Our fires, their politics: Canadian smoke triggers everything from gags to jabs as it hits U.S. capital

Being a Canadian anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the United States this week runs a risk of being inundated with smoke jokes.

A doctor quipped at a CBC News reporter during a medical checkup Thursday in Washington: “Tell your country to take its smoke back.”

With that gag out of his system, the doctor shook his head in disbelief and muttered incredulously that there are still people out there doubting climate change.

That’s this week, boiled down to its raw elements: One part anxiety, one part gallows humour and one part politics as gargantuan volumes of carbon drift above the continent. 

An apricot-coloured sky is