Steve Stratos

Mr. Steve Stratos, co-owner of Keir’s Shore Inn on Malpeque Bay in Prince Edward Island, was one of the few people of Greek descent whom we could find to interview on ‘the Island’ in 1997. In 1960, when he was a seventeen year-old boy, Mr. Stratos left Greece for Canada. He had an older brother living in Toronto, but almost no understanding of English. He told the author that he felt “a great sense of disorientation when I arrived in Halifax”. Going on quickly to Toronto, he persevered in studying English at night, but never returned to regular schooling which had ended for him with four years of high school in Greece.

Steve Stratos lived in Toronto for almost 25 years, first working in a restaurant, then owning a series of his own businesses. These included a small hotel, several restaurants, (one of them a Tom Jones Steak House), and a clothing store. In the years after 1985 he lived on the beautiful island of Mykonos in the Aegean Sea for several years, and one year on Canada’s west coast in British Columbia. He told the author that he liked the push of energy which comes in starting new projects and going to new places. In 1994, without any contacts on the Canadian east coast, but because he wanted to buy something beside the sea, he moved to Prince Edward Island and purchased an old Victorian, heritage house.

Steve Stratos and his partner Colleen Bogdon did a first-class restoration job on the old Inn. The suite in which the author and her cousin stayed one night was elegantly, but comfortably decorated with Victorian antiques. The restored hardwood floors gleamed in the morning light, and the host made it very clear that all that laborious restoration was not to be scuffed or soiled with one’s outdoor shoes. The footwear was to stay in the front porch! Next morning’s breakfast was one of the best I have eaten at a Bed and Breakfast in this country. Every year Keir’s Shore Inn closed in September, so that Steve and Colleen could enjoy their home and leave Steve time for his annual trip to Greece.

These annual trips to Greece were clearly important to a deep part of his psyche. “For years it was mostly to visit aging parents, but they are now gone. Now I go to visit my brother who still lives there and to see my parents’ graves. I have to go and breathe in those distinctive Greek smells each year. Do you remember what fresh thyme smells like out on the hills? I have to see the light moving on the water and on the hills. I like to travel in Greece like a Canadian tourist, and to visit all those places which I never had the opportunity to see when I was growing up and the political times were bad.”

This is a highly complex man. Having described his abiding love for Greece, and the need he had to make annual trips there, he hastened to add: “I am a “Canadian”. He refused to be called a “Greek Canadian” or “Canadian Greek”. Steve continued: “ I do not eat Greek food in Canada, and rarely do I listen to Greek music here. I have a quality of life here which is not possible in Greece. Nothing destroys my peace here. I relax, I love to garden, to go for walks in the woods, and to read. There are so few libraries in Greece, and the people do not appreciate the cultural treasures which they have around them. My friends are almost all Canadians. I have just a few Greek friends in Toronto. Then too, in the earlier years I had to associate myself with Canadians to get ahead. I like the freedom in Canada which carries with it a sense that there is protection for all the citizens. I like Canadians’ kindness to animals and their constant politeness. In Greece soccer and politics are obsessions. I obey the laws here, because I respect them and try to understand what they are all about. We pay high taxes, but we get very good things in return. After I returned to Greece and lived on Mykonos, I realized that my Canadian life is my real life. So when I returned to Canada, I became a citizen. It’s ironic. I now speak Greek with a Canadian accent, and English with a Greek accent.” Once more he asserted: “ I am a Canadian. I find it very strenuous when people try to make me Greek in Canada. I am not Greek here and I want nothing to do with any sort of Greek or Greek Canadian community in this country.”