The Big Book of Canadian Trivia

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

Canadians appear to have an appetite for trivia and this book will satisfy many readers. Its 25 chapters include such topics as history, food, women, the Arctic, sport (hockey receives a chapter all to itself), business, inventions, politics, music, and much else. Many of the entries deal with our past but a large number tell of recent events and achievements. The authors claim that 25 percent of the entries appear in print for the first time. While some items take up only a couple of lines, others require a complete page or two, particularly the biographies of Canadians who were prominent in such fields as retail sales, sport, bookselling, and brewing. Some lists are factual (Canada's ten largest lakes) but many express opinions or value judgements. For instance, a list of infamous Canadians of the past century contains six names: Brian Mulroney, Alan Eagleson, Ernst Zundel, Harold Ballard, Ben Johnson, and Conrad Black.

The first half of the book has more factual errors than one would expect. The book states that when the Second World War was declared in 1939 Canada had "no tanks, aircraft, or machine guns." This is demonstrably wrong. Sometimes the reader is left guessing. A refinery "produces more than 2,000 tons of sugar" for baking, etc. Per week? Per month? And the Six Nations Reserve is near Brantford, not Brampton.

Still, this is generally an entertaining and informative book, and it tells Canadians something about their country in an easy-to-read format.