There are certain things about growing up Canadian that you don’t really think about while they’re happening.

You just assume they’re normal.

You grow up seeing different faces, hearing different accents, eating food from different cultures and having friends whose parents came from completely different parts of the world.

One friend’s house might smell like curry.

Another friend’s parents are playing reggae in the basement.

Someone else brings food to school you’ve never seen before.

You learn pretty early that there isn’t necessarily one way to look Canadian.

That’s just Canada.

And when you grow up around it, you don’t realize how much that shapes the way you see the world.

Then you travel.

And suddenly, being Canadian becomes a thing.

I’ve been places where someone barely speaks English, but the moment they hear Canada, their face changes.

“Ahhh, Canada!”

Then somehow Drake comes up.

Or snow.

Or Toronto.

Or somebody hits you with a very enthusiastic:

“Canada, eh?”

And you laugh because it sounds ridiculous when someone else says it.

But there’s also something interesting happening in that moment.

You’re being welcomed.

Canada has this strange passport reputation in many parts of the world. You tell someone where you’re from and, sometimes, the interaction immediately feels different. There can be a warmth attached to the name.

That doesn’t mean Canada is perfect.

It doesn’t mean every Canadian has the same experience here.

And it certainly doesn’t mean we’ve figured everything out.

But there is something about growing up in a country where difference is so normal that you sometimes don’t recognize how unusual that can be until you experience somewhere else.

Perspective Growing Up Around the World Without Leaving Home

One of the greatest things about a Canadian upbringing, especially in a city like Toronto, is how much of the world comes to you.

You can grow up surrounded by Caribbean culture, South Asian culture, Chinese culture, African culture, European culture, Middle Eastern culture and dozens of cultures in between.

Sometimes all on the same street.

You hear different music.

You learn different slang.

You eat food your grandparents probably couldn’t pronounce.

You attend weddings, birthdays, festivals and family gatherings where you’re introduced to traditions that aren’t technically yours, but somehow become part of your life anyway.

And after a while, cultural differences stop feeling particularly different.

They just become people.

That may be one of the most Canadian things about growing up here.

Nightlife My First Step Outside My Own Culture

Coming from a Caribbean background, I already knew what a party felt like.

Music.

Food.

People talking loudly.

People dancing.

That part wasn’t new.

But one of my first real experiences outside of my own cultural bubble came when I was about 17.

Little Mike comes up to me one day.

“We’re having a party. Come through.”

I ask him, “Where?”

He says, “In the woods.”

The woods?

Apparently, we were heading up on top the bluffs.

And this wasn’t some place where you just pulled up and parked beside the party.

You had to get there.

There was a side street where the few people who had cars could leave them, but we were 17. Most of us weren’t driving.

Some people rode their bikes.

Some walked from home.

Then you had to make your way into the woods.

A little hike.

Almost like you were entering some hidden spot that only the neighbourhood knew about.

Now, having Grenadian roots, I had seen people cooking over an open fire before.

That wasn’t strange to me.

But a massive bonfire?

Marshmallows?

A huge crowd partying deep in the woods in the middle of the night?

That was completely new.

And people just kept coming.

Not cars.

People.

Walking in.

Bikes appearing.

Groups coming down the path.

By around 3 in the morning, there were people everywhere.

There was something almost cinematic about it.

The fire.

The darkness.

The music.

The fact that you were tucked away from everything else.

Everybody just enjoying themselves.

And then eventually, somehow, we saw the lights.

Red and blue.

Sirens.

To this day, I’m not even sure how the police car managed to make its way in there.

It definitely wasn’t a road made for traffic.

I can only imagine them slowly creeping through the path, probably wondering what they had gotten themselves into.

But once those lights appeared, we knew.

Party over.

That night stayed with me.

It was one of those experiences that becomes permanently engraved in your memory.

Not because one unbelievable thing happened.

It was the whole experience.

The walk in.

The hidden location.

The bonfire.

The crowd showing up from everywhere.

The music in the middle of the woods.

And then the police somehow finding us anyway.

You don’t remember every detail.

You remember how it felt.

Italian Scene Then Came the Italian Party Scene

My next cultural crash course came courtesy of Anthony.

This time, I was entering the Italian party scene.

And the energy was completely different.

The music was fast.

The bass was pounding.

Everything felt turned up.

I’ll be honest — it took some getting used to.

The music wasn’t really my thing at first.

But after a while I realized the music almost didn’t matter.

The vibe did.

Everybody was dancing.

Nobody cared how they looked.

Nobody seemed worried about who was watching.

People were moving nonstop.

And then came the fist pumping.

Now today, people joke about fist pumping.

But when you were in the middle of a room with hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people doing it together?

That energy was something else.

You felt invincible.

Like for those few hours you were part of something bigger.

Like everybody in that room had decided, collectively, that nothing else mattered.

Work didn’t matter.

Bills didn’t matter.

Tomorrow didn’t matter.

You were there.

The music was loud.

The room was alive.

And for that moment, you felt like a superhero.

Polish Scene Then Thomas Introduced Me to Heavy Metal

Then came Thomas.

And suddenly I found myself in the Polish community and at my first real rock experience.

Heavy metal.

I had never been to anything like it.

It was a local band playing in a local club, but you would never know it from the crowd.

People knew every word.

Every song.

Every guitar change.

Every moment.

The room felt like these guys were the biggest band in the world.

And then I discovered the mosh pit.

Ohhh, what a time.

Completely different from a Caribbean fete.

Completely different from the Italian club scene.

Different music.

Different crowd.

Different culture.

Same feeling.

Release.

Belonging.

Energy.

People losing themselves for a few hours and becoming one crowd.

That was the part that always fascinated me.

You could walk into three completely different cultural spaces and on the surface they had almost nothing in common.

Different rhythms.

Different clothes.

Different food.

Different languages spoken at home.

But underneath all of it, people were doing the exact same thing.

Celebrating.

Dancing.

Connecting.

Escaping.

Living.

Multiculturalism Maybe That’s What Canada Taught Me

When people talk about multiculturalism, it can sometimes sound like a government brochure.

Flags.

Food festivals.

Different restaurants.

But that wasn’t how I learned it.

I learned it standing around a bonfire in the woods.

I learned it fist pumping in a packed club.

I learned it getting thrown around in a mosh pit.

I learned it through friendships.

Through music.

Through nights that started with, “Come through,” and ended with me experiencing a world I didn’t grow up in.

That’s the Canada I know.

Not cultures simply living beside each other.

Cultures overlapping.

Borrowing from each other.

Inviting each other in.

And somewhere along the way, you stop thinking, “This is their thing.”

It just becomes another experience you carry with you.

Scale A Huge Country That Can Somehow Feel Like a Small Town

Canada is enormous.

You can get on a plane, fly for hours, land somewhere else and still be in the same country.

Yet there are moments when Canada feels strangely small.

Especially once you start travelling, working, performing, doing business or moving through different communities.

Someone always knows somebody.

You meet someone in another province and somehow discover you have a mutual friend.

You travel thousands of kilometres and hear a familiar accent.

You walk into a Caribbean restaurant somewhere unexpected and within ten minutes someone is asking what part of Toronto you’re from.

There’s something very small-town about Canada despite its size.

Maybe it’s because our population is spread out.

Maybe it’s because our cities are more connected than they seem.

Or maybe Canadians are just really good at asking enough questions until we figure out how we know the same person.

Identity The Funny Thing About Canadian Identity

Canadian identity can sometimes be difficult to explain because it isn’t always loud.

We don’t necessarily walk around announcing it.

A lot of Canadian culture lives in small things.

The way we speak.

The way we apologize even when we aren’t sorry.

The strange confidence that we can survive weather that would shut down another country.

The understanding that a two-hour drive isn’t really that far.

The mixture of cultures.

The neighbourhood plazas.

The hockey references you understand even if you don’t watch hockey.

The Jamaican patois mixed with Toronto slang mixed with words that somehow only make sense here.

The fact that we can complain about winter for six straight months and then become offended when someone from another country complains about Canadian weather.

It’s ours.

We’re allowed.

Travel You Appreciate Home Differently After Seeing the World

Travel has a funny way of showing you where you came from.

Sometimes you have to leave your country to understand your country.

You start noticing the freedoms you took for granted.

You notice how comfortable you are around people who don’t look like you.

You notice how easily you move between cultures.

You notice the assumptions people make when they hear you’re Canadian.

And sometimes you realize that your upbringing quietly prepared you to feel comfortable almost anywhere.

You can walk into a room full of people from different backgrounds and it doesn’t feel unusual.

Because in many ways, that was your childhood.

And maybe that’s one of the gifts of a Canadian upbringing.

Not that Canada is perfect.

Not that we don’t have problems.

Not that everyone has had the same experience.

But for many of us, growing up Canadian meant growing up with a little piece of the world around us.

Then one day you travel halfway across that world, tell someone where you’re from, and hear:

“Canada?”

Their face lights up.

“Ahhh. Canada. Drake!”

And suddenly you realize something.

You travelled thousands of kilometres from home.

But somehow, Canada got there before you did.