There are still some things that can’t be found on a phone
Creator of Canada 150 trading cards has good things to say about Sask. and premier
In a world of the Net, email, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, sometimes it’s still a few words on a real piece a paper that make all the difference.
I was once headed to a large indoor complex in a smallish city that Google Maps rather randomly but seemingly definitively located in a vacant field about a kilometre outside of town. Who doubts the Great Google? A guide book ultimately set me on the right track, but I noticed quite a few people rushing in late.
Recently, a product of the millennial-generation rejected my offer of a paper map, confidently proclaiming, “I have my phone.” It just as promptly led her astray. Utterly lost, she ended up steering around cattle on a dirt road, too remote for cellphone coverage. A kindly stranger with a paper map pointed the way.
Luanga Nuwame is further proof paper is not dead. A selfdescribed “comic book nerd” and “trading card geek,” the entrepreneur is also the king of cardboard, which he fashions into things. In honour of Canada 150, Nuwame made a set of trading cards.
Dubbed 150 Years of Awesome Canada, the sets of cards feature the expected, including provinces’ and territories’ coats of arms, prime ministers, and major cities (“Regina made the cut,” notes Nuwame), as well as the unexpected, like women of distinction, comic book legends, interesting factoids (called Canada Eh!), and my personal favourite “controversial Canada” or, as Nuwame describes them, airing Canada’s “dirty laundry,” like Indian residential schools, slavery and the Chinese head tax. “Just to show we have a lot to be proud of, but we cannot forget our errors,” he told me.
“We realize when we did something wrong — eventually. And we apologize for it,” he says. “That’s the Canadian way.” (By Canada 175, there will no doubt be an Omar Khadr card.)
Until recently, about all Nuwame, who lives in Mississauga, knew about Saskatchewan was that it’s easy to draw and “insanely” flat.
English novelist Jane Austen once wrote: “let us never underestimate the power of a wellwritten letter.”
And it was a letter, or more precisely three, that made Nuwame a new fan of Saskatchewan. He somewhat embarrassingly admits he’s never been west of Ontario’s border. He appreciates east-west rivalries, and how those from the centre of Canada are sometimes accused of not giving their neighbour two doors down a second thought. But a few words on a piece of paper has Nuwame adding a visit to this province to his bucket list.
In the early days of his trading card endeavour, Nuwame contacted the country’s premiers and territorial leaders to give them a heads up, hoping for some sort of response. “I assumed, being in Ontario, I thought that Kathleen Wynne would be the first one,” Nuwame told me.
“But your premier was the first one to get back to me.” (Wynne has never written him.)
In fact, Premier Brad Wall got back to him twice. And Christine Tell, minister responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission, wrote once too for good measure. All those responses came on real, paper letters.
Now a cynic might say it’s about keeping Wall at the top of the popularity charts, especially since he’s been slipping a bit of late. But I also like to think it’s just the Saskatchewan way — when the neighbour leans over the fence and says hello, you give a howdy back.
According to the premier’s staff, in 2016, his office sent close to 15,000 letters. It’s understandable if he doesn’t personally write every one, just to spare the writer’s cramp. This year alone so far, the premier has received nearly 9,000 pieces of correspondence, including, as his office indicated, “paper letters, emails, congratulatory messages and the like.” I suppose in this tough budget year, “and the like” probably covers some of the not so congratulatory messages.
The people who help him out even have a name — the Premier’s Correspondence Unit.
Whether Wall personally penned them or not, Nuwame’s treasured letters bear the premier’s signature — and that was good enough for him.
The Toronto-born lover of paper now follows Brad Wall on Twitter, posted the premier’s letters to his Facebook page, and used them in his YouTube video.