Time for Canada to Stand Up for Santa's Caribou

Image from Calgary Coin

It is every year  during the Christmas season we talk about Santa's reindeer, the latin name is Rangifer taradus.   This is the same animal that is on the Canadian quarter and called a caribou.

To be clear here, a reindeer is a caribou.   We should demand that people the world over  refer to Santa's draft animals by their proper name, caribou.

Reindeer are the caribou the Lapps raise for food and fur.   Do I look like a Lapp to you?  Last time I checked Santa was not a Lapp either.   We have Clement Moore to blame for this error in naming with respect to Santa's caribou.   I wonder if he did it on purpose to deny Canada's connection to Santa?  It was less than a decade after the War of 1812.

a picture of a Raniger taradus - in this case a caribou
image from USF&W

Santa's sleigh is pulled by caribou people, not by reindeer!   This is Canada, we as Canadians we should be taking ownership of the animal and giving the poor beasts their proper name, the caribou.    You would think after 76 years of having a caribou on the quarter, we would know a caribou when look at one.

We also need to change the lyrics to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, it is bad enough he had a red nose, but to call him a reindeer when everything clearly indicates he is North American based is just another insult.

Rudolph, the red-nosed caribou

had a very shiny nose.

And if you ever saw him,

you would even say it glows.

All of the other caribou

used to laugh and call him names.

They never let poor Rudolph

join in any caribou games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

Santa came to say:

"Rudolph with your nose so bright,

won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then all the caribou loved him

as they shouted out with glee,

Rudolph the red-nosed caribou,

you'll go down in history!

OK, I admit, caribou has an extra syllable and the song sort of falls apart, but that only says to me that we need a new song for Rudolf that clearly points out his Canadian heritage.

Picture of a  Ranigifer Taradus  - in this case a reindeer

If you want to mail a letter to Santa, you have to do it through Canada.  This is the only country on earth that has a functioning address and postal code for the North Pole.

Santa Claus

North Pole 

Canada

H0H 0H0

Other countries may have places kids can mail letter to Santa, but none of them are Santa's clearly accepted home of the North Pole.  Rovaniemi in Finland is clearly a hoax by the global Finnish industrial complex.  North Pole Alaska is even more of a joke, it is south of the arctic circle.

As Canadians we lay claim to the territory that is Santa's home, every exercise book I had as a child showed our boundaries extending all the way to the North Pole.    Canada is also home to the northernmost permanent habitation on earth - Alert Nunavut at 82 degrees and 28 minutes north.   It is only 817 kilometers from the North Pole.

As a country that is covered in all this snow and ice, we need to take ownership of Christmas.  We need to demand at the UN and WTO that the world accept Canadian suzerainty over the season.  We need to start this by calling the caribou what it really is and making the world know the truth.

Time for a campaign to get people to know the truth.