BRITISH READERS MAY RECOLLECT MARTIN'S POIGNANT expression of regret, in Voltaire's Candide, that the French and English had felt it necessary to go to war in North America over ‘quelques arpents de neige vers le Canada’. Martin captures the sense of an enduring European perception of Canada — an indeterminate expanse of ice and snow held firmly in winter's Arctic grip throughout much of the year. His sardonic utterance reminds us of the overseas rivalries of Canada's European parents out of which were born its historic ‘two solitudes’, its distinct linguistic and cultural communities, one proudly French, the other British in descent, their entwined affairs remaining persistently refractory long after the eventual emergence from its colonial past of present-day Canada.