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For the 100th Time: The Canada Letter

For about a decade, I was the only reporter based in Canada for The New York Times. But in the past few years, The Times began to put a greater focus on the country that has consistently been our largest base of readers and subscribers outside of the United States.

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The author, who often takes photos for this newsletter in addition to writing it, in Ottawa.Credit...Dave Chan for The New York Times

Other reporters began traveling here more often to help cover the country, while bigger plans took root. Today, as many of you likely know, I have lots of company. Catherine Porter is our bureau chief in Toronto, and Dan Bilefsky moved back to his hometown, Montreal, after years of reporting for The Times from Europe. More recently, Lindsey Wiebe, a native of Manitoba, joined us as audience growth editor.

[What do you think of the Canada Letter? Take our short survey and tell us!]

Canada is central to our efforts to expand beyond our traditional base of readers. And before we beefed up our reporting staff, the newsletter you’re now reading was part of that process. This edition is number 100 since the official start on Oct 14, 2016.

The content and name, formerly Canada Today, have evolved over time. But my editors made one thing clear from the beginning: I had to write in the first person. Given that I had spent much of my career trying to keep myself out of articles, they may as well have told me that I had to write in pig Latin. But I got over it. And the habit has, on rare occasion, even crossed over to my articles. One piece I’m most proud of in recent years was a first-person recollection of Expo 67 and the centennial year in general. That article prompted a surge of emails from Canada Letter readers.

[Read: Canada Is Turning 150. Oh, to Be 100 Again.]

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Expo 67, as seen from the Canadian pavilion.Credit...Archives of the City of Montreal

We also decided that the newsletter had to be fun. One source of inspiration was “Morningside,” the defunct C.B.C. Radio program, during the years when it its host was the incomparable journalist, author and broadcaster Peter Gzowski, who had a talent for mixing the serious with the silly. I don’t pretend that a newsletter can define a country to the same extent as a daily radio program that was broadcast to millions. And it can be hard to combine seriousness and whimsy, arts and politics, all in a single issue. But I try to make sure that the mash-up evolves, week by week.

All of us who report about Canada travel throughout the country regularly. So this newsletter has been written from a number of different places, including more coffee shops than I care to recall. Shortly before it began officially, I filed from somewhere in the Atlantic aboard a ship on which I was speaker as part of a New York Times Journeys trip. (The ship’s satellite internet connection was a trip back to the mid-1990s). And this summer, one edition emerged from a ski resort in the French Alps, which is a magnet for many Tour de France fans.

And, of course, I get help from time to time. In spring, Dan took a road trip to reacquaint himself with Quebec. Catherine gave us the story behind her moving, and widely read, article on John Shields’s decision to end his life. And we’ve welcomed guest writers from around The Times, like the Beirut bureau chief, Ben Hubbard, who dissected Saudi Arabia’s feud with Canada.

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A New York Times correspondent, Dan Bilefsky, speaking with women in Montreal, his hometown.Credit...Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

The biggest and most pleasant surprise for me from this newsletter is that I am now in touch with readers far more often than at any point in my career. I read every email, and my weekend rituals now include trying to respond to each them. My apologies to anyone I’ve missed.

We really do love hearing from you, and your feedback has helped both the Canada Letter and, I think, how we report on Canada. To mark the 100th edition of the Canada Letter, The Times has created a survey to more formally collect your feedback on what we’re doing and, more important, how we can do it better. Whether you’re a new or longtime reader, I very much hope you can take a bit of time to complete it.

[Read: Share Your Feedback on the Canada Letter]

—Alan Rappeport and Catherine Porter have produced revealing portraits of the two very different people now facing off at the Nafta negotiating table: Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, and Robert E. Lighthizer, the United States trade representative.

—The eye-popping values of Canadian marijuana company stocks have led many to suggest a financial bubble. But Stephen Grocer wrote in DealBook that things are not going well for investors who are betting that those shares will collapse, known as short sellers.

—Court documents released this week provided more details on a deadly shooting rampage in Toronto this summer and a look into the life of the man who repeatedly pulled the trigger.

—The N.H.L. is focusing its attention on a country not usually associated with hockey: China (with some help from The Great One).

—Here’s an astonishing Toronto hockey fact from an article by Curtis Rush: John Tavares “is the first homegrown hockey superstar to play for the Maple Leafs since Charlie Conacher in the 1930s.” Fans of other teams may insert their jokes about the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup here.

—An essay by Jian Ghomeshi, the former C.B.C. Radio host who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, set off a shake-up at a highly regarded literary magazine.

—It’s not easy to sort out Russian connections to President Trump and the role they may have played in the last presidential election. Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti have done that work for you.

—The latest iPhones have changed Brian X. Chen’s mind about larger and larger smartphone screens.

—And whatever the screen size of smartphones, France is barring them from classrooms.

A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 15 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

Don’t be a stranger. You can reach us at nytcanada@nytimes.com. And if you haven’t done so, please subscribe to the email newsletter version.

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