The Wilds of Canada

Les Harding is the author of The Voyages of Lesser Men: Thumbnail
Sketches in Canadian Exploration and The Journeys of Remarkable Women:
Their Travels on the Canadian Frontier.

The Wilds of Canada, which shows two polar bears sunbathing on its
cover, is a collection of amusing cartoons featuring the wildlife of
Canada—some of it human. About 120 cartoons, some reproduced in color,
are organized around that greatest of Canadian obsessions—the weather.
But the author effectively mocks most other Canadian preoccupations as
well (e.g., sports, tourism, and why we are not Americans?). In the
process, he shows a particular fondness for Mounties, polar bears,
beavers, raccoons, musk oxen, moose, and, of course, snow. Occasionally
he ventures into politics. Other people’s (i.e., American’s)
obsessions and stereotypes about life in the Great White North are
lampooned, too.

A native of Trinidad, John Cadiz has been a cartoonist since he was a
child. “In 1977,” to quote the endnotes, “ he decided to forsake
sunny beaches and calypso for igloos, polar bears, and people who say
‘eh.’” This is his first book of cartoons.