And, yes, I’ll admit that our blackflies are a terrible annoyance in the spring. But they’re nothing compared with cane toads.

Don’t tell the Aussies but the longer-lived Canada Letter has about 70,000 subscribers to Damien’s 25,000. He’s aiming to add 10,000. Our head start should allow Canada to make his goal seem feeble. What do you say to 20,000?

At The Times’s headquarters on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan the editors will post a chart tracking the battle for everyone there to see while making their way to the washroom or the coffee pantry. (I’ll also create one for my office but its audience will be pretty much limited to me and my family’s one-eyed cat, Picnic.) The newsletter will feature a running scoreboard until the end of the year.

There will also be an individual prize. Unfortunately, there’s no practical way for me to figure out who has signed up the largest number of new subscribers. But I do have a copy of “The Faraway Nearby,” the beautifully produced catalog of the Ryerson Image Centre’s exhibition of photos of Canada and Canadians from The Times’s archive. It, along with a surprise pack of things bearing the Times logos, will go to the person who sends the most amusing, heroic or otherwise interesting story about signing up others to nytcanada@nytimes.com.

So get out there and give’er. And please accept my apologies for imposing on you.

Canada Letter Subscription Page

Melting Hope