New York City
November 28, 2000

Dear Readers,

After our appeal to Canadians inyesterday’s editor’s letter to go to the polls, it was reassuring to read this morning that voter turn-out in yesterday’s federal election was strong (at least compared to the recent American election). The results, however, were predictably unsettling: The Liberal Party of Canada, the party no one likes but everyone votes for, trounced their rivals, as they do every few years like clockwork, and the country remains angrily divided among regional and cultural lines.

As a gesture of unity at this difficult moment in the nation’s political history,today’s letter, by Bruce Grierson, floats into the breach: it is a quintessentially Canadian tale of man vs. beaver, sure to move and amuse the Quebecois separatist and the western fundamentalist alike: Let the healing begin.

As a symbol of inclusion, and because it seemed like a fun thing to do, we are publishing Bruce’s open letter in both of Canada’s official languages. The French version can be seen here, and it reallyshould be seen, even if, like most of the Open Letters staff, you don’t speak a lick of French: you don’t have to be bilingual to understand that “Il avait lu quelque part que les boules de Naphtaline faisaient horreur aux castors,” is a far more melodious sentence than “He’d read somewhere that beavers were repelled by mothballs.”

The French translation was provided by Marlene A. Sahal, an Open Letters reader who grew up in Montreal and moved to Toronto in 1981. She is a professional translator and a tutor and also, more recently, the CEO of Women Business to Business, a web site for women in the business world. Jessica Johnson, an editor at Saturday Night magazine, did the supplementary translations; it was she, for instance, who explained that “subscribe to the weekly magazine” translates as “s’abonner au magazine hebdomadaire.”

(Speaking of le magazine hebdomadaire, subscriptions are still available, and still free. To subscribe, send a blank email to weekly@openletters.net, or visitthis page for details.)

Bruce Grierson, the author of today’s letter, is a regular contributor toAdbusters Magazine, where he writes incisive stories like this one, about the Ruckus Society. Today’s letter is his first published work on beavers.

It is also the second in our weeklong series of letters by and about men. Tomorrow, Michael Welch (whose last open letter explained what it was like to go to Al Gore’s final election rally, at 5:30 a.m. on Election Day, after a night in the bars) recounts the tale of the drunken semi-famous author who tried to hit on his girl.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough