1000 Questions About Canada

Stephen Field is an information services librarian in the Queen
Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Entertaining and illuminating reference books about Canada and things
Canadian have been John Robert Colombo’s forte for many years. His
latest offering is not simply a traditional fact book, but a fascinating
and eclectic question and answer book featuring 1000 diverse questions
about Canada. The questions and their accompanying answers are arranged
under one of four major categories: people, places, things, and ideas.
The questions range from the purely factual (“What is Pier 21?,”
“Who were the Four Lads?”) to the fun or speculative (“Have any
Canadians been abducted by aliens?,” “Are there references to Canada
in the writings of William Shakespeare?”).

Fascinating and surprising tidbits abound in this book. Many people,
for example, will be surprised to learn that there is a Canadian
location for the walking stick that once belonged to Scottish poet
Robert Burns. Colombo’s style is informal and entertaining in its own
right. In responding to the question “Who was Halifax’s authority on
vampires?,” he remarks that professor Devendra Varma of Dalhousie
University “died in Halifax in 1994—presumably of natural causes.”
This enjoyable and informative book will appeal to aficionados of
Canadiana and fact books in general.