Dear Giant Squid,

Is there any hope of becoming a Squid-Canadian any time in the future? I understand this position would be short-lived, as the time of Cthulhu is rapidly approaching. I only wish to bask in the glory that is Cephalopodia while there is still time to do so.

Unsigned

---

Dear Reader,

What a wonderfully timed question! Oh, the serendipity!

Your question arrives after I have already crafted the perfect answer, never before has this happened. My joy, it is limitless. I have just spent the better part of a week composing a treatise on this matter for our "Presentation Club" here in our offices. Jarwaun had a presentation on the "Best Frags on the Xbox" and Molly had a presentation entitled, "Ten Things I Learned from Reading This Magazine." Devo, Rob and the others abstained, begging ignorance and illiteracy.

Herein lies my report, in a slightly truncated form:

 

THE HISTORY OF SQUID IN CANADA

As is the case throughout the "New World," early squid colonists came to Canada's verdant shores to seek their fortune, which they then beleived had been inadvertently left hidden deep beneath the mocassinéd feet of the aboriginal Americans then settled upon the land, possibly in the form of curséd pirate gold or mineral reserves (of either the pirate or non-pirate variety.) This proved not to be the case, and squid colonists would have quit the polite, be-doughnutted land altogether, had they not discovered what they then lovingly termed "Canadian Gold": the beaver.

Henry Hudson
Famed English Explorer and Beaver-Aficionado

As you may or may not be aware, Canadian beavers are renowned for their hairiness. English sea-explorer Henry Hudson was much thrilled with the luxurious Canadian beaver, lauding them as "exquisitely soft, slick and sensuous." As Hudson was so appreciative of their beavers, the aboriginals — mistakenly left upon the land by some occult hand — shared with him the true bi-partite utility of Canadian beaver: Firstly, castoreum, the secretion from the beaver's anal gland, is much useful as a perfume and flavoring agent in the chewing gum. Secondly, the natives knew the vast utility of shaving the beaver, so that it might then yield a felt which could then be pressed and fulminated so as to form a waterproof fabric, suitable for the making of fine hats. It is to these two products — the musky grease and gathered clippings of the shaved Canadian beaver — to which our Fair and Friendly neighbor to the North does owe Fortune's once and enduring Largese Canadianne.

All of this was very fine for the early squid colonialists, except for their complete lack of interest in water-proof headgear.

Once the Squid-Canadian community agreed that to wear of the water-repellant-felt manufactured from the remnants of a shaved beaver was less than advantageous for aquatic creatures, they turned their attention to the seeking of their other great fortune: the Real Estate.

Any of my many and varied friends in these States United have well-noticed an odd but important fact about Canadian Real Estate. It is all, or virtually all, occupied within 100 miles of sea-connected water, and of course mostly localized around that great and vast throat of water, the way of water, which is now the resting place of the Great Sainted Lawrence.

(An aside: it should be noted that just as Cathedrals and Monasteries and Fast Food Establishments take their names from the holy-boning relics secured within their deepest bowels — The Sainted Peter's Basilica does indeed contain the ten thousand boned fingers of Peter Ben-Jonah who was called Simon by his friends, and the King of Burgers does leave behind in each of his own restaurants, once upon each night, a canine tooth secreted deep within the dispenser of the ketchups — Just as this is so, so too do all of the great land formations who take their names from sanctified and deified men of old do also contain those sacred relics. And so, I shall report to you with great confidence that the Sea-Way of the Sainted Lawrence is paved by the million bones of his great and ancient (and most terrible) body, which grew from a polyp out of deepest space and time, and that those bones are being forever polished by the currents and the freighter ships, and from space we can see that the Sea-Way is like an earth-bound milky way, glittering but also chocolately and posessed of the mysterious nougat.)

The location of all of the great and terrible Real Estates of the Canadians, which is so near to the waters of the world, can be easily explained by our finessed understanding of the histories.

You see, it is the most basic of deductions, but I shall stress it again: the Land Canadians continued in their pursuit of the beaver, and their strong desire for young wet beaver that they might shave. If this were the primary motive force that would have determined the apportionment of Real Estate in the Canadas, and also that which would subsequently describe the expulsion of the Land Canadians most Native to the land, then given Man's rapacious and unsatiable desiring of young warm wet beavers, the secretions thereof, and the fur to be shaved from, we would assume a distribution pattern which naturally drew these men deeper and deeper amongst the glades and crevices of the innermost reaches of Fair Lady Canada.

And yet we do not.

Instead, Canada's population, she hugs close to the glittery polished-bone shorelines of the wet body of the Lawrence who is Sainted.

And this is because the Squid Canadians, having abandoned the wet beavers, having no use for their water repellant head gear, did instead embark on a different endeavor. For it was, by 1730, that one Cornelius VanderSquid and his kin did become the principle landholders of the Estates Reale of the Canadas. And so it was that all of the apartmentos, the country villas and the vast banana plantations of the Canadian Estates market did find themselves little more than a hunting tentacle's reach from the water's edge.

And so you have the Canadas of today: wet, grimy, and sadly lacking in the requisite amount of wet beaver, either shaved or hirsute.

 

RECENT SQUID HAPPENINGS IN CANADA

The squid both giant and not-giant have been on the "down low" in recent years. They still live amongst the shores of the Great Northern Land and pick their food with silly ease from the shorelines and boatmoors as often as they are hungry. (Imagine this please: you are a human who enjoys the cheeseburgers. You have a warm and comforting chair which you lay upon and within arm's reach of your chair—or even closer—are dozens of fresh and chewy cheeseburguesas lazily milling about. After generations of this, what would become of your people?)

Squid-Canadians have grown fattened, it is true. They are weak of mind and body, never having cause to exercise their winsome hunting techniques. They drift in packs—bloated with fudge-filled tourists—and their minds wither away. Many of these Squid-Canadians have dens deep in the lakebeds where they gather daily and nightly to watch the terrestrial or "cabled" television. They do enjoy their "stories", these unfailingly polite squid-cousins of mine.

 

WHY YOU SHOULD WANT THE HONOR OF BEING A SQUID-CANADIAN

They are a noble race, strong and long-lived. The great Poet Canadienne said of them:

Arms a fleet of pythons
rabid as the starvéd bear
oh to be a squid-candian
and be shorn of all this hair

Minds swift as a running stream, eyes sharp as a gamma-drill. There is no finer creature in all of Canada than the squid-canadian.

 

WHAT IT TAKES

The chief requirement is to be a Giant Squid, Colossal Squid, or some other type of cephalopod. Cuttlefish need not apply. This requirement can be waived occasionally upon surgery, proof of madness, or proffering of SCUBA equipment or submersible living dome. Applications can be brought to the Ellis Island of Canada, Elk Island.The location of the island is a mystery designed to test your mettle and fettle. Ignore the web link above, it is there to lure the trusting and unwary, and a trusting and unwary Squid Canadian is nought but a dead Squid Canadian. If any petitioner were to travel to the geolocation mentioned in that web link they would find disease and misery and death waiting for them with sharpened forks. No, find the island yourself. It is known by other names as well as Elk Island, sometimes it is called Midian. But I have said too much.

Once you have found the island and unlocked the riddle that binds the doors you may enter and present your application and evidence for worthiness. Remember to bring a pen with black ink.

(There is also secret access through the Money Pit of the Oaken Island, and many have spent great hoardes of cash to discover it, but all for naught.)

 

HOW TO APPLY

I fear that the Canadas are a place not nigh so flip as these As Yet Still United States. Where-as to become an Americanerro requires but to demonstrate the endurance to cross a river and climb a fence, or ride across the seas in a cargo ship's container, there are seven distinct criteria for a Squid-Canadian:

1. Proficiency au francais
2. To be free from disease, both physical and moral
3. To best no fewer than three dogs in unarmed combat, either simultaneously or in series (documentation required)
4. To have destroyed a thing much loved (documentation required)
5. To have drank of the six-pack of the American beer, and then to have drank of the intoxicating spirits, and yet still to be "fine to drive, ya' damn hoser!" (documentation required)
6. To be polite in all manners, even when an offense is most grave and terrible (video documentation required)
7. To be able to identify no fewer than three distinct types of bacon

Having completed all of these things, and having been able to profer evidence of such through photographs, trinkets, and other assorted remnants of the courages, I would, if it were the proper case, be happy to welcome you into our mighty, nobel and antique ranks!

However, knowing full well that you have not completed these and other secret hurdles, I must instead withdraw and be apart from you, you foul and unworthy thing.

And thus unfolds the body of my presentation.

Cheers to you, Friend.

I wish you good fortune. Je Me Souviens!

Your Giant Squid