Canadian culture may include games associated with the country

Yorkton – The next three weeks will be a time of celebration in our culture as Saskatchewan celebrates Culture Day.

The arts and culture festival takes place each autumn, this year from September 23rd to October 16th.

Indeed, for those of us who enjoy board games, it may be time to bring out a few of our culturally significant games.

There are also games that are a little rarer, but are related to the culture of the country.

For example, you might think of Go, a game that is very traditional in Japanese culture. It’s certainly a game with distinct cultural elements intertwined, from the unique way in which stones are picked up from the player’s bowl, to the “click” sound the player makes when placing stones.

However, Go was actually invented in China more than 2,500 years ago.

So what national culture does it belong to? Or in this case, something could be cross-cultural.

Chess is another thing that comes to mind. There isn’t a particularly well-known Western version here, but there are some other cultural variants.

Shogi, for example, is very Japanese. Shang-Chi is Chinese. Makruk is from Thailand and Shatar is from Mongolia. Each one is very chess, but all have their own twist as well.

Given its Viking roots, I also have to mention the Tafl game I reviewed here last week: Konane, a checkers family product from Hawaii that fits the concept of a game tied to a specific culture.

This is Canada – Defining the culture of this country is never easy. Given that we are still relatively young as a country and the backgrounds of the people who come here are so diverse, it is not easy to find games that are part of our culture.

You might think of the Trivial Pursuit made here, with millions of copies sold in various forms, but the scope of the question is so international that when you’re sitting at the table It doesn’t “feel” Canadian.

My personal favorite game is Crokinor. Not guaranteed, but often implied, it’s a game that many say was originally created in Canada and is culturally Canadian.

Same with rod hockey in general. Its roots are almost certainly Canadian, and many of us are culturally Canadian because at least 30 he’s 35+ has played this game, or is at least aware of it. It’s hard to say I’m human.

Then there are great games like Santini and Lines of Action, designed by Canadians Gordon Hamilton and Claude Soucie respectively, but that doesn’t make it particularly Canadian.

Again, LOA and Santorini are not part of our culture, they are with us as people.

We Canadians often fail to celebrate ourselves. When was the last true Canadian movie making waves in theaters? Was it Men with Broomsticks? It was an interesting, decidedly Canadian movie, but it was released 20 years ago.

And who was the last to win the Guiller Prize for Canadian Literature? Probably few readers could have answered Omar El Akkad’s Strange Paradise without doing a Google search.

It’s not particularly surprising that we embrace, promote, love and play games and involve them in our culture, but I think it’s a bit of a pain.

But if you want to kick off a Canadian trend this Culture Day, Canadian Checkers is probably the place for you.

Canadian checkers follow the same rules and conventions as international drafts. The only difference is that the game board is larger (12×12 squares instead of 10×10) and there are more checkers per player (30 instead of 20).

According to Wikipedia, the game is believed to have been invented by French settlers in Quebec and was named Grands Jeux de Dames.

Apparently, the “huffing” rule was originally used.

“For this reason, if a player notices that an opponent has failed to capture while the option is open (even if the piece in question has already captured one or more pieces that turn), the player may The offending piece can be huffed before the next move is made, it will be removed from the board.Nowadays this rule is rarely used.Instead, the player can simply point out the error and the match will end. The opponent is forced to make the correct move.”).

But that huge board and all the pieces make for a draft game that I will remember as being pretty unique.

Try this out and be proud of our culture.