How to Spot Canadian Spies

There are Canadians amongst you — here’s how to spot a maple-syrupy spook in the wild…

We only wear maple flags abroad, when we don’t want people to think we’re American. This is Moraine Lake, in Banff, Alberta. (Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels)

There are Canadians amongst you. We’re everywhere, and you’d never know it. Masters at blending into their surroundings, Canadians are difficult to spot — making us world-class spies.

Canadians have been slowly infiltrating the US (and the world) for years.

It’s our long-game play for our southward manifest destiny, but this time — we’re making America our 11th province. Or 4th territory. We’ll figure out the details after. But after years of watching your hilarious elections, we’ve decided that it’s time we brought some peace and poutine to your country.

Stop laughing. It’s true.

We’ve been airdropping our wolves into position, and our cobra chickens (Canadian geese) have taken up flanking positions. Our retired soldiers have already annexed as far south as Florida. Florida will be the first to fall, with some of its cities already being 12% Canook.

America will be ours.

Plans are in place already. There are maple-syrup-chugging spies amongst you my south-o-the-border friends. If you’re thinking, ‘That’s not real, I’ve never heard of Canadian spies!’. Exactly — we’re good at it. You’ve probably never heard of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) either. Unlike the America’s spy agency, ours is actually secretive.

But never fear, I believe in a fair fight. So I created a checklist for you, to help you spot us snowfrogs in the wild.

Some might think, ‘Oh, that’s easy — just wait for them to say “aboot’’, the stereotypical beaver eaters pronunciation of “about”. Nice try. You can’t catch us this way, anymore. After being mercilessly teased for decades we’re very careful about our pronunciation now.

Our seamless ability to appear American is why we put Canadian flags on our bags or collars when we travel. We’re aware we sound nearly identical to Americans. I do, I’ve blended into a pack of Yankees easier than a toque (beanie to Americans) fits into the handwarmer of a bunnyhug (what the Saskatchewanese call a hoodie).

You’d think it is easy to spot a Canucknucklehead, but we blend well. We all know our height in feet and our weight in pounds (but we also know it in centimeters and kilograms), and can spell things the Freedom way. You need to be savvy to determine who are the hockey hooligans amongst you.

This is Toronto, near where I’m from. We think it’s the centre of the universe. Fun fact: the American film industry regularly uses Toronto because it's cheaper, for example, Good Will Hunting, Chicago, and the show Suits were filmed here. (Photo by Arpan Parikh on Pexels)

Syrupy Speech

The first Mountie spy-identification method is our speech patterns. We can hide our ‘aboots’ and ‘ehs’ with practice, and most of us don’t have distinguishable accents — but we use some weird words to American ears sometimes.

If we’ve drank too many Tim Horton’s coffees or Mooseheads (that’s the real name of a beer brand) and we need to drain the thermometer we’ll say that we have to go to the ‘washroom’. Americans say ‘restroom’. Neither of which makes sense since we’re neither washing nor resting.

We have other verbal tells too, if we’re talking about levels in school we might say ‘grade 12’, whereas Americans would say ‘12th grade’, or sophomore. What on earth is a sophomore? You weirdos.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking we’ll spell things the British/Canadian way. We’ve been so overexposed to American culture that any of us can pinch-hit with both spellings at will.

Crazy Canucklehead Culture

Spotting puck-playin’ snow demons is a nuanced art form. It will require you to play in the shadows, likely you’ll have to test us until we slip up. But like any game of poker, Canadians will have their tells. Cultural tells are your easiest play when tracking snow Mexicans.

Test us by saying something inaccurate about maple syrup. We know it’s a trap, but we can’t help it. Tell us “Did you know that maple syrup comes from corn!”. We’ll glitch. Our left eye will start twitching until we yell out “My good sir, it comes from sap! Sap straight the tit of the mother maple tree, you heathen.” Then we’ll finish you off by saying that it takes 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. Or, glug, 40 gallons.

Try laying claim to one of our treasured Canadian celebrities. We absolutely, positively, have to correct you. Drop into a conversation that Keanu Reeves and Ryan Reynolds are from California. We are required by Canadian law to remind Americans they are Canadian. You can also substitute Ryan Gosling, Seth Rogan, Michael J. Fox, or Pamela Anderson.

There’s a caveat to this celebrity rule though — it doesn’t work for Justin Bieber. We’ll look down at the ground, shuffle our feet, and agree with you that he’s American.

Under no circumstances confront a Canadian spy by disparaging our beloved national dish, poutine. Insulting this gravy-fied, cheese-curd-melting fried dish is treason we cannot accept and have orders to shoot on sight.

This is Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, a province that actually does have an accent. Coast to coast this country is beautiful, who would want to leave? Photo by Krista Kankula on Unsplash

Another way to build your arsenal of data proving that they’re from America’s Hat is to ask the suspected Canadian to make you tea. They’ll use a kettle. The requirement of owning a kettle was passed down in the gene structure from our British forefathers. Modern Brits reading this right now are likely stunned to find out that most Americans don’t have kettles. Never tell an English person you microwave a mug with water to make tea, they’ll faint.

If your suspected snow spook is over 30, casually mention house hippos. If they don’t ask what that is — boom, Canadian. Now my non-Canadian friends are probably curious what a house hippo is. It was a public-awareness ad campaign that ran all over TVs decades ago, showing tiny hippos around your house to prove that you can’t believe everything you see on TV.

If all else fails in the culture test — bump into them. A Canadian will, out of sheer reflex, apologize. It’s something even our most trained spies can’t help, it’s engrained at the cellular level.

Should you have to result to torture tactics to find out of someone is secretly a toque-wearing poutine junkie — lock them in a walk-in fridge. If they open up a case of beer and announce it’s ‘bbq’ weather — they might be Canadian.

Let the Canucklehunting begin!

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And Canadians, if you want to spot an American you don’t have to go through all this rigamarole. If you want to know if someone’s a Yankee-doodle-dandy, all you have to do is ask. Their pride is so strong they can’t help but announce themselves. In a crowd, start calling out states, “Is there anyone from…Alabama?”. You’ll hear the muffled warcry “Roll tide!” in response.