Here in Vermont, there's a story that hovers between truth and legend about the team of surveyors who came to the North Country to figure out the border between the United States and Canada. For a few decades after the Revolution, it wasn't exactly clear where Vermont ended and where Canada started. So the surveyors came, and since it was Northern Vermont circa eighteen-hundred and nothing-for-miles, they had little else to do but figure out the border and get really, really drunk. As some of you may recall from your college days, alcohol and math are something of a zero-sum game, and the end result was that the surveyors ended up plotting the border much further North than intended, moving square miles of otherwise Canadian wilderness into the domain of the Green Mountain State.

I think the surveyors weren't as sloshed as we've been led to believe. If a boundary is supposed to separate two things that are different, then that border is about where it should be. Canada certainly feels different, and Quebec even more so. Crossing the border into Phillipsburg from Enosburg Falls is more than just crossing an imaginary line. The hills and mountains that dominate the Vermont landscape flatten out almost immediately into a long plain. Signs switch from all English into mostly French. Rather than the Vermont rural landscape of farms surrounded by forests, the rural Southern Quebec landscape is almost the opposite- small patches of forests surrounded by farms.

But, you'd expect Quebec to look different from Vermont specifically, and New England in general, if for any other reason than all of the French everywhere. Nothing seems to separate cultures so much as language does. I'm expecting to feel like I'm in a foreign land when traveling though Quebec, but what about Ontario? Ontario has a lot in common with Vermont specifically, and New England in general. For instance, New England was explored by the French but mostly settled by the English. Ontario was explored by the French but mostly settled by the English. New England has rather harsh winters and the residents often excel at cold-weather sports. Ontario has rather harsh winters and the residents often excel at cold-weather sports. New England is full of interesting natural attractions, such as large bodies of fresh water. Ontario is full of interesting natural attractions, such as large bodies of fresh water. I mean, outside of the issues in land size, nationality, terrain, population density, whether or not the geographical are in question contains a national capital, and the differences in which each local accent can be considered "funny" to the average native English speaker, the places could be thought of as vaguely, theoretically, similar.

Yet, why do I feel more at home when traveling through parts of the United States less like New England than Ontario is? Philadelphia isn't like Boston, but it feels more like Boston than Toronto does. Washington, D.C. is really quite unlike Vermont, but certainly feels more like Vermont than Ottawa does. You would think that Ontario wouldn't seem that different from home, yet it does. It does, but not in an obvious different-dominant-language way, it's more subtle. It's in how they tend to add a "u" to "flavour" or "colour". It's the reversed letters at the end of "centre". It's in the different flavors of potato chips, such as "ketchup" and "dill pickle". Mostly, however, it's because their pedestrian walk signals are different.

If you were captured, bound, blindfolded, and thrown on an airplane, and then you freed yourself from your bonds, removed the blindfold, evaded your captors, grabbed a spare parachute and jumped, and landed in a strange, unfamiliar city, you could determine whether or not you somehow ended up in Canada just by walking to the nearest major intersection. In the United States, when it is safe to cross a busy street, pedestrians are greeted with the image of a person walking, from the perspective of someone looking at that person perpendicular to their direction. The stride is deliberate, the arms maintain perfect balance.

In Canada, the dominant walk signal is much different. Looking up at the pedestrian signals while you cut your parachute cords, you would be greeted by the stylized image of a person, walking with an unusually long stride, almost leaping, possibly walking perpendicular to your position, possibly walking diagonally towards or away from you. The arms seem too short, somehow, the elbows bent at what at first glance appears to be an unnatural angle.

When I encounter the Canadian walk signal, I have to wonder how it came to be so different than the American walk signal. After all, both are expressing in near-identical terms the concept that it is safe for you to walk now. In my travels in Canada, it appears the citizens of that country walk more or less the same way we do. I saw no unusually large strides, no unusually angled elbows. Yet, they have chosen, via subtle national and cultural differences, to display a walk signal in this fashion. How did this come to pass? Was it an evolution completely separate from the American walk signal, i.e. did they have knowledge of our signal but decided to redesign it for their needs, or was it borne entirely separately from a separate effort much in the same way that archaeologists have determined that the cow was domesticated at least three separate times before the dawn of history? When was the design of the Canadian walk signal finalized? I've noted variations of the design in the past, do these come from a time before it was standardized or are they more recent interpretations? Finally, what is it about the Canadian perspective that leads them to design a walk signal in this fashion?

There's a lot we in common with Canada, including a fair amount of big things, but it comes down the the multitude of little things, such as the design of a pedestrian signal, that separates us more than the border does.