Most city dwellers — and that’s the vast majority of Canadians — don’t know where rural Canada is anymore.

Some think it’s up there in cottage country, but they are wrong. That’s just the city transplanted to the shores of a lake. Some think it’s on a manicured horse farm with white-painted fences, but they are wrong. That’s just money being thrown around.

No, rural Canada is somewhere else, thriving down a gravel road.

You’ll know you are in the real country when the woman clerk at the small convenience store calls you “dearie,” “hon” or “darlin’” even though she has never seen you before. Don’t get excited, though, it’s just the standard form of address out where I live.

You won’t find an almond croissant out here or a low-fat chai latte, but there will be a pot of coffee at the back of the store. Indeed, it will be fresh in the morning, but as the day wears on it will be thick, black and potent. That’s why we all take our coffee “double, double” or sometimes even triple cream and triple sugar.

Out here in the country, you always raise your hand in a half wave when you meet a vehicle (usually a pick-up truck) coming toward you. And if you happen to be walking down a back road and meet another stroller — which is rare — you’ll not only say hello, you’ll often stop to chat.

Indeed, chatting is big out here in the real country. When we are pushing our rickety shopping carts in one of our small supermarkets we will often comment on the pickles or the fat back or the pigs’ knuckles to other shoppers. We’ll even engage in small conversations about the weather.

(Several times when I have been shopping in a big store in Toronto, I have forgotten where I am and started talking to a passing shopper who has then put her cart in high gear and rolled away. After I have been down a couple of aisles, I notice a space has formed around me and I sense the security cameras tracking me — and no one calls me “dearie” at the check-out.)

You’ll know you are in the country when your pet food store stocks 100-pound bags of deer food over the winter. This is not as altruistic as you might think, because hunters like to keep the deer healthy. (Hunting, by the way, is another sign of country living; and I don’t go into my own woods in November because you never can tell with hunters.)

Like many country people, we feed the deer over the winter. We have a herd of eight that are getting too familiar and we have to fence the vegetable beds to keep them out of the beans.

You’ll know you are in the country when the notice board outside the church advertises euchre nights and when the big billboard at the township arena often celebrates weddings with a sign saying “Congratulations Curtis and Kay Lynn” or “Best wishes Debbie and Duane.”

And you’ll know you are in the country when you go to a church supper that features tuna casserole and perfectly triangular devilled ham sandwiches and jellied salads shimmering with fruit.

And there is one more country hallmark that has held true over the years: the rusted-out truck and the clapped out 1979 Chevrolet Impala. Most true country houses have two or three vehicles because you can’t get anywhere without them. And when they die, they are pushed off to one side. (One of our closest neighbours — who lives about a quarter of a mile away — has at least 20.)

When we bought this place, we were not true country people and I made a cultural error when I had the ancient and very dead gravel truck in our front field towed away. That cost me some status and marked me as an outlander even though we still had two rusted-out wheelbarrows, a stack of aged cedar logs and a galvanized laundry tub on display.

But at least all the women clerks in the convenience store call me “dearie.” IE