malcolm decided, Canadians "did not think much of their country, of each other, of their future together, or, thus, of themselves."

Malcolm evidently thinks a great deal of Canada's more than 25 million citizens, and he has fashioned a compelling portrait of them. That is a major feat, considering that Canada is so often taken for granted, especially by Americans. In fact, the 49th parallel is like no other border in the world: some 70 million people casually cross it every year, and at any one time each winter, roughly 4% of the Canadian population is living in Florida. Canada and the U.S. share everything from electrical power networks to deep ties of blood and marriage. What could be left to learn?

A great deal. Malcolm spends much time in the vast third of Canada that few Canadians ever visit: the huge, deserted Northwest Territories, an area larger than India that supports fewer people than can fit comfortably into Yankee Stadium. Everywhere, he finds an ingenious effort to utilize geography for profit. He has a fine appreciation for the weight of that harsh immensity on the Canadian psyche, so different from the buoyancy imparted to Americans by their frontier. Along the southern strip, where most Canadians live, Malcolm discovers a culture of impressive accomplishment. He cites litanies of artistic, theatrical and literary figures but notices that Canada begins to resent its heroes as they gain foreign fame. "There is something in the old Canadian mind that doesn't like success--at least the other fellow's."

In his gentle criticism, Malcolm distinguishes between two nations. "Old" Canada is restrained, conservative, austerely civil; "new" Canada is assertive, experimental, even reckless. Malcolm clearly prefers the new, but in both he finds a common ambition. In the great North American adventure there have always been two partners, equally active, but with the U.S. always overshadowing its northern neighbor. Malcolm's book is an engaging and worthwhile effort to redress the long-standing continental tilt. --By George Russell