Snowblowers & Instant Mashed Potatoes

You are no doubt wondering what snowblowers have to do with dried mashed potatoes and the answer is nothing except that they are both Canadian inventions.  I became well- acquainted with instant mashed potatoes or a forerunner of them when we lived up above the tree line in Aklavik, Northwest Territories.  Up there almost every food was dried or reconstituted, even our milk.  Mom mixed our milk up every day and we got to like it eventually.  Dried potatoes were not as smooth as instant mashed but that was invented by Edward A. Assbergs in 1962 probably after eating a spoonful of the dried version we had up north.

As far as snowblowers are concerned, the first one was invented by another Canadian , Arthur Sicard in 1925, probably after digging himself out of the kind of snowstorm we had a few days past.  Now we could have used one of those machines up north, but it hadn’t been on the “to-bring” or “to ship” list we were given by the military commander my father was replacing.  It was definitely an oversight.

Another Canadian invention that we all employ is the ordinary zipper.  God bless Gideon Sundback who had the foresight to invent this handy fastener in 1913.  I’m not fond of sewing zippers into clothing, but I am very glad to purchase clothing with them.  I don’t know who invented Vaseline but I think that anyone who has ever struggled with as stuck  zipper must be as glad as I am that it was invented.

Another invention that helped with an onerous household task is the paint roller and we have Norman Breaker of Toronto to thank for that in 1940. He was no doubt anxious to save countless husbands from the back-breaking and time-consuming paint brushing  up and down ladders when we wives get that redecorating twinkle in our eyes.

Of course none of us would know the colour of a wall at night without the invention of the light bulb.  Thomas Edison bought the patent for that wonderful invention from Henry Woodward who successfully invented it in 1874 – also a Canadian.

These are just a few of the inventions that Canadians have given to the busy homemaker over the years, but they are some of the ones for which I am grateful.