Rachel Brask will be blogging nearly during her first international art residency, located in Ontario, Canada. Check here for new posts starting May 8th.

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Monday, May 8 (Day 1 official)

I went for a walk to see the local cityscape and places around the ferry docks, to get my bearings for the area. I packed and rolled my very heavy suitcases and got to the ferry dock successfully (oil paint tubes altogether are very heavy!). I met a few other artists on the ferry and we introduced ourselves, excited that our adventure on this residency was beginning. Upon arrival, we unloaded, split our group in two to be transported to the residency on the island. Upon arrival, we were swept immediately into the central kitchen for group orientation, introductions, and then claiming studio space and bedroom assignments. All of it went so fast and I was so very overstimulated. I was grateful for when we had a bit of free time to get settled, relax a little, make some tea, and process all the information that was coming in.

Later after squaring away my possessions into the rooms, I went to explore the lakefront a bit, and it was very beautiful and calming. To see the city of Toronto rising from across the lake was surreal and beautiful. It felt distant, but the height of the towers still felt very close to the island.

That evening we had a communal dinner of small snacks assembled on the table, and just casually chatted with the artists at the table near us, nothing formal or centralized, very low key and a good way to get to know one or two of the artists seated closest. After dinner we did a movement icebreaker with Mariana, a choreography artist from Greece, facilitating loosening up the mind and body to flow like water, while also helping to learn everyone’s names and movements.

Afterwards, I didn’t quite have the energy to fully unpack and organize my studio space just yet. Later that night I taped a piece of oil paint paper to my drawing board so that I’d be ready to start painting anew come morning.

Tuesday, May 9 (Day 2)

I awoke early around 7am and felt like a whole new human after sleeping deeply in a new environment. I enjoyed drinking my tea in the side garden area, watching the birds and listening to the lake’s waves and sounds. Since it was the first full morning, I needed to get my body moving after all those days of travel, so I went for a very long exploratory walk around the island all morning to get a sense of what is around.

There’s an amusement park for little kids at Centerville, which was closed at the time, but I think it might be open on weekends. There are several bridges connecting the multiple islands, and there’s a beautiful garden park in the middle. While walking, I even found a maze made of hedges, and went in until I found my way out of it after several twists, turns, and dead ends. I spent some time at the lake’s beach.

I met for a conversation with the residency facilitator, Teresa. We talked about my work’s influences, techniques and meanings, and what I’d like to accomplish or work on during the residency. She made several suggestions for approaches I could try to my work, and also suggested a couple of artists in the Toronto region to connect with whose work would also relate. We discussed challenges to the technique and how adaptation determines resourcefulness, and what delightful results might come from the unexpected.

Today in the studio, I started a painting on the oil paint paper, inspired by a simple composition from a photo I had taken of the lake and the sky, a simple horizon, blues and greens. The feel of the oil paint paper is different from the usual gessoed canvas I’m used to — it’s slightly more absorbent, and the fiber texture is more prominent after I work the surface of the painting a bit using my usual technique for making a rain painting. I applied the dots, and composed half of the dripping.

Then it was right around time for us to meet for a communal potluck dinner to share presentations about each of our artwork, and what we’ll be working on while we’re on the residency. Since I had a painting started, I thought it best to demonstrate how I “destroy” via the wipes of my rain process as my presentation, then folks could see just how much the raindrops had moved since the start of the presentation.

It was really great to hear about everyone’s artwork, and seeing them in context talking about their style and concept of artwork helped to reinforce my memory for what everyone’s names are in connection with their artwork. I’m in awe of the depth and breadth of artwork styles and different angles that each of the artists has taken on the theme of “water” from all over the world.

Wednesday, May 10 (Day 3)

Started off the morning a bit, touching up the painting from the night before. We had a group zoom meeting at 10am, and after that I went to go work out, and then I went for a walk up to the pier. I noticed this time during my walk that the little snack stands were actually open, and there was a sign for a “Nescafe Frappe” which caught my interest, because it was right around my usual need for coffee. So I sat and sipped iced coffee under a willow tree on the lakefront beach, with my Nescafe Frappe. As I walked, I collected natural found object items that I might be able to use in the next phase of my painting experiments.

I was inspired with the idea of painting a panoramic photo that I had snapped with my camera of the lake horizon right at nightfall, after sunset but before complete darkness fell. I broke up the panoramic into 4 images of vertical paintings, and I taped the paper up on the wall. I decided to build a rain gutter to catch the drips like usual, but instead of just catching the drips, I taped the gutter at a slight angle to channel the drips towards a central location that caught the drips, to see just how much of it accumulated by the end of the painting process. I don’t have a gameplan yet of what I will do with the accumulated used stand oil, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

After putting off painting all day in lieu of exploring, in the early evening I finally got around to trying the first round of experimentation I was encouraged to try. I dragged different natural found objects through the rain drop dots instead of using a traditional brush. First trying bundled reeds produced an interesting effect, but using the bottom end of the woody part of the reeds did not work well. Then I used grass to drag, bits of willow blossom reeds, and then a smooth stone, and finally a smooth piece of driiftwood.

It was both physically and metaphorically very messy, with the paint going everywhere and the fibers of the grasses getting stuck in the paint. I tried to allow the process space for playing, but I cringed pretty much the entire time I tried dragging new objects across the paint surface. But I had told myself that I was going to try to remain open to new options, materials, and possibilities this week, to feel free to play and explore without holding anything too precious. I allowed the painting to continue dripping overnight without much additional intervention, to see what it would do by morning.

Thursday May 11 (Day 4)

I was very excited that several stretched canvases arrived at the end of the day on Wednesday, so I could finally move my process from trying oil paint paper back to stretched canvas, and take just one variable and unknowns away from multiple experiments in all the first few days. I started my day drinking tea in the side garden, watching birds and observing just how much all the trees and bushes had started budding in just the four days since I had arrived to campus.

I prepared all the canvases with hooks and wires so that I could hang them up to dry as I rotated them off the easel as they finished. I checked in on the four paper experimental panels that I started on Wednesday night, seeing that they were appearing very chunky, and didn’t have a lot of flow to them. I was a bit disappointed in the resulting flow, so I picked up a paintbrush and attempted unifying the surface of the paintings, adding more oil for flow, and delicately removing many traces of fibers, seeds, dirt, and other debris that became part of the painting surface. The paint oil catchment gutter had collected a significant amount of oil, and was full to the brim with marbleized oil!

Later that afternoon I went for a walk, and came back to my studio space and moved around some furniture, swept the floor and wiped surfaces to make it fit my workflow a bit more comfortably. Much of the afternoon I visited some of the other artists studios and found it to be really to cool to see how their work was coming along, and to see how several artists already were organically collaborating with one another, and to see the potential for additional collaboration as projects evolved!

In the late evening, I walked down the beach to a spot where I could clearly view the sunset dropping behind the Toronto city skyline, with reflections off the water in the channel between the city and the islands where our residency was located. Since I had not yet done so, I put my feet in the water of the great lake while I was waiting for the sun to descend. The water was cold, refreshing. The gentle lapping of the small “waves” and the smooth beach sand made it feel very much like a calm inlet of the ocean, but it lacked the smell of saltwater. I gradually walked into the water up to just below my knees.

I watched the sunset, snapping photos both with my camera and the dSLR I brought with me, all while still standing in the calm cold water. I kept stretching my toes just to keep circulation. After the sunset dropped, I very quickly made my way back to the building, found a large container that I filled with warm water, and soaked my feet in warm water in order to bring them back up to regular temperature. I turned in early for the evening with plans to start out earlier in the morning.

Friday May 12 (Day 5)

I awoke early and headed straight to the studio to start a canvas painting earlier in the day, than I had been doing. I decided to choose one of the stills from the sunset over the city as my reference image. I applied the underpainting layer to establish my composition. Then I went for a walk around several of the ponds on the island. While walking, I saw a whole colony of cormorants perched collectively in the branches of the trees around the pond. From a distance they appeared to be crows or other collective dark flying bird, but I was surprised that they were in the trees as a water fowl, I imagined them swimming, flying, or waddling on grass, but somehow didn’t imagine them perched way up in the heights of trees. I also had to be very careful to walk outside their aerial bombing range when I was hiking through.

Upon my return, I began the painstaking process of applying thick daubs of paint in the composition of this city sunset scene. As I was working, the familiar texture, give and bounce of the canvas felt familiar. I worked pretty fiercely with focus most of the afternoon applying the dots, and then I applied the rain effect of oil, brush pressure and gravity shortly before dinnertime. After dinner I checked in on how the painting had moved in that short hour, retouching just a few areas. Then we got ready for our anticipated fire on the beach.

We met up and collected firewood together, settled on little spot on the beach where several driftwood logs formed seating around a pit, where we made our fire. I tried to utilize the few firemaking skills I learned to get it set up and a flame started. I was pleased that the flame connected and was sustained pretty quickly instead of quickly burning out from the wind, as the sky was very calm. We had a really chilled out and fun evening of hanging out talking with everyone by the fire, watching the southern end of the sunset fading into night, laughing and exchanging stories of cultural differences and similarities, art experiences, artist struggles, and everything in between.

Just before turning in late, I realized I still had a live painting on the line to check on. I found about 9 bugs stuck in the oil of it, in various parts of the painting, so I carefully picked out the bugs and then smoothed over the paint areas where they left marks. I was overall pleased with how the painting was moving, but I still had to be very careful to guard the areas of canvas where orange and blues were coming together. It was a lovely end to the week, after working hard all week from Monday to Friday, to take Friday night to relax a little with the other artists was really nice.

Saturday May 13 (Day 6)

Saturday was a quiet day that I utilized as a rest day and inspiration day, I caught up a little on some computer work, but not much specific studio work was done that day At the end of the day I went for a long walk around various places exploring the island, and watched the sunset, snapping photos and this time not keeping my feet in the water for so long (this time, not at all!). After an eventful week, I was granting myself this day to check out and quiet my mind and rest so that I could be ready to tackle more painting projects and explorations in the upcoming week.

Sunday, May 14 (Day 7)

Today’s goal was to find a kayak rental location, and to float a kayak down the waters of the lagoons between the islands. There had been a blue building marked “Boat Rental” I saw yesterday, but it was closed by the time I arrived to it at the end of the day. Figuring that they were only open weekends right now, I showed up to the boat rental dock around 9:30 because the website said to arrive early to secure the watercraft wanted. Seeing it wasn’t open yet, I thought maybe it might open instead at 10:30am, which is when the small amusement park on the island opens up.

So I went for a long walk down a long boardwalk running alongside the shore, leading up to Ward’s Island. As I rounded a corner, I saw the most adorable little pink retro van parked, and it was a coffeeshop food truck called Runaway Cafe. I ordred a flat white and a scone and took in the cute vibes of the chairs and the picnic tables, and some paper lanterns hanging over the colorful spring umbrellas. I sat a bit and enjoyed my coffee and peace.

I walked around the path seeing some of the residential parts of the island on my way back. I passed a sign for another kayak/boat rental place, but it wasn’t clear where they were located or if they were open today. I looped back to the other boat rental place, to find that they were most definitely not open today. A little bummed, I instead went up on the “Sky Ride” at the amusement park, the one ride that had little chairlifts that gave a good view above that part of the island, and just relaxing to sit and feel like I was floating over everything.

Returning to the studio, I took a look at the drips that had evolved from the rain painting of the sunset over Toronto skyline, and made some adjustments and modifications to it while the oil paint was still quite wet and malleable.

In the afternoon, I was a little bit moe social than I had been the day before. It was my shift to clean the community kitchen, so I took care of all the tasks for that throughout the day. Getting back into the studio in the evening, I mapped out the underpainting that I’d be starting paint on the next day, I cleaned my brushes, and enjoyed some evening banter with artist friends.

Monday, May 15 (Day 8)

I woke up extra early Monday morning to catch the sunrise over the eastern beach and lakefront behind the art residency property. The sunrise was very bright, with a warm pink orb of a sun rising through the pink of the sky. As the sun rose, the sky glowed brighter and warmer. All the birds were gathering and flying all over the same general area at the end of the jetty/pier. I went out on the pier to get a better angle for the sunset. After tea and breakfast and waking up a little bit, I went into the studio and started applying the daubs and dabs to the newest canvas, a study of the depths of blue just after dusk, with the contrast of the last fading light against the transitional blues reflected in the mirror of the water.

Later on, another artist, Skye, brought in an oil painting she did, and I did my rain thing to that painting, as an experimental collaboration piece to see how my rain technique would go with her painting, as well as a practice in letting go to let another artist work on your work.

Later before sunset we gathered on the beach for a water storytelling session, sharing stories inspired by water while we sat by the lake. It was windy and little difficult to hear, but neat to hear folks’ different takes on water stories. There was a movie night of short films related to water, but because I had two live wet canvases on the easel, I needed to work on those, stayed up with them until about midnight working on them.

Tuesday, May 16 (Day 9)

Tuesday morning I started out the day doing my meal prep for the week, composing boxes of veggies and protein so that I have meals at the ready any time all week long. I checked in on both paintings that started last night, and relatively pleased with the way things flowed overnight. I think that there were at least 5-10 insects that I had to remove form the surface of the paintings before I could get any other painting work done.

In the early afternoon, the winds and gray skies looked as though it might potentially rain soon. Another artist and I, Emily, ran out to the lakeside to see how the lake looked in the stormier (or pre-stormy) conditions. The lake actually had waves! The water level was very high, and the waves were rolling right in with the wind. There were a couple of ducks that were just floating on the waves like a roller coaster. We also observed how the lake water was causing streaks of white and iron oxide on the sand as it dragged in and out of the waterline. We could see the change of sky across the lake from one side to the other, but there were no raindrops as yet to be seen where we were.

In the afternoon, we held an open studios for one another to get to check in and give feedback on each others work. We visited other studios as a small group roving from studio to studio over the evening, seeing everyone’s paintings, drawings, cyanotypes, prints, poems, and performance.

After open studios, we informally gathered in the kitchen for dinner and lingered for awhile just chatting and laughing and decompressing from the day. Also, we had a veritable sampling of a cookie phenomenon called Tim Tams, and they are the best thing. They were introduced initially to us by our Australian artist friend at the residency. There are many flavors to behold of the Tim Tams.

Wednesday, May 17 (Day 10)

I allowed myself to sleep in, then made tea and sipped it on the beach. The water was rolling in today sideways, with longer smooth waves. I used the morning to catch up on writing my blogs, processing photos, and journalling about my residency experience so far. I came up with some ideas for what art making direction I was to work on in the next 2-3 days, as we have nothing specific scheduled as yet for Wed or Thursday. Our group critique sessions are coming up on Friday, and we have an exhibition open to the public on Sunday. We leave on Tuesday morning, so today marks our last 6 days anticipated in the residency, with each day getting markedly shorter and shorter.

I checked in on the blue rain cityview painting and removed any bugs that had been stuck in the paint overnight — so many stuck bugs! This morning I saw a cardinal that was just singing to me from the bush, and it made me smile. There are so many birds on the island everywhere! I walked the beach for a bit when the sky and wind made it appear that a storm might be rolling in very shortly. Wanting to see how the lake looked in these conditions, I went with another artist, Emily, to investigate. The water was definitely higher than it had been, and the way that the waves were rolling in reminded me of small ocean tides in similar weather conditions. There were areas with the waves were crashing against rocks and a pier as it arrived to shore, and I really could have sworn that I was at the ocean instead of the lakefront. It was a thrilling and fun little outing to see the stormy lake tide.

In the afternoon, I gessoed and prepared the surface for three panels of oil paint paper that I was planning to do an experimental painting exploring rainwater flooding in a simple composition. In many of my rain paintings, I’ve focused on the calming interior impact of rain on humans, but I have not, as yet, created paintings highlighting the destructive sheer force of rain and its relationship to flooding and erosion.

Later in the evening I started working on a canvas painting inspired by a reference photo of the sunrise that I had awakened and photographed a few days prior. I mixed color for a softer palette of peaches, corals, periwinkle blues and lilac, with a select color for the intensity of the pink sun and its reflection. I applied all the dots and daubs and applied drips and rain technique all before heading to sleep for the night.

Thursday, May 18 (Day 11)

I started out today by checking in, modifying, and editing the drips of the sunrise rain painting currently cooking on the easel. I took my tea down to the lakefront to wake up and take in the air and get some fresh perspective on the tasks I had lined up to create for today. Tomorrow is our big group critique, so I’m equal parts ambitious and equal parts a little anxious.

After doing a significant amount of work on the current painting, I built in a walk to go get a cup of coffee from the Runaway Cafe, a pink coffee trailer tucked along the walking trail. I brought my postcards and wrote some postcards home while I was there, sipping on my cortado. Since I was out, I decided to keep walking up in the direction of the rest of Ward’s Island.

I observed the really intriguing character and architecture of the cottages of Wards Island. Many of them were really small but very quaint, some looked older and more cottagey than others, which were larger and more contemporary in style. None of the cottages had driveways, just pedestrian walkways between houses and to front doors and porches, since cars are very limited on the island, but every house had an assortment of bikes by the door or porch.

While I was in the neighborhood, I checked out the Island Cafe for lunch, enjoying their quirky and cozy outdoor patio area. I walked around a bit more before returning to the studio where I got started on the underpainting concept for the floodwater rains panels of three, working into the night.

Friday, May 19 (Day 12)

Today our group critiques were planned in two groups, and I was in the morning group from 9am-noon. I awoke extra early to get the underpainting of the rainwater flooding sketches applied with dots and begun rain dripping. I will admit that I did rush the project a bit, and so the execution and detail ended up not being my absolute best work, but I was still committed to following through to see what was possible.

We conducted our critiques all morning, giving each artist about 20 minutes of constructive feedback, articulating their feelings and thoughts on the pieces. I received several helpful suggestions for ways to approach the concepts in my paintings, along with empathy as my experimentation was not the only one that felt that the experiments didn’t go the way that I had hoped. In this means of creating without an exact end product in mind, it enabled me to start several small experiments in different directions, rather than using my residency to focus on creating a full body of work, a collection, or to focus so much on production.

After we finished our morning critiques a little after noon, I went for a walk. After finishing the critiques, the afternoon was a bit warmer than before, and so that’s when I resolved to myself that I would finally go for a dunk in the frigid waters of Lake Ontario, as several of the artists had already ventured to do.

I went, I dunked, it was cold, and it was refreshing. The walk into the water is gradual and gravelly, so maintaining my balance was a bit of a challenge. I allowed myself to fall backwards into the water once I was at knee-level, and it was so COLD! It was like an ice bath! I quickly ran back to shore to wrap myself in my towel and sweatshirt. Once warmed, I went back in a second time, this time hoping that the water would feel a little bit warmer after having already been in. It was still cold! It was refreshing and I definitely was much more awake after having jumped into the cold Lake Ontario!

Later that afternoon, after the last critique, most of the artists joined and went together to get apps at The Riviera. The night was still warm and the breeze tolerable, so we enjoyed relaxing a bit after a long day of critiques, then walked back to campus together afterwards, where we made a fire and exchanged ideas and traded stories.

Saturday, May 20 (Day 13)

Today I slept in until 10am and took a slow morning after the hard work and excitement of yesterday. I took out my camera and long lens for the first time in a long time, and it was raining outside so I went for a walk in the rain with my umbrella. The rain lightened up in the early afternoon, so I went back out while the lighting was still diffused and there were still puddles and reflections and fog to shoot with my camera. It felt really good to slow down and just observe through a lens, wait for it, then snap.

In the later afternoon, since the rain had cleared and then sun had come up, I had high hopes of trying my hand yet again at trying to see if the kayak rental place in Centreville island was open and available so I could finally put my paddle in the water enough to explore the lagoons from the water’s surface. But, as luck would have it, it appeared that there had been nobody to the boat rental shop at all season. So my guess at this pint is that they are closed, still for the season, and that I will have to resolve myself to be at peace with not achieving my hopeful goal of kayaking the waters around the island. I do miss kayaking, and look forward to picking it back up after I return home.

I cleaned up my studio in the afternoon, removing tape from the edges of my paint projects, figuring out how I’ll display them on the wall of my studio for the open studios/exhibition. I swept, threw things out, and reconfigured my little corner of the studio until it was set up in a way that I was satisfied with. Then it was time for dinner and an evening of talking into the night with the fellow artists of the residency.

Sunday, May 21 (Day 14)

This morning I awoke early to get a head start on some setup work I had for labeling the paintings in my studio exhibition. I also had other digital work that I needed to take some time to get started since I’ve been away. Around 10am we had a meeting to discuss some setup ideas for the Open Studios / Exhibition which is Sunday afternoon. Using as much time as I had in the morning to get some work done, then I shift gears into presentation and open studios mode.

We had a good showing of folks that came through the residency to see the artwork by the resident artists. Because it was a warm nice day, some artists even opted to install their artwork outdoors for passers by to see. My paintings were still too fresh and sticky to put outside, lest they collect a whole hoard of bugs on the surface. It was lovely to chat about art with those that came through, and to see the final products that the other artists had been working so hard on all week.

Now that our final exhibition has been put up and is now completed, my mental gears are starting to shift towards packing and transitioning to travel, but I’m struggling to remain fully present for the last 48 hours of the residency, and anything else that I can be inspired by from this island and in conversations and connections with artists before we all depart.

Monday, May 22 (Day 15)

Yesterday was our final exhibition to the public. Today is our last official full day of the art residency. I am very much going to miss the beauty of how the early morning light filters through our studio space. I started out the morning early walking around the lake, then took my tea into the studio while still early and got a head start on packing up my art supplies and materials: my brushes, bins, papers, palettes, paints, etc. I can’t quite pack up my paintings just yet, as they need at least another overnight to give them the best possible drying outcome before being transported via carrier.

I also removed more bugs that got stuck in paintings. Again.

I went for a long walk to get some coffee, take in the last of the views of the walk. I brought along my camera and long lens again this time around on the walk towards Wards Island, so I snapped some photos and just practiced observing.

I returned in time to be a little late for our 1pm debriefing meeting, which took place on the lake beach, where we shared our experiences that we’ve learned and gleaned from this experience, how we’ve connected, how our work has been impacted, our our ideas have shifted, and how personal dynamics have provided collaboration opportunities. We listened to the waves, and talked individually with a partner about what our next steps forward from this island residency can be supported by one another.

In the afternoon, some folks cooked up some plates in the kitchen, I used up the last of my eggs and spinach with a simple scrambled spinach eggs. We all helped one another with extra ingredients and chopping and assembly of dishes for our final potluck communal dinner tonight. We wanted to use up whatever food groceries that we had leftover. I finished up packing some more in the afternoon, cleaning out the studio and my room.

Our final dinner was a fine feast of plenty, side dishes, to mains, to cheesecake and sweet pierogis for dessert. Everyone shared a sense of bittersweetness, that this was our last meal, our last night all together under these conditions. After enjoying our dinner outside on the picnic tables by the vegetable garden, we heard that the lake sauna had been opened. For the first time ever, I tried doing a sauna sweat followed by running to the lake for cold lake immersion. I did two cycles of sauna/swim, and after that I was pretty well awake, especially as it had gotten colder outside after sunset.

Monday is the Victoria Day holiday in Canada, so there were supposed to be fireworks overlooking the city side, so we tried to get to a spot to see the fireworks best. Our timing was off, so we were only able to see a couple sparks fly above the trees, and that was about it.

We finished off the evening with large fire in the fire pit, overlooking the new moon. We sat around the fire and talked until it got too late and I was tired and needed to turn in to get ready for packing out and checking out the following morning.

Tuesday morning, May 23 (Day 16)

I awoke early to catch the tail end of the sunrise, to walk in the lake sand and just enjoy the great lake we’ve been inspired by all week, to take it in one last time. I made tea, then went into the studio and very carefully and creatively packed up my wet oil canvases and oil paint paper paintings. I very carefully removed the tacks on the paper paintings, and used masking tape to tape them to the back side of the stretched canvases, inset because of the stretcher bars. I slide each of three stretched canvases into the slots in the plain air carrier box I had brought, careful not to smudge the front or sides of either painting. I put all of them in, and zipped it up.

I finished putting away and packing my other materials, swept the studio, and then threw out the three paintings with the trees in them. Overnight those had become essentially fly traps, attacking and causing so many bugs and flies to stick to them that even if I had wanted to keep them, it was too late at this point.

Just as I was about to bring my remaining items from my room down to fit into the suitcase of my art materials, I heard word that the bus shuttle to the ferry was going to be leaving early — like 15 minute early! We did a very quick scramble to get on the bus, make sure I had all my luggage, and made it to wait for the ferry, which we took to the mainland.

The open air ferry served as the perfect transition off the island with the other artists, snapping our photos together, saying our final words and our final goodbyes. I really did enjoy getting to know these folks over the last couple weeks, and I will genuinely miss them. The people are what make the place and the experience, the people make the art, and the art of the people is truly what makes this unique art residency experience powerful.

Rachel’s Residency Blog Posts from Canada