Apple Pie meets Maple Syrup

On a visit to Detroit with my brothers last weekend, I was surprised to discover just how close the city streets are to the edge of the United States. Walk out of Detroit’s downtown Renaissance Center through the south doors (yes, I did just say “south”), cross Atwater Street, and you’ll find yourself standing on the edge of the Detroit River staring at Canada on the other shore.  Almost has you thinking in metric, “eh?”

Canada is south of the U.S. – who knew?

Here’s something I probably learned in middle school and promptly forgot: the border between Canada and the U.S. runs right through the middle of Lake Erie (and the Detroit River). It’s as if Americans and Canucks had a long drawn-out discussion about who deserved the lake more, and then clinked glasses of Budweiser and Molson with, “Okay, you get half and we get half”.  The same thing happened with three of the other four Great Lakes (America somehow got all of Lake Michigan) and that’s why – at least in Detroit – Canada lies to the south.

The view of Canada from Detroit

Not that you’d know it’s Canada, mind you.  Aside from the giant red and white flag billowing on the far shore, the streets, buildings, cars; everything looks exactly the same as America.  You might as well be looking at Saint Paul from Minneapolis.  And Windsor (the Canadian town you see) is so close you might as well swim for it.  The Detroit River is only a mile wide at this juncture.  I kind of wondered what would happen if I did swim for it.  Would a flurry of border patrol boats appear out of nowhere to haul me in?

Instead, my brothers and I kept it legal and drove across the Ambassador Bridge (there’s the Detroit-Windsor tunnel if you prefer).  It felt a little strange to hand over passports just to go to dinner.  And once we sat down at our Windsor table we were greeted with a hearty “Happy Thanksgiving!”  Thanksgiving?  Had we gone through some sort of time warp?  Oh, right – Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.

The view of Detroit from Canada

Naturally we asked our server how Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving.  She thought about it for a moment and said, in her wonderful Inland North accent, “Oh, y’know, we gather with our families and have the meal.”  That’s it?  Not even an embarrassingly-large, dozens-of-dishes, eat-’til-you-burst meal?  Just food with family?  But in fact, Canadian Thanksgiving is pretty much the same as “down south”.  Explorers crossed the ocean, landed safely in the New World, established a settlement, held a feast of thanks, blah-blah-blah.

Pumpkins make sense for Canadian Thanksgiving

Despite our server’s succinct description, the Canadian Thanksgiving meal includes most of the dishes we enjoy on this side of the Detroit River (including turkey).  Canucks also celebrate with parades, Oktoberfests, and other festivals.  There’s even a “Thanksgiving Classic” courtesy of the Canadian Football League.  Makes me wonder if the Detroit Lions somehow found a way to play that football game along with every (U.S.) Thanksgiving Day game since 1934.

Ambassador Bridge

As we crossed back over the bridge after dinner, two thoughts entered my mind.  One, the waterfront houses on the Canadian side of the Detroit River have a view of the United States all day long instead of seeing their own country.  That seems a little odd.  And two, I wondered whether goods and services in Windsor (or beyond) would be worth leaving the U.S. for, instead of just purchasing the same in Detroit.  You’d have to pay the bridge/tunnel toll both ways for a little Canadian Bacon (or backbacon), which might compromise the benefit.  You’d most certainly run out of pages for the stamps on your passport.

Earlier I said something about “almost” thinking in metric.  No, you really do have to think in metric in Canada.  As soon as we crossed over the Detroit River, our car’s GPS changed directions into kilometers (clicks) and meters.  Suddenly the next turn was “100 meters” away instead of “300 feet”.  Believe me, it’s a little disorienting watching the meters count down (slower) than the feet you expect.  After several bottles of wine at dinner (liters?), at least we could still navigate back to the bridge.  Otherwise this post might be coming to you from “up north”.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Unknown's avatar

Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

15 thoughts on “Apple Pie meets Maple Syrup”

  2. I think we have our Thanksgiving so much earlier than yours because we want to be Thankful for nice fall weather instead of being unthankful because winter has (possibly) set in!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I can think of many reasons why the timing of Canada’s Thanksgiving makes more sense than ours. Our server goes, “Oh right, yours is the one uncomfortably close to Christmas” 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Dave, I like the title of this post. 🙂 It is always fun to look across and see Canada whether at the Detroit River shoreline or the Lake Erie shoreline; I can see Canada’s wind turbines from Lake Erie Metropark. The Freedom Festival on the Detroit River celebrates both American and Canadian holidays – all the barges, loaded up with fireworks, are stationed smack dab in the middle of the Detroit River, perfect for both sides to watch them, usually the last week of June. Was the pumpkins photo taken at Eastern Market? My boss/I have a friend who owns the 1887 Cheese Shop at the Market – had you visited a little later in the year, you would have found the ginger cookies you enjoyed on your recent trip abroad. When you crossed the Ambassador Bridge, did you check out the progress on the Gordie Howe International Bridge scheduled to open in September 2025? I liked the idea of Thanksgiving in October, long before the U.S. Thanksgiving on the brink of holiday shopping and what becomes a whirlwind of activity the next four weeks. For years, Downtown Detroit office workers would cross the bridge on their lunch hour to dine at the Tunnel BBQ, which I believe closed down. We did not use the metric system when I lived in Canada (thankfully).

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The pumpkin photo is included in Wikipedia’s article on “Thanksgiving (Canada)”. We were at breakfast in Eastern Market on a Sunday morning so all was quiet (except for nearby church bells) but I do remember seeing the storefront of the 1887 Cheese Shop. Did not realize another bridge was being built over the Detroit River. The Freedom Festival sounds great. I’m sure the river would be a lot busier during the festival than when we saw it last weekend. Just a handful of small watercraft.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. OK, I did not read the article as you may have guessed … not that I am an expert on everything in Canada, having lived here for 58 years, but I am still a Canadian citizen. 🙂 The Gordie Howe Bridge will be the second crossing over the Detroit River and this Summer a Canadian and American Ironworker met and joined the final piece … I did a post on it, likely when you were abroad. What will be nice about the bridge is there will be a walking and biking path so people can cross back and forth, something not allowed before. There are a lot of people go to the Freedom Festival Fireworks and they are broadcast on TV as well. They put on quite a show. Both sides have festivals along their respective riverfronts. Interestingly, with the NFL Draft and now another Final Four set for 2027, perhaps Detroit is seen in a better light than it was in the past. The City wants to host another Super Bowl but you can’t blame people for wanting to go to a warm venue.

        During Lions games people have always tailgated at Eastern Market, but there was a murder there (two friends had an argument – not a random shooting), so they suspended the tailgating for a while, otherwise it would have been busy. The cheese store opened in 1887, hence the current name, but was always R. Hirt Jr. Co. and most of their merchandise was German and still is.

        Like

      2. We did drive by Ford Field and Comerica Park; nice to see them side-by-side (and I’m guessing the Pistons and Red Wings play in the same area). I meant to mention, Detroit’s downtown impressed us – safe, clean, lots of young, normal people walking around, new skyscrapers under construction. We went for a drink at a speak-easy off a downtown alley after the pizza at Buddy’s – felt perfectly safe parking and walking the city blocks.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Downtown has come a long way since I stopped working in the Downtown business district – my boss and I moved to Stroh River Place, one mile away on Jefferson Avenue, in February 2003. But, when I first started going Downtown in 1976 (Wayne State University, to finish my last two years of college), it was safe then too, but afterward deteriorated badly. There were still many old, burned-out buildings from the ’67 riots, just off Woodward Avenue. And MCS, before Ford renovated it, looked so bad that when we hosted the Super Bowl (2006 at Ford Field), there was a wrap-around façade put on that old train station to “spiff it up” as they knew camera shots would focus on the City and it was an eyesore. They also collected homeless people and put them up somewhere for that week preceding SB and SB weekend. Yes, Detroit is the only U.S. city that has ALL their major sports teams in one area, a few blocks apart. Hart Plaza used to be a big deal when I first worked in Downtown Detroit. There were concerts and ethnic festivals – we would go on out lunch hour and that stopped. Now at Campus Martius Park, which I’ve not been to, has lots of activities and starting in mid-November, a large ice rink and skating until March or a big thaw. They have a big Christmas tree and it’s quite festive. I am sorry I missed all that as that didn’t happen until after my boss/I left and then I worked from home (2011 until retirement this year).

        Liked by 1 person

  5. I remember crossing into Windsor from Detroit on a family vacation in the early 70s. I too was amazed at how indistinguishable the two places were. The biggest difference I remember was that we would occasionally see a Canada-specific car, like a Meteor Montcalm (a re-trimmed Mercury Monterey sold by Canadian Ford dealers).

    And I agree that it is odd thinking about Canada being the southern neighbor at that location.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We didn’t find a lot of reasons to visit Windsor, although our dinner at the riverside steak restaurant was excellent. I’d mistakenly believed the lively Greektown district was over there, but in fact it’s right in the middle of downtown Detroit.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I haven’t visited Canada in a long time. My parents liked to go up that way on vacations. I’d forgotten about the metric signs, but the existence of maple syrup— that I remember.

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.