Mission to Mars | The Spectator

Canada’s greatest asset

If Donald Trump wants to make Canada the 51st state, I suspect it’s for the wrong reasons. I just got back from a family holiday. We started in Vancouver, then drove to Whistler, before flying to Calgary and taking the Trans-Canada Highway – past places with names like Bearspaw and Dead Man’s Flats – into the Canadian Rockies and Banff National Park. I was telling a friend about the trip a few days ago and actually welled up when I was describing the deep azure hue of Lake Louise; the vastness of the forests and the astonishing beauty of the wildlife – from chipmunks to grizzlies – that seems to co-exist peacefully with the comparatively tiny human population. It was nature on a scale that made human beings feel refreshingly incidental.

Ruaridh Nicoll

Varadero, Cuba’s unbeatable beach

I have a sideline in travel writing, so am lucky enough to have seen some very lovely beaches. Few are as spectacular as Cuba’s Varadero. There are others I prefer – Cossies in the Cocos (Keeling), if you happen to be passing, or the hidden beach at Achmelvich in Scotland, where I shivered between granite walls in my childhood summers. But if classic sun, sea and sand is your thing, Varadero’s 12-mile, palm-fringed spit is unbeatable. It took me years of living in Cuba to visit. I believed that Varadero was all about package tourism – socialist package tourism. Then I went and walked those infinite sands at dawn, the water as clear and intoxicating as absinthe, and got over myself. Now my family and I have moved here for a month.

Bill Kauffman

The disappointment of DNA tests

Those sending their saliva to ancestry.com and 23andMe might want to heed the advice Dr. Zaius gives to Charlton Heston as the stranded astronaut sets off to stumble upon his destiny in Planet of the Apes: “Don’t look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.” Exhibit A: our friend Peter, descendant along the Quincy line in Massachusetts – you know, the folks who more or less invented New England. Peter took an early iteration of one of those DNA tests and was told, to his astonishment, that he was – according to Science! – significantly Norwegian. Muttering the Yankee equivalent of “WTF,” Peter threw himself into a full-bore exploration of this putative heritage.

Lloyd Evans

Confessions of a dog hater

“Do you like animals?” asked the woman at the door, collecting for a zoo. “No, I hate them, they keep trying to kill me,” I said. That got rid of her. I feel a little ashamed of my hostility to animals, which I inherited from my mother. She was raised in rural Ireland and she loathed the countryside and all its nonspeaking inhabitants. To her, animals were either predators or ingredients, and she particularly despised geese, rats, mice, squirrels and dogs. “Vermin,” was one of her favorite nouns. And she regarded the word “pet” as a self-deluding fantasy. Which seems reasonable. Animals cannot be tamed but their owners can be deceived. Any beast will turn murderous when cornered. Dog-hate entered my soul. It festers there still.

Sophia Money-Coutts

If we allow dogs at weddings, why not a python?

Three women in my Tuesday weights class are getting married. While we squat and thrust and fling our kettlebells around, there’s nonstop talk of veils, decorations, modes of transport to the venue and whether anyone eats wedding cake these days. Men are allowed in this weights class but, oddly, none ever shows up. The major update from one of the brides this week was that the local register office had given permission for her dog to attend the ceremony. She duly bought “a little tux” for Badger, so he could look the part. How do we feel about dogs at weddings?

Life