Gunnar Goes to the Big City

1,462 words

I found myself in a picturesque tourist trap during my mini-holiday at the end of July. I was traveling with some compatriots who were keen on visiting all of the antique shops and pseudo-artisanal stores in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were dozens and dozens of shops that stocked various wares and knick-knacks, glass trinkets, gewgaws, signs with affirmative messages like “Live, Laugh, Lobotomy”, brightly painted canvases, seemingly ancient jewellery, pins and necklaces, antique portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and King George V, thimbles and teaspoons, Persian necklaces made of the cheapest material possible, and all sorts of other things.

After becoming disoriented in this labyrinth of overpriced inventory, I managed to hit my head on some low-hanging lanterns and fall unconscious into a display of Greaves jam. After I regained consciousness, swept the glass shards, rhubarb, blueberry, and apricot off my person, I realized that for the last several hours I had been in the midst of a swirling whirlpool of the races that H.P. Lovecraft talked about when he was witnessing the tumult of New York City. I always think of Johnathan Bowden’s lecture about Lovecraft when he relayed the horror writer’s astonishment:

Now, Lovecraft’s America was white to a degree that many Americans now couldn’t even envisage, and yet he regarded it as appallingly decayed and decadent and utterly in racial chaos. And that was in sort of 1908, so what he would have made of 2008, 2009 is quite unbelievable. On his first trip to New York he said he was almost maddened by the seething whirlpool of the races and the destructive intensity of a world clashing upon the city. Because he was seeing it as someone who was very provincial—from Providence—transported to New York, the seething masses of New York, a sort of energy as they come in off the boat, and he sensed all that energy for both creation and destruction and, like all artists, would have been appalled and yet also excited—because energy always excites.

The seething vortex of the races was swirling amidst the shops; it was crowded, more so than ever. There were white faces, yes, but the presence of non-white foreigners was pronounced. My friend told me later that he had been counting the white faces amidst the crowd, and he is someone not normally prone to noticing that sort of thing.

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a pretty place, don’t get me wrong. There are picturesque vineyards, orchards, historic sites, theatrical productions, and War of 1812 reenactors who fire muskets at one another (something I’ve always enjoyed). The tourist website for the area is nicely done, shiny even. The shopping section boasts:

The heritage district and surrounding areas of Niagara-on-the-Lake present a diverse shopping experience. Whether it’s antique shops, specialty foods, wines, apparel or unique gifts. The Merchants of Niagara-on-the-Lake deliver shopping options for visitors of all ages.

They weren’t lying about the picturesque shopping experience, but they said nothing about the hordes of people, many of whom looked like they were fresh off the boat.

I went to Toronto as well to see the only Major League Baseball team in Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays. They play in the colossal coliseum that was once named the Skydome (now it’s named Rogers Centre or something equally corporate). One of the key components of the Blue Jays lineup is a fellow named Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He’s a corpulent native of either the Dominican Republic or Cuba, I’m not sure. Just one moment, I’ll look that up. Ah yes, his Wikipedia entry indicates that he is a “Dominican-Canadian” from Montreal. Well, if you were uninspired by those facts you’ll be appalled by the contract he signed on April 9, 2025. It’s a whopping $500 million contract amortized over 14 years. He’ll be a tottering old pensioner clinging to his colostomy bag, teetering in the batter’s box before this contract is up. Have you ever seen one of those coffee mugs that read “I’m dead wood but they can’t fire me”? Well, ole Vladdy might be getting one of those before his contract has run its lengthy and costly course.

I’ve always watched sports that feature a disproportionate number of non-white players in an idiosyncratic way: I tend to gravitate towards the white players who stand out in the sea of Dominican outfielders or black defensive halfbacks on the gridiron football field. I thought that maybe I was the only one on the planet that did this but it turns out that I’m not alone. When I listened to a Jared Taylor speech to an activist group from a number of years go when he spoke about cheering for Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson rather than a black American boxer Floyd Patterson, I realized I was not alone at all:

Well, on June 20th, the black American Floyd Patterson knocked out the Swede Ingemar Johansson to win the world heavyweight boxing title. There was a picture in the newspaper: Johansson flat on the canvas; Patterson standing over him. I didn’t know much about boxing but I knew you didn’t win by taking a nap in the ring. I was flabbergasted. I was 100 percent for Johansson, even though he was a Swede and Patterson was an American. I didn’t care about the American; I wanted the white man to win. I don’t think I cared, especially, that Patterson was black. I would have rooted for Johansson against a Turk or a Guatemalan.

I remember asking my father whether there weren’t any of “our” guys — white people — who could knock out Patterson. Dad said no, Patterson was the best boxer in the world. He didn’t seem to be bothered. But I was. It was just plain wrong that the top boxer wasn’t one of “our” guys. I had a natural, instinctive racial consciousness.

The Toronto Blue Jays are doing fairly well this year, but the game I attended saw the Jays lose 9-3 to the visiting Kansas City Royals. It was fun to go and see the spectacle even though the hometown squad lost badly. In the first inning, the aforementioned Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a home run and we all rejoiced emotively with applause, cheers, hoots, and hollers. That would be all the scoring we would do, however, until the last inning of the game as the Royals went to work scoring 9 runs. Despite his home run and a good play at first base, Toronto still lost, and I realized I just cannot bring myself to venerate a non-white athlete receiving a grotesque amount of money.

As for the crowd, most of the spectators in the stands were white, but there were non-whites there, too, of course. When walking around the city close to the stadium, if only for a brief time, it’s easy to see how Toronto has gained its reputation for being a cosmopolitan multicultural megacity. The traffic to and from Canada’s largest city is horrendous and will only get worse. The congestion in southern Ontario generally speaking is bad, and daily trips throughout the Niagara region were fraught with Mad Max-like battles on the Fury Road. I’m exaggerating here, of course, but the savage driving was noteworthy.

Apparently, the current federal Liberal regime in Ottawa have been reticent about releasing Canada’s immigration numbers lately. The last numbers are from March 2025. Why would that be? Could it be that they’re trying to conceal just how many foreigners are being admitted to our country? The answer is yes. The problems of traffic congestion, overcrowding, cost, and cohesion along with a whole litany of other issues all stem from our completely genocidal immigration numbers.  Even though the Conservatives have been inept at winning federal elections they do have some capable critics that attempt to hold the Carney liberals to account. Pierre Poilievre said this on X: “Instead of fixing their out-of-control immigration messes, Liberals just stop publishing the numbers. Carney has changed nothing. He has just covered up the problem.”

Michelle Rempel Garner, the Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, criticized the Liberals for their concealment of recent immigration statistics:

Since Mark Carney took office in March, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has failed to publish any of their public datasets. This is in stark contrast to their regular release schedule. How many illegal border crossings have we had? How many more asylum claims have piled on to an already backlogged waitlist? How many more permits have the Liberals handed out that continue to overwhelm our housing, health-care system and job market? Whatever they are, Canada has a right to know.

It’s nice to go on holiday, it really is, but it’s hard not to notice what our future holds. Things are only going to get worse before they get better. Things aren’t all bad, though, I did bring home some overpriced jam and fudge.