Anchor Struck

Canada’s independence day is July 1st, a fact Jude and I learned when we first visited our adoptive nation in 2003. We were starting to look north for relocation, so we took the morning ferry from Port Angeles WA into downtown Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia. Everywhere we looked, starting with an ethnic food festival in the harbour, was bustling with joyous activity. We’d been married a year but had yet to have our honeymoon, so we counted that.

In our 18 years since moving here, we have made July 1st through 4th into a super holiday. This year we marked it with a party on a beach I built along the creek that provides our domestic water and micro-hydro supply. I’ve been trucking in sand for several months. I made my Man Cave outside.

That party marked Canada’s independence day. Yesterday we marked the U.S.’s more simply, with hot dogs, beans and Fritos. And therein lies my gripe: eating contests. Joey Chestnut downed 62 hot dogs at Coney Island to win his 16th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, an event held since the 70’s. ESPN even televises it.

Competitive eating is nothing new. A pamphlet published in 1630 described the exploits of Nicholas Wood from Kent, England. Wood once at a whole sheep (including wool, bones and horns) in one sitting, and 400 pigeons in another. The first recorded pie eating contest was reported in Toronto in 1878. At least eight deaths have been recorded from it, all from choking.

In a world plagued by war, disease, famines and rapid climate change, we have plenty else to worry about, but could there be a more obscene and needless practice than this?