In a new tune, the creators of ‘Come From Away’ sing the praises of Canada
By Andrea Sachs,
Nice Canada
The Canadian government recently extended its ban on nonessential travel from the United States through at least Feb. 21. While waiting for the gates to reopen, you can bide your time watching old episodes of “Schitt’s Creek,” consuming mounds of poutine and cranking up the latest heartwarming ditty by the Canadian creators of the Broadway musical “Come From Away.”
David Hein and Irene Sankoff, whose show won a Tony award in 2017, released “This Is Canada Nice” last month. The song celebrates the country’s pleasant qualities. A sample lyric: “NICE as the Rock and the Rockies, wide the prairie sky, as high as Niagara Falls — hey dude, check out OUR side!” For the 90-second animated video, the pair teamed up with Destination Canada, the country’s official tourism office; Wanderlust, a design studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and a variety of Canadian personalities, including “Come From Away” cast members, an illustrious Quebecois drag queen and the country’s first female astronaut. (The latter ones contributed their voices to the project.) The married couple, who are hunkering down in Ontario with their 7-year-old daughter, were kind enough to discuss by email the inspiration for the song as well as why Canada is so gosh-darn agreeable.
Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
In “Come From Away,” Irene Sankoff and David Hein share the story of a Newfoundland town’s kindness to strangers after 9/11. The married couple revisit this Canadian trait in their latest collaboration.
Q: How did you come up with the “nice” idea?
Living in New York, we were often known as the “nice” Canadians — our show is often called nice — and it’s often what others think of Canada. Basically that we’re extremely polite. However, when we started looking into it, we found that everyone has a different definition — from caring about science and the environment, to our unique music and food, to the bravery of welcoming strangers. We realized that using different definitions allowed us to celebrate Canada’s diversity and all of the incredible things about our country.
[Six things you should know about Canada before making a trip]
Q: Describe your creative process.
A: We started writing down everything we loved about Canada on Post-it notes all over our wall and then asked others what they loved. Soon, it took over the whole wall! We wanted the definition of “nice” to be passed from one person to another, in a flowing kind of poetry: finding the joy in joining BeaverTails [the restaurant chain that specializes in the eponymous pastry] and butter tarts together or celebrating the invention and innovation of insulin. We wrote a million verses, trying to pick the best way to represent an entire country in 90 seconds. We also tried to make the music and animation style of each verse feel equally diverse. Luckily, we were thrilled to partner with Wonderlust, an incredible Halifax-based animation company, and Hayward Parrott, an award-winning music producer. They helped us pack in as many Easter eggs as possible, from a beaver reading a copy of “The Handmaid’s TAIL” to a bagpipe player segueing the first four notes of our national anthem.
We then talked about our dream cast. We wanted as diverse a group as possible — people from across our country, people new to our country, scientists, artists, sports stars and everything in between — all passing the torch of the word “nice” to each other. We were thrilled to work with some of our heroes — Canadian icons such as [musician] Bruce Cockburn and Roberta Bondar, our first female astronaut; athletes like Angela James, “the female Wayne Gretzky”; indigenous artists like iskwē and new rappers like Wolf Castle; the fabulous Rita Baga from [“RuPaul’s] Drag Race”; and Tareq Hadhad, a Syrian refugee who started a chocolate company here called Peace by Chocolate. And, of course, we brought our brilliant “Come From Away” cast along for the ride. The best part was that within this time of crisis, when so many artists are out of work, we got to employ countless musicians, animators and performers, and create a piece of art together.
Q: What message do you hope the song imparts?
A: When we first started, this was meant to be a piece that would inspire and encourage people to go out and explore Canada. While we can’t travel now, we will in the future, so until then this feels more like a message of hope. That when this gets better, the things we all love will still be there, and we can continue to come together, even from our homes and even if our definitions are different.
Q: Is the song an extension of “Come From Away,” which focused on a Newfoundland town’s acts of kindness after the 9/11 tragedy?
A: We certainly gave some winks to Newfoundland and the “Come From Away” community in the lyrics, “Nice as the Rock and the Rockies” and in the mention of “Kissing the cod au gratin.” But I also think that when we first started researching kindness in Newfoundland over 9/11, it actually changed us. We’ve been more open to sharing our home with people who need it when we travel, just as the Newfoundlanders did for us when we were there. We view kindness as a way you can respond to darkness, whether it’s the tragedy of 9/11 or a pandemic — it’s how we take care of one another. So this feels more important than ever to celebrate “nice” stories and ways we can find common ground.
[On Canada’s 150th birthday, traveling cross-country by train]
Q: How did you pick the Canadian emblems, such as poutine and the Rockies? Did any end up on the cutting-room floor?
A: We put in as much as possible! Ketchup chips, the fact that we invented basketball, amazing women like [civil rights activist ] Viola Desmond, who someone should write a musical about. And if we couldn’t include it in the lyrics, the animators did, like the CanadaARM. But there were so many we couldn’t fit in, like celebrating some of our incredible sites — the viking settlement of L’Anse aux Meadows or skiing in Banff — or our fictional sites, like Green Gables and Schitt’s Creek.
Q: Is Canada nice from coast to coast or are some areas nicer than others?
A: One of the French lyrics is literally “from coast to coast.” So yes, in many ways, it’s truly such a beautiful place, from the prairie sky in Saskatchewan to polar bears in Manitoba. But then you go to a small town like Gander [the featured location in the musical] and you find that it’s the people who are truly extraordinary. There was actually a study done of tweets by Canadians that found that we generally use more positive language and lots of hearts and smiley faces [than Americans]. Canada isn’t perfect though — there’s a lot we still need to work on — but at least we believe that we have the potential to be nice. That we ought to be. Hopefully we strive for it, and we try to celebrate that part of us with the world and welcome them in to explore it.
Nice Canada
“This Is Canada Nice” lists many of the country’s notable people, places and culinary treats, such as civil rights activist Viola Desmond, the Rockies and poutine.
Q: Why do you think Canadians are so nice?
A: We think nice is often misunderstood. It’s not weak or being a doormat. It’s looking at the greater good. When we were in Newfoundland, we met people who were raised to believe that if a stranger arrived on your doorstep, you welcomed them in, [or] if your neighbor needed food, you gave them half of yours. That’s how they survived their winters, by coming together as a community. And that’s how we’ll get through this. So we think it’s not that all Canadians are so nice, it’s that we all have that potential, and sometimes we just need a reminder that it’s within us all.
Q: Why is this message more important than ever?
A: There’s never a bad time to celebrate being good to one another, but we think it’s also important to remember the bravery of niceness. In “Come From Away,” the people of Gander had every right to keep those [passengers] on the planes. To keep that fear and anger locked up. But instead, they welcomed them into their homes. As [Gander Mayor Claude] Elliot says, “We started with 7,000 strangers on the tarmac. Middle of the week, we had 7,000 friends. And by the end of the week, we said goodbye to 7,000 family members.” That’s the strength of niceness. They defused the situation and turned it around. They found ways to come together with people of all races and religions, by recognizing that they were all in the same storm.[
Q: Where have you been living during the pandemic and how are you staying busy and sane?
A: We drove back to Canada from New York in March. We expected to be here a few weeks — maybe a month. And almost a year later, we’re living in a small town north of Toronto. It’s been quite an adjustment, but we’ve kept sane by trying to do some good — raising money, buying a 3-D printer for a young man who was making face masks and delivering as much PPE as we could source. Like many parents, we’ve had our challenges learning to home-school our daughter, though we’ve really had some wonderful times together as a family. We just built a tiny ice rink in our backyard for her to skate on. How Canadian is that? We’re lucky that we’re writers and can work at home. We’ve got a Disney TV movie we’re working on, a TV show we’re pitching and some new projects for the stage when it comes back. Because it will come back.
Q: Once we can travel again, are there parts of Canada you can’t wait to visit?
A: All of it. Our kid wants to skate on the longest skating rink in the world in Ottawa. And I [David] always wanted to show her the northern lights I grew up with in Saskatchewan. Someone just set up a real-life Rosebud Motel [from “Schitt’s Creek”], and we always wanted to go to Green Gables in Prince Edward Island. And, of course, we can’t wait to be back in our theaters. But above all, we want to see our friends in Newfoundland. More than ever, it feels like we could all use a little bit of their definition of “nice.”
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