WORD OF THE ISSUE: endless

With summer at last on our doorsteps, we Canadians know how to make the most of it: dining alfresco on restaurant patios or flipping burgers on our backyard barbecues. The days are long. The wine and beer are cold. Romance is hopefully hot. And laughter is plentiful. What Canadians also know is that while summer is well worth the wait, it isn’t here to stay. But isn’t that why we love it so much? If it were endless, would we appreciate it as we do?

The same can be asked about most things we care about: from the small not-so-weighty desires – an exquisite meal, a new suit – to the big-ticket items – enough money not to have to worry about the future, love and even life itself. As this issue goes to press, Canadians are awakening to the tragic news of the lives lost to senseless violence in Moncton, N.B. The nature of life, in that it has a finite amount of time and that we rarely know – for better or for worse – when that time is up. This is what makes it even more invaluable.

So we must celebrate it and – small mercies, I know – summer when and as often as we can. And in this our an- nual Best of Canada issue, we set out to do just that. First, we showcase a truly Canadian experience in “True North” (page 49) as the couples behind the Canadian fashion and lifestyle brand Roots spend a weekend at their Algonquin Provincial Park retreat. As we at Zoomer like nothing more than longevity and Roots is celebrating 40 flagwaving years in a notoriously fickle business that tends to underplay, not celebrate, Canada, the dockside cover shot of Don and Denyse Green, Michael Budman and Diane Bald in that quintessential setting is just the thing.

There is no time like this sultry season to look back 56 years to the summer of 1958 and to Margaret Rose, then a single fairytale princess, during her Canadian royal tour. She crossed paths with a dashing young lawyer, John Turner, also a child of destiny. Oh, what a time it was as Hugh Brewster recounts in “The Princess and the Prime Minister” (page 70).

We also recognize that after this past winter, discussion of the weather may have beat out talking hockey as our favourite national pastime. So for you forecast junkies – in other words, all of us – we have our first-ever Zoomer Almanac with experts who endeavour to do the impossible: predict good weather. But we have faith.