I caught the Expo bug young when my three bilingual older sisters all got jobs at Montreal’s Expo ’67. My Mum and I tagged along and we spent the whole summer at my aunt’s big house in Montreal’s NDG neighborhood. That allowed me to spend at least a dozen days at Expo, and – better yet – after a couple of visits I was allowed to wander off by myself. For a geography obsessed ten-year-old this was paradise on Earth. I don’t think I missed a single pavilion, but I still vividly recall Katimavik, the Canada pavilion with its dramatic inverted pyramid.

Each night my sisters would come home with wonderful anecdotes. Often these were about U.S. visitors who were, shall we say, ‘not overly worldly.’ Like the family that asked my sister, “What’s this place ‘Sortie?’ We went off the freeway several times but never found it.” Or the guy who asked, “Is this money good off the site?”

Ever since I’ve jumped at any opportunity to do an Expo. But my next chance didn’t come till 1984 when New Orleans held its river-themed fair on the banks of the Mississippi. When my old pal Mike Pasken told me he’d got a job at the Canada pavilion and an apartment in the heart of the French Quarter, I replied, “I’m coming!”

Canada’s pavilion, fifth-most popular at New Orleans Expo ’84, attracted 2.5m visitors. Its centerpiece was an Imax theater featuring “River Journey,” a wonderful film featuring Canada’s amazing waterways. During the often-long waits to get in, this being New Orleans, many visitors downed several potent frozen daiquiris as they waited. Once settled in the cool darkness and cozy theater seats, everyone relaxed – at least until the film’s thrilling opening sequence. It began with a helicopter ascending a sheer rock face. Once it reached the mountain crest an amazing vista was revealed. Then, very suddenly, the chopper went into a steep dive that viewers could feel in their stomachs. At that point, in almost every showing, someone, um, ‘lost their daiquiris.’ So the pavilion had a Korean guy, dubbed “Mr. Clean,” on continual stand-by.

Exactly a year later, not long after I’d moved to Tokyo, a friend who was in a band from Sudbury called CANO, phoned to say: “We’re playing Canada Week at Tsukuba Expo. Come be our roadie then we’ll come stay with you in Tokyo.”

What a great party it was! The musical line-up was A-list Canadian talent: k.d. lang, The Nylons, Loreena McKennitt and more. The pavilion hosts included friends from UBC Asian Studies like Nancy Morison and couple of guys I met for the first time, Ian McKay and Christian Howes, now respectively our ambassador and Ontario’s ‘man in Japan.’ Week after that, the CANO guys crammed into our 8-mat room in Koenji, and Loreena came to stay not long after them.

Sadly, I missed Expo 86 in Vancouver, my second hometown, said to be one of the best-ever world’s fairs. But a decade later the Globe & Mail and Wall St. Journal both tasked me with writing about Aichi Expo 2005, just outside Nagoya. This one had a somewhat over-wrought theme: “The wisdom of nature – building a new civilization in harmony with the mechanisms of nature.” Canada’s pavilion cleverly twisted the official theme half a turn with its theme, “The Wisdom of Diversity.” On one hand it focused on biodiversity in our nation’s vast forests; on the other it celebrated the power of human diversity in our cities that famously welcome immigrants. In immigration-averse Japan that raised a few eyebrows.

At Aichi, a lone Canadian remarkably had his own pavilion. In the forests not so far behind the Expo site, John Gathright, tree-hugger extraordinaire, built a giant treehouse made from recycled miso barrels and telephone poles, coaxing trees into various shapes to create “living furniture.” He initially opposed Expo 2005 plans that involved destroying too much of his beloved forest. But he came aboard once organizers shifted the main site to Nagakute Park and committed to full site remediation – and especially once he was promised a pavilion of his own. Canadians from Nagoya I met recently at Osaka Expo told me Gathright is still there.

Finally, on May 17th the CCCJ kindly sent me to cover Canada Day at Osaka Expo 2025. While Canada’s effort is necessarily much more modest than previous Japan Expos, I was charmed by the Regeneration themed installation designed by Robert Lepage. That said, I did find the tablets required to view it a bit clunky. And for me what was missing was Canadian faces and insight into the lives behind them. But, as at every Expo, what really made the Canada pavilion was the enthusiastic and outgoing crew of young hosts from across the country.

Overall, for me the best thing about Osaka was the massive Grand Ring, the world’s largest wooden structure with a circumference of two kilometers and a height of 12 meters – truly awe-inspiring. The most disappointing feature was queueing for everything – even to get into 7-11, 15 minutes. And the prices: after a 15-minute wait to get up to Brazil’s coffee truck, a small cup of java cost 648 yen.

I fear that may be my last Expo, as world’s fairs seem to be going out of fashion. Still, I will never forget the excitement and pure bliss I experienced at Expo ’67.

PS: feedback welcome at speechwriter.harris@gmail.com