Back when Canada turned 100, I was a seven-year-old kid who I suspect was getting kicked at checkers by my grandpa, and not quite having the patience for crokinole. I was not yet a tied-in-the-wool gamer.
Flash forward, and as I write this much of the last five decades has seemed to flash by, and Canada, this wonderful country of ours, warts and all, is celebrating 150 years.
In terms of nations, we are still a country in our youth, but with that we have so much of what we will become as a nation still to create.
So what has that to do with board games you ask?
Well on the surface nothing. It is just a twinge of a writer on one hand realizing the years have quickly gone, and on the other feeling rather proud of Canada.
There is also a little seguing into what is a planned series of four articles leading up to Canada Day.
It might not be something a lot of gamers have paused to even think about, but through the 150 years that our nation has existed a surprising number – at least to me – of Canadians have designed board games.
Many are obscure, even to those who follow the great resource that is www.boardgamegeek.com
Others are classic and enduring examples of the best of what board games are.
Overall there have been a few hundred created, likely more that I am not aware of. Still over the years I have helped compile a rather extensive list of games created by Canadians.
So over the next three weeks I am going to glean through the games and come up with my top-15, it seems a good number since it is Canada’s 150th anniversary.
There are certainly some fun games to consider that I want to mention, even though they won’t make to the final 15.
For example Black Gold was released in 1987. The box notes the game was created in the small town of Rhein, Saskatchewan Canada. No designer name given.
Then there was the game 220, a copy of which I found with a ratty box at a yard sale one day. The game was an abstract strategy game so it had my attention. Not a great game, but solid enough what was interesting was a recent email from Waterloo, ON. which detailed, “My father invented the game. Just wondering where you found yours. We shipped them from our home in Canora, SK for a few years. In the early 70’s we moved to Regina and much of the remaining inventory was damaged in a flood.”
The two games do illustrate creative gamers formulate ideas and create games all over the place. Rhein and Canora are hardly board game central, but two games created in the local towns made it way to my modest collection, and warranted mention as a prelude to the top games of Canada.
