Canada Letter: Putting Australia in Its Place, Vanishing Ice

The Times’s recent Canada-related coverage with back stories and analysis from our reporters along with opinions from our readers. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, December 1, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Canada »]( [Putting Australia in Its Place, Vanishing Ice]( By IAN AUSTEN Last week, I looked into the stereotype of Canadians as [nonstop apologizers]( and found some research suggesting that such a view might not be wholly accurate. Now I find myself pondering two other supposedly Canadian traits: humility and a reticence to impose on others. As a Canadian writing to Canadians, I have decided to ignore them, although I certainly feel a bit hesitant about this request: I need your help to make Canada No. 1, at least in a competition with Australia. Amrita Marino Over the past year or so, The Times has expanded its presence in both Canada and its Commonwealth kin, Australia. It’s all part of an effort to develop our audience in largely English-speaking parts of the world. The effort includes this weekly newsletter and one written by our bureau chief in Sydney, Damien Cave — an offering I strongly suggest [you check out](. The parallels and contrasts with Canada can be striking. Here’s the deal. One of our bosses, Jodi Rudoren, has set a challenge. Can we in Canada attract more newsletter subscribers, and increase their number at a higher rate, than Damien can with his Australia Letter by Jan. 1? Amrita Marino Now, Damien is a great guy who produces a very fine newsletter, but I’m not going to let any sense of humility interfere with winning this contest. So, if I may, I’d like to impose on you to ask friends, neighbors and relatives to [sign up for the Canada Letter using this link](. A week doesn’t go by without many of you writing in to compliment the Canada Letter, as well as offering helpful suggestions. What we now need is for you to email a friend or two — or maybe a dozen — and share this newsletter with them. So what’s in it for you? Well, mainly just national bragging rights. Despite our shared link with Britain, it’s not often that we get to take on Australia. While we clash in rugby, they play a different kind of football and we don’t need to discuss Australian hockey or curling. And, yes, I’ll admit that our blackflies are a terrible annoyance in the spring. But they’re nothing compared with [cane toads](. Don’t tell the Aussies but the longer-lived Canada Letter has about 70,000 subscribers to Damien’s 25,000. He’s aiming to add 10,000. Our head start should allow Canada to make his goal seem feeble. What do you say to 20,000? At The Times’s headquarters on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan the editors will post a chart tracking the battle for everyone there to see while making their way to the washroom or the coffee pantry. (I’ll also create one for my office but its audience will be pretty much limited to me and my family’s one-eyed cat, Picnic.) The newsletter will feature a running scoreboard until the end of the year. There will also be an individual prize. Unfortunately, there’s no practical way for me to figure out who has signed up the largest number of new subscribers. But I do have a copy of “The Faraway Nearby,” the beautifully produced catalog of the [Ryerson Image Centre’s exhibition]( of photos of Canada and Canadians from The Times’s archive. It, along with a surprise pack of things bearing the Times logos, will go to the person who sends the most amusing, heroic or otherwise interesting story about signing up others to nytcanada@nytimes.com. So get out there and give’er. And please accept my apologies for imposing on you. [Canada Letter Subscription Page]( Melting Hope Heather Campbell The word the Inuit in Labrador use to describe what’s going on with their environment is [uggianaqtuq]( roughly “to behave strangely.” When Livia Albeck-Ripka went to Rigolet, a Labrador community that depends on ice roads that have grown increasingly unstable because of climate change, she found the effects of that strangeness. “With less time spent outside, people said they felt ‘stuck’ and ‘isolated’ and some reported increased drug and alcohol use, and domestic violence,” she wrote. A side note: in addition to photography, the article features evocative illustrations by [Heather Campbell]( an Inuit artist originally from Rigolet. Read: [Why Lost Ice Means Lost Hope for an Inuit Village]( New Thinking The Times has extensively reported on the work of [Geoffrey Everest Hinton]( a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who is affiliated with Google and also largely responsible for making Toronto a global center for [work on artificial intelligence](. As we all know A.I. has become the tech industry’s next big thing. The voice inside your smartphone uses it to answer your questions. But it has largely been based on neural networks, a concept that’s been around for decades and which has limitations. Mr. Hinton has now come up with a new approach to A.I. He used a puzzle to demonstrate it to my colleague Cade Metz, who reports on emerging technologies for The Times. While it only has two blocks and initially appears to present little or no challenge, the puzzle’s solution defied Mr. Metz as well as, he reported, some leading academics. By the way, Sara Sabour, Mr. Hinton’s co-researcher, is an Iranian who lives and works in Canada because the United States once denied her a visa to study there. Read: [A New Way for Machines to See, Taking Shape in Toronto]( Life Advice Along with news and analysis, The Times offers advice on matters big and small, much of which can be found in its [Guides]( offering. On the specific side of things, Deb Amlen, a columnist and editor of [Wordplay]( the crossword column of The Times, has produced [a handbook on solving]( The New York Times Crossword. On a broader theme, Tara Parker-Pope, the founding editor of [Well,]( The Times’s consumer health site, offers [guidance on finding happiness](. (From it I learned that Canada is the seventh-happiest country on earth. Our rival Australia squeaks into the top 10 at No. 9 and the United States is down at 14th.) Regardless of their subject, however, the articles in Guides aren’t listicles. They’re serious, detailed and worth checking out. Special Offer Canada Letter has often highlighted videos from the Op-Docs group, which is on the Opinion side of The Times. Now Op-Docs is coming to a big screen near you, if you live in the Toronto area. Six Op-Docs films will form [a special presentation]( at the Ted Rogers Cinema, which is home to the Hot Docs Festival and its regular film series. Two of the films were directed by Torontonians, Kelly O’Brien and Ann Shin, who will join me in a discussion. We have 10 pairs of tickets to give away to Canada Letter readers. You can enter the raffle [here](. You Asked Many Canadians were among the 200 people took up a request from The Times’s [Reader Center]( and submitted questions about how The Times covers the news for an international audience. Ms. Rudoren, the editorial director of NYT Global and the person who set the challenge against Australia that we must win, has answered. Read and Watch: [How Do We Cover News for the World? Jodi Rudoren Answers Readers’ Questions]( Centre Ice [In the Beginning, Toronto Was Almost Left Out of the N.H.L.]( Today the Toronto Maple Leafs are controlled by Canada’s largest cable company and Canada’s largest telephone company, both entities that don’t immediately prompt affection in the hearts of Canadians. A century ago when the National Hockey League was forming, Toronto’s team was controlled by an owner who was disliked by almost everyone else in hockey. The result, Eric Zweig wrote, was that Toronto came close to not being part of the league [Hockey’s Other Crosby Toils Outside the Spotlight]( Is she related? Taylor Crosby, a third-year student at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and the goalie of the Huskies women’s hockey team is indeed Sidney Crosby’s sister. That can be challenging. Trans Canada [Canada Offers $85 Million to Victims of Its ‘Gay Purge,’ as Trudeau Apologizes]( Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized on Tuesday to people who were harassed and forced out of the public service, the military and the Mounties because of their sexual orientation. His government also settled a class-action lawsuit in time for the emotional apology in Parliament. [Where Birds and Planes Collide, a Winged Robot May Help]( The airport in Edmonton, Alberta is testing a robobird that resembles a falcon to reduce bird strikes on aircraft. [In Canada, Indigenous People Are Part of Daily Life, Not Thanksgiving Lore]( For the Times Insider, I offered some thoughts about the vast difference between Canada and the United States when it comes to the media profile of indigenous people and their issues. HOW ARE WE DOING? We hope you enjoyed our Canada Letter. Tell us what you think and what you’d like to see, at [nytcanada@nytimes.com](mailto:nytcanada@nytimes.com? subject=Canada%20Letter%20Newsletter%20Feedback). A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten. We must defeat Australia. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW NYTIMES [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytimes]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Canada Letter newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2017 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018