Seasonal destination near Quebec City / SUN 6-13-21 / Alberta city named for an eagle-feather headdress / Space-scanning org. / Berliner pioneer in phonograph records / Conflicts of 1839-42 and 1856-60 / Two-player game invented in Toronto / Classical Icelandic literary work

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How in the *world* was this not a theme answer!?

I feel like we just had a Canada-themed puzzle, but I may just be remembering the insanely esoteric [Canadian ambassador to the U.N.] clue for RAE from a few weeks back. Anyway, what is this? Why is this? It's such a sad day for Canada. This huge, beautiful, diverse country reduced to six totally arbitrary answers and a single cliché linguistic tic. And the maple leaf, I guess. Still, this made me sad. Made me feel bad for our lovely neighbors ("n-EH-bors?") to the north. I went to Montreal for the first time in the summer of '19 and it instantly became my second-favorite city (after Edinburgh, the undisputed eternal No. 1 city of my heart). I miss Montreal every day. I was missing the croissants just this morning. I've been to Vancouver, Toronto ... lovely, lovely. This is all to say that I am more than open to Canadian shenanigans in my crosswourd (that's how you spell it in Canada, right?). But the "EH" thing here is so corny, and it forces the themer set to be semi-ridiculous. Is LESLIE HOPE really 1/6 of your All-Canada theme team? Is WINTER ICE HOTEL really a thing? I've heard of an ice hotel, but only in Iceland (or maybe Norway? Sweden?). And anyway, wherever the ice hotel is located, surely "winter" is redundant. Where exactly is the summer ice hotel? (A: nowhere because it melted). TABLE HOCKEY? LOL if you say so. Why is FREE HEALTH CARE "colloquial"? Sounds pretty straightforward. Is it just that the actual law has some other name and you're just using FREE HEALTH CARE as a stand-in? Because there's nothing slangy about FREE HEALTH CARE. Just a normal phrase. The worst thing about the puzzle isn't just that the revealer pun is corny, it's that it looks so awfully dumb on the page. MEHD IN CANADA? MEHD? .... MEHD? ... Just keep looking at it. Why? No reason. It's not going to magically look good all of a sudden. And you don't say the "EH"s as "eh"s in the themers but you *do* say it that way in the revealer? And the EH's don't even, I don't know, make a shape or form a map or something? No? And yet that candelabra-looking black-square formation is supposed to be a maple leaf? Eh, Not SO HOT.

ARCHFOE is hilariously not a thing. What dark corner of what dark word list did that come from. It's "archenemy" or gtfo. I actually really like the middle of this grid (the part that doesn't involve the revealer, that is). That column of long Downs looks great, and all crossing the flashy QUINCEAÑERA! Sweet. Beyond that, it's PERLENGETEMOBOENS and AIGISLEELMUG and OPELHAHCOONETATRA as far as the eye can see. Well, not that far, but pretty far. Nothing much else to talk about. Don't really get why the clue on MAIN ST. was [Central route thru town] as opposed to [Central rte. through town]. I guess the former is shorter. Anyway, didn't pick up that "thru" was an abbr. signal, so was surprised to get an abbr. in the answer. But there's nothing technically wrong there. As you can see, I have nothing important left to talk about and am resorting to musings on the philosophy of crossword clues, just to fill space. So with that, I say adieu ('cause, you know ... Canada ... with the French and all...)