Blog of Lists

After Justin Trudeau’s glowing eulogy for Fidel Castro, a look at how former Canadian Prime Ministers reacted when world leaders passed away

1. Authors Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson: Atwood had just been passed over for the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1970 when she attended a party for another slighted poet, Milton Acorn, at Grossman’s Tavern in Toronto. Acorn received the first People’s Poet award that night from supportive peers—including Atwood and Graeme Gibson. Gibson was another loser that year, in the fiction category, and Atwood reportedly said to him, “I thought your book should have won the Governor General’s Award.” In the ensuing years, he would photograph and interview her; they became lovers and partners after his marriage to Shirley Gibson had ended.

From NHL stars to Canada’s largest legal grow-op, there’s lots happening in this small Manitoba town

And Pamela Anderson makes the list twice

Where else will you find Conrad Black, Céline Dion and Stephen Lewis on one list?

See who was on the opposite end of some crafty insults from the former media baron

Be it for science, medicine, literature or peace, Canadians are bringing home Nobel hardware

Vegetarians/lonely sea captain seeks same

Try to get locals to say these names three times fast

It’s Manitoba time!!!

Pack up the station wagon for your next family vacation in Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alta.

No list of Canadian escapes is complete without the only one that could be called great—and that’s the key role Canadians played in the 1944 tunnel escape of 76 prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III, an exploit glorified in the 1963 movie The Great Escape. Though Canadians were nearly invisible in the film, their contributions to the largest mass escape of the Second World War ranged from artist Robert Buckham’s forged travel permits to the daring of “tunnel king” Wally Floody, a pilot and former miner. Nine escaping officers were Canadian. Three were recaptured; six were among 50 escapees executed on orders of the German command.