WEIRD CANADA

O, Canada: where the mountains are capped with snow, the maple trees and beavers are abundant, and the news stories are really, really strange.

PURRLOINED

In the summer of 2017, a neighborhood in North Delta, British Columbia, was beset by a crime wave. The offense: laundry hanging out to dry on backyard clotheslines started disappearing. There was no rhyme or reason to it, with everything from shirts to socks to pants to underwear being stolen on a regular basis. The thefts continued until September 2018, when the culprit—or rather, the culprit’s representative—came forward. Shawn Bell admitted that his cat, Bella, had been grabbing dangling clothes and bringing them home. “Last year I thought it was just a phase, and then she just ramped it up. Instead of bringing home one article a day, she was bringing home multiple,” Bell told the CBC. “Last summer it wasn’t that bad but now we’re getting into the territory of people’s full wardrobes.” When it got out of hand, he went to the media, and then started posting photos of his cat’s ill-gotten gains on the North Delta Community Corner Facebook page. “It’s getting to be quite a big pile and I don’t want to do other people’s laundry,” he said. (No word on why he waited more than a year to speak up.)

LEGAL ARRRRG-UMENTS

After the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, a Halifax, Nova Scotia, man named Dwight Parker formed an entertainment troupe called Pirates of Halifax. Parker and his friends are “re-creationists” who dress up in pirate costumes and put on elaborate, swordfight-heavy shows at parks, events, and children’s birthday parties. All was calm on the high seas until 2016, when the Pirates of Halifax forced Parker to walk the plank (i.e., they kicked him out), and so he formed a rival group…which he also called the Pirates of Halifax. While the two groups worked out some legalities—one owned the rights to “piratesofhalifax.com,” but both used the name on social media and in promotional materials—neither had outright ownership of the name “Pirates of Halifax,” so in 2018 they took the matter to a small-claims court. Winner: no one.

A TIP FROM UNCLE JOHN

Settling in Canada? According to Canada’s immigration office, when you move into a new home, neighbors (or “neighbours”) will probably show up with a gift to introduce themselves. Thereafter, if you see them around town, it’s customary to say hello, but not to stop and have a conversation. Adjudicator (the equivalent of a judge) Eric Slone ruled that the first group’s various filings consisted of a legal partnership, but since it was never dissolved when Parker was kicked out, neither group has a legal claim on the name.

Canada has no limit on how long a prime minister may serve.

DON’T DRINK AND FARM

Police responding to a call about a drunk driver who is causing property damage is, unfortunately, not particularly unusual. But it is a bit odd if the driver’s vehicle is a tractor and the location is a golf course. In July 2018, Royal Canadian Mounted Police responded to a call at Riverbank Golf & RV Park, near the eastern Alberta town of Wandering River. Park owner Derek Getty was in the clubhouse that evening when one of his customers reported seeing a man on a John Deere tractor “tearing it up” across a fairway. After Getty chased him for a while (on foot), the police arrived, caught the joyrider, Bobby Trefaneko, and charged him with a series of crimes. “What we like to remind motorists is that any sort of vehicle that has a motor, the same traffic laws apply,” Constable Andrew Deme told reporters.

SACRE BLEU LANGUAGE

Canada is a bilingual country—federal signage must be displayed in both English and French, and there’s a robust francophone broadcasting industry. The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council determines what’s appropriate for the airwaves no matter what language is being broadcast, and in November 2017, the panel decided that the F-word (not fart) was no longer profane…but only if it were used in its English form, on French-language programs. That means it can be used freely, any time of day. “Language is evolutionary and reflects current society,” the CBSC said in its ruling, arguing that the English F-word was now “part of the common French spoken language” and did not carry the same “vulgar connotations” as when it’s used in English.

A CALL FOR ORDER!

Former all-time Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings is obviously a curious guy—if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have acquired enough general knowledge to win 74 straight episodes of the popular show. In 2012 Jennings announced on social media that he’d been using Google Earth to work on a project: He had successfully located the world’s largest “third-order island.” What’s that? It’s an island located in a lake, which in turn is surrounded by another island, surrounded by another lake, which is on an island, inside an ocean. Jennings discovered a small, unnamed land mass (inside of a lake, et cetera, et cetera) on Victoria Island, located in the territory of Nunavut in the far north of Canada.

Rowan Atkinson, “Mr. Bean,” has a master’s degree in electrical engineering.