SEVEN TAKEAWAYS FROM INGENIOUS

There’s an ongoing battle in the rather subdued if not altogether silent small community of Canadian history buffs quietly cogitating the state, status and composition of our country’s collective identity. They’ve been at it for, oh, a sesquicentennial or so, and these days not much closer to any unanimous accord: maple syrup or moose ( meese?); Maurice Richard, maybe; The Bluenose or beavers, perhaps. Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier is our own Governor General David Johnston’s best go at that bandy. Mr. Right Honourable’s 26th book gets a boost from buddy Tom Jenkins, as the two round up our country’s best brainchildren over 150 years of clever thought.

The book is sorted per its subtitle, into seven sections labeled in loose corrals. Many innovations could make a play for another classification as well, at least one causing me to quibble over its categorization: does peanut butter make us healthier, or does it make us happier? Nevertheless, Ingenious catalogues Canada’s best ideas. It turns out Canadians invented nearly all things – as parcel or hard principle – that North Americans call commonplace today.

Here are your takeaways: 1 Spreading lies. History books like to give the glory to one George Washington Carver, but peanut butter has its roots due Sud. Bad break for the biography of Quebec chemist Marcellus Gillmore Edson: that poor guy gave his noble nuts to the cause, and all he got was, well, a good snack at the time. Edson was the first to grind peanuts at over 100° F. Squished at high heat and fit for the Gods, he used an innovative process to produce a substance most like that sweet nectar we spread, spoon or otherwise heap today. 2 Don’t be j ell y, j am. Turns out we’re responsible for both peanut butter and its second favourite culinary companion: the McIntosh Apple. Farmer John McIntosh had been clearing the last of his fall harvest when he came across an especially strong sapling that had survived cold fall in Dundela, Ontario, bearing sturdy fruit that beat the odds and proved delicious besides. So McIntosh tried his hand at some pommie-procreation and wound up with Eve’s best temptation growing organically in his own backyard. The McIntosh Apple entered commercial production in 1870 and today remains a bestseller in Canada and the Northeastern United States. 3 Crime in kind. In 1974, Elmira prison support workers Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth were finger- wagging a couple of no-goods when they realized the point itself had become moot: these vandals weren’t having it. Their prison sentence might’ve suited Uncle Sam, but jail wasn’t jibing with the pair’s idea of forgiveness or atonement in Canada’s system. Yantzi and Worth turned to nearby First Nations leaders for a hint at their judicial history, a practice favouring restorative justice over punitive. That lesson inspired a breakthrough meeting between the vandals and their victims – Canada’s first example of restorative justice in the modern age. 4 Fairway forgiveness. Ladies and gentlemen, a hand – a quiet one – for Mr. David Mulligan, the Montreal man responsible for golf ’s greatest and perhaps only mercy on teeing grounds. Playing at the Country Club of Montreal circa 1920, Mulligan decided one bad bounce wasn’t worth a birdie, and started allowing himself another shot when things didn’t quite thwack. Mulligan termed it a correction shot, but history gives the man more credit than that. Today, his self-assigned clemency is known better as a Mulligan – or golf ’s greatest gift to me. 5 Hockey, twice. Cool rinks, close games and hot tempers have many times given way to one of North America’s favourite penalty-box pissing contests: who, indeed, invented the game of hockey. According to Ingenious, we’ve got the hometown advantage. On March 3rd, 1875, players at McGill University held the first indoor ice hockey game meeting more ( contact, mainly) or less (padding and protection a century- later afterthought) the conditions of today’s sport. We Canucks can assert our claim to puck a little further back, too. While early Haligonian settlers caught cod, syphilis and not much else, nearby Mi’kmaq men were strapping up with sawed- down animal bones and playing ball- and- stick back- andforth on frozen ocean inlets. 6 Recreation for the rest

of us. In December 1 932, Canada’s depression hitting peak and Santa nowhere to be seen, Torontonian David Munro was desperate to craft his kids something special for the season. While other creatures kept still, David Munro was stirring, using wire hangers, clothespins and clock springs to cobble together a living room arena fit for Lionel Conacher himself. Tabletop hockey was born from something bleak, but found loyal fans among Munro’s family, the unlikely entrepreneur going on to sell his idea to Eaton’s and the world over today. 7 One-piece wonder. Lingerie, you say? Frank Stanfield had a different approach to what’s best worn beneath the belt, passion losing to practicality in Canada’s cold winters. In 1915, the Stanfield underwear empire sibling sewed one slinky little number with adjustable buttons making it wearable for both women and men – room for two legs or three, respectively – a garment we fondly call Long Johns today.