Why toque, eh?
by Shari Bishop Bowes
As far as Canadian symbols go, the toque deserves a better rap.
Beavers are great, but they don't make very good pets and I've known a few landowners who wish these critters would just pack up their bags and move away rather than damming up perfectly good rivers.
Maple syrup is delicious, and comes in all kinds of fabulous products from ice cream to fudge, but when it comes right down to it, it's sugar, and sugar is something we're all trying to limit in a healthier diet.
Then of course there's hockey, and I just don't have the heart to get into that.
The toque has to be the most enduring, accessible, practical, fashionable, and outright fun Canadian symbol.
Americans have their "knit hat", and rappers have their "skull caps", but Canadians hold dear their extensive toque collections.
Collections, you ask? Yes, collections. Any respectable Canadian (except maybe those who live in Canada's 'banana belt' region out in southern British Columbia) has more than one toque, and, in many cases, toques for a variety of occasions.
And if Canada is home to the toque, the toque is at the very heart of this beautiful mountain town called Canmore.
There are a few good reasons for that, including a local company that's all about toques, and more than a few Olympians who proudly sport the Canadian flag on their toques as they compete in winter sports worldwide.
Canmore is home base for a hugely successful company called Ambler Mountain Works, which designs, manufactures and sells toques in 400 retail locations throughout Canada and the U.S. You can hardly call yourself a Canmorite if you don't own at least one Ambler toque.
Holly Ambler, owner of Ambler Mountain Works, heard the word "toque" for the first time when she moved from the U.S. of A. for the love of a wonderful man and a new home in Canmore.
"I had never heard the word 'toque' before," the transplanted Vermont native says. In the U.S., a toque is known as a ski hat, a knit hat or cap, a skullcap or a winter hat. Toque just doesn't enter the lexicon south of the border.
Ambler's extensive web site has all manner of toques, from gorgeous print fleeces to textured woolen knits, to cute sherpa-like numbers sporting earflaps and braids. Interesting enough, only a few items are labeled as 'toques', including one of the original fleece hats offered by Ambler when it first started 10 years ago.
That's likely because, as far as most people are concerned, the word 'toque' is interchangeable with other words used to describe a winter hat, says Ambler.
While toques are wildly popular as winter headgear in the U.S., she adds, it's unlikely the market south of the border would 'get it' if every winter hat available were labeled a toque.
That said, it's still comforting to know that Julia Roberts owns an Ambler toque, and likely wears it as she totes her twins to the A&P in her New Mexico hometown on a cool afternoon. Ambler also has a toque connection to Michelle Pfeiffer, who I spotted in Banff a few years back, though at the time she wasn't wearing a toque. That's probably because it was June and about 27 C outside.
While the heat may have prevented Pfeiffer from donning her Ambler toque, there's an entire Canadian Rockies sub-culture so attached to their toques that no amount of hot weather or cranked indoor thermostats will part the two.
I find myself at the gym on occasion, sweating it out with my fellow masochists, when in will walk a toque-wearing individual who remains that way throughout his workout. Toques are also popular headgear at the Canmore Folk Music Festival each August long weekend. In defense of this fashion choice, the first year I attended this great outdoor event it snowed.
On the subject of snow, I tracked down Canmorite Chandra Crawford, who represents Canada on the National Women's Cross-Country Ski Team, to query her on the toque-ness of her home country.
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It's all about great toques at Ambler Mountain Works, a Canmore-based manufacturer of great winter headgear. Cozily dressed models wear just a few of this year's styles.
"Definitely what comes to my mind when we're talking Canadian toque culture is the scene at the nightclubs in Banff or Whistler," she tells me in an email from Oberstdorf, Germany, where she and her team are competing in the Cross-Country World Championships. "This is a totally acceptable and cool headwear choice for an evening out. People (guys mostly) can be dripping sweat on the dance floor, and continue rockin' the toque, because it's cool."
Crawford says she is partial to her toque collection, as a practical cold-weather foil and a fashion choice.
"I have a toque drawer at home, and it's not small," she says. "I have more toques than pairs of underwear. I have one for racing (thin spandex), for after training (fleece), for backcountry skiing (completely covered in hearts and made by a friend's mom in Quebec), for going downtown (a traded one from the Austrian team, black to match my jacket), and one for going out (knit)."
Sounds like Crawford could keep Ambler's sales figures aloft in western Canada all on her own.
Digging deep in the black hole of information that is the Internet, I find it hard to exact a distinct origin for the word 'toque' in the Canadian lexicon.
As close as I can determine, though this is debated, toque has its origin in French Canada, which several hundred years ago ripped off the word used to describe a white chef's hat.
One such Internet definition dances around like this: "Many people…think the toque has origins in Europe but it is noted that the word toque is not found in old French dictionaries, therefore it must be French Canadian in origin, although not proven."
I'm not the only one to question the elusive, mysterious origin of this underdog of Canadian symbols.
I come across one strange web site that takes a lot of shots at Canadians' apparent misuse of the English language, including the word "toque."
"Why can't Canadians use words that make sense like the English do?" one correspondent queried on antimoon.com. "Why say you're wearing a 'toque', eh? Why not say you're wearing a 'woolly hat', eh? Don't you hate those Canadians, eh?"
I think this chap was just jealous, because deep down he wishes he lived here in gorgeous Canmore and could find an excuse to wear a toque 12 months of the year.
Toque Tips
Check out Valhalla Pure Outfitters and Altitude Sports in Canmore for a good selection of Ambler Mountain Works' fashionable toques.
Toque fashion evolves each season, with Ambler predicting we're going to see more beanie shaped toques that fit closely like a skullcap, more funky woolen hats, more interesting textures in fleece choices, and even cool buttons sewn on toques for a fun, 3-D effect.
Toques as wedding fashion? Why not? Ambler Mountain Works had its first request recently from a bride who plans to wear a white toque in her mountaintop wedding this spring.
Haute couture toques can be found at the Qiviuk boutique on Banff Avenue. A knit toque made of the incredibly soft and downy undercoat of the northern muskox, available in a range of soft, natural colours, can be yours for $99. Voque and Town & Country magazines have elevated the quality, insulation and softness of Qiviuk above even the finest cashmere.
Shari Bishop Bowes, editor of SolaraLife, is known to disguise a bad hair day with a cute toque once in awhile. She also predicts that 87 per cent of all Lost & Found items in Canada are of the toque variety.
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