Kindred feeling with local TV stars - the Canadian Experience?

Last week I was at a local community pool with my daughter, and saw someone there who looked familiar - but I didn't know from where. Riffling through the inventory of places I've frequented, I couldn't place her in any of them. Grad school? No. A fellow mommy from K's daycare? No.

Then it hit me: she had been on two different CBC shows I'd watched - and very much liked - over the past couple years. Since they're Canadian shows, the people in them tend to reappear in other Canadian shows - a different orbit than the Hollywood types.

Is that why she felt so familiar? It was as though I'd reconnected with an old friend when I figured out from where I knew her. Her name is Paula Boudreau, and she starred in the fun hockey pseudo-reality show The Tournament, and also guested on the excellent This is Wonderland (both shows cancelled, two other brilliant moves by the CBC that seemed to fly in the face of the reception both shows got from viewers).

It was great to chat briefly with Paula and her lovely son; she was very helpful and kind to my daughter, too. And it was intriguing to feel such a sense of familiarity with someone I've never met. When I told a good friend about this, she said it was the quintessential Canadian experience.

Indeed, was it because I already felt familiar with the characters she'd played, so authentic in their Canadian-ness that they felt kindred? Do such characters mirror us as Canadians back to ourselves? (I try not to think this is possible with the Trailer Park Boys, however, despite that the director of the show is actually part of my extended family by marriage...LOL).

Or, is it the Canadian experience to have a relatively smaller pool of known talent, and therefore to feel that sense of familiarity with the faces that appear so often in our homegrown shows? Think Rebecca Jenkins, Sheila McCarthy, Maury Chaykin, Cara Pifko, Kate Trotter, Elias Koteas, Sonja Smits...they're the Al Waxman and Bruno Gerussi of my generation.

And now I can add Paula Boudreau to this list of "kin". I hope we meet up again sometime!