canuck

I am absolutely thrilled to be one of the winners in a give-away hosted by Canuck Quilter to celebrate five years of blogging.

Over those years, Joanne has produced a wonderful selection of projects. She now designs and sells her own patterns and I get to choose one as my prize. Yay!

Believe me it isn't easy to single out one pattern  (I like them all) but after much um-ing and ah-ing I've chosen Star Steps.  

The bright version featured just zings but I also like the colour options Joanne posted in her blog post.  The patriotic version catches my eye.

I've been following Joanne's quilting exploits for these last five years but never thought to ask her about the name of her blog - Canuck Quilter.

According to Urban Dictionary it's a slang word for Canadians. Like Yankees for Americans and appeared during WWI. Apparently, it's also a sporting team - the Vancouver Canucks. Seems like a nice, friendly game with the lads skating about on the ice occasionally getting a little up close and personal.

Here in Australia the Aussie soldiers in World War II shortened Yankees to Yanks (I suspect also because of its similarity to another word ending in -ank) and then moved on to a kind of Cockney rhyming slang calling them Septics.

Septic Tank - Yank.

Needless to say there was not a lot of love lost between the two groups. The Yanks were better dressed, better paid, better fed, better equipped and charmed the local girls with their straight teeth and good manners.

There was actually a riot on the streets of Brisbane in November 1942 after tempers flared a little. You can read about that here. We certainly could not have prevailed in WWII without the support of the USA.

Of course, relations have improved considerably between us since then and Australian servicemen and women stand side by side with their American colleagues in times of crisis.

 US and Australian Soldiers in Afghanistan - have they tried turning it off and turning it on again?

This year is a special one for Australians. It is the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) landings at Gallipoli. 

A good deal has been mythologised about this action and although the campaign was not successful in its objectives, it is considered to be the event that defined Australians. Up until then they had considered themselves to be Britons who lived abroad. 

At a local high school, many students and teachers enlisted after news of the battle started to appear in the newspapers back home. They wrote letters to the school from the front line and these were published in the school magazines of the day. Definitely worth a read here for a more down to earth perspective. That's if history is your thing.