Canada's Seven Wonders-Natural or Man Made?

With Canada Day just around the corner and summer vacation time starting I have certainly been motivated to get out and see more of Canada.

Congratulations go to CBC for renewing and revitalizing interest for all Canadians in exploring and discovering our own country, Canada. The top wonders chosen by the CBC judges were, The Canoe, The Igloo, Old Quebec City, Pier 21 Nova Scotia, The Rockies, Niagara Falls, and Prairie Skies.

The seven wonders chosen through audience voting had some variations with the addition of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park near Thunder Bay in Ontario, The Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, Bay of Fundy (both NS &NB), Northern Lights, and Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territories.

Now there are more opinions about what the chosen 'Seven Wonders' should have been. In the Toronto Star Travel section on Sat. June 9, Christopher Hume, normally the architecture critic gives an opening dissertation about the human capacity to build things....a nation evolving from the wilderness with our human engineering and vision to forge a nation. Hume's seven wonders are The Transcontinental Railway, Rideau Canal Ontario, Confederation Bridge PEI, CN Tower Toronto, Expo 67 Montreal, the Citadelle of Quebec, Quebec City, with honourable mentions going to the Trans Canada highway, and The St. Lawrence Seaway,

Hume forgets however, we still have a lot of wilderness where human intervention is at a minimum. This is also a wonder, that we have realized the importance of conservation and preservation in our human conquest.

Hume is still of the "old boy" school, which is fine as long as we do not lose sight of our geographic riches, topography and vast systems of lakes and fresh waters. Hume does not appear to recognize the canoe as a unique engineering feat, one that allowed generations of First Nations people and explorers to effectively communicate throughout our vast wilderness. Hume's definition of 'civilized' as a result of human intervention in the wilderness can also be challenged.

Perhaps we should be looking at seven hundred and seventy-seven wonders 777 in this spectacular country of ours. Or, 30,777 wonders if you include the 30,000 Islands of Georgian Bay