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Canadians don’t live as far north as you think
- randlet 11y agoA fun fact that usually trips people up is that the southern most point in Canada[1] is actually as far south as the North end of California. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelee,_Ontario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelee,_Ontario
- RogerL 11y agoThey must have a lot of palm trees there! ;) It doesn't make a lot of sense to compare latitudes of different areas of the world (I know, you did say 'fun fact', I'm referring more to the article). In CA we have a Mediterranean climate that lets me run around in t-shirts and shorts in the middle of winter. North of Cleveland (Pelee)? Not so much. I lived just off the Canadian border over in that area once. Once.
- ska 11y agoI think the bigger driver there is inland vs. coastal (though Atlantic vs. Pacific circulation makes a big difference, too).
- eloisant 11y agoActually if you want to fight the "Canada is buried under the snow" stereotype you should look at British Colombia (Vancouver, Victoria...) Being on the Pacific coast it's a much milder climate than the US East Coast. Being right to Seattle it's basically the same climate.
- mabbo 11y agoA favourite question of mine: Which reaches further south, Ontario or Oregon? As you said, the answer is Ontario, but it's counter-intuitive without a map.
- vinay427 11y agoGrowing up in Michigan, this isn't all that counter-intuitive. ;) What I initially found more confusing were climate patterns, thanks to the coastal effects on the west coast.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoOr the nasty effect of Hudson's Bay.
- vermontdevil 11y agoI recall maybe 25% of the Continental US is farther north than Windsor Ontario. Gotta love geography!
- bnegreve 11y agoIt doesn't make much sense to compare temperatures at latitudes from different sides of the Atlantic ocean. The Gulf Stream [1] makes the European cost a lot warmer at the same latitude. E.g. NYC is colder than North of Spain despite being roughly at the same latitude. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream
- Amir6 11y agoAre we talking about north or weather being cold? I know for many regions one translates to another but assuming they are the same thing is what "doesn't make sense". In this post, the author is talking about NORTH.
- johnjreiser 11y agoThe latitude is an analogue for habitability. The ocean currents do enable agriculture and thus historic patterns of stable habitation at higher degrees of latitude on the east side of the Atlantic, compared to the west.
- parennoob 11y agoIn popular culture and public consciousness, the two are equated very often. See, for example, the latest hit show - Game of Thrones which shows a very cold, hardy North and a warm, indolent South. Now I know these specific books that the show is based on derive from the Wars of the Roses -- but have you ever a fantasy writer who put people on the Southern hemisphere of their planet and made the North warm?
- RyanMcGreal 11y agoHamilton, Ontario, the city where I live, is roughly the same latitude as Marseille, France.
- increment_i 11y agoHi fellow Hamiltonian!
- RyanMcGreal 11y agoLikewise! doffs hat
- nommm-nommm 11y agoA "fact" that usually gets thrown around is that 3/4ths (or more) of the Canadian population live within 100 miles of the US border. It's probably pretty accurate. https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-within-100-miles-of-the-US-Canada-border https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-with...
- sandworm101 11y agoAnd that a large percentage of the US population lives near the canadian boarder. The line was drawn through the great lakes. So everyone in New England, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati etc can be said to be living near the canadian boarder. It's not that canadians need to be near the US, but near the water routes for trade with the rest of the world.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago>everyone in New England This is pretty silly. I just did some measurements in Google maps and not a single point in Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island is even close to 100 miles from the Canadian border.
- sandworm101 11y agoI didn't day 100 anything. I said near. The people of new england are near ports for trade with the "old world" of europe, just as canadians are near the great lakes. The boarder was all about ports, not population, even in the west. It's all about the waterways to the world, not being within some magic distance to any boarder as the crow flies.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoThis makes no sense. When people say something is "near" something else they mean its geographically close. You were replying specifically to "Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border," in the comments of an article specifically about geography, which makes your "near" definition make even less sense. You might as well say "New York City is like in Chicago's back yard since you can get there by boat." or "Bergen is near Miami because they are both on the Atlantic Ocean."
- herge 11y agoThe northernmost french community (of appreciable size) in the world is the remote mining town of Fermont (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermont), in Quebec near the border with Labrador. It has ~3000 inhabitants, and is based around a large bunker/building containing housing, shops, schools, etc, which let's people live their lives in the winter without having to go outside. The second northernmost French community is Dunkirk, France...
- ane 11y agoThe actual northernmost French (the Republic) community is in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, which is funnily enough just next to Quebec! it's an overseas territory and they use the Euro as their currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon
- herge 11y agoIf you click on the wikipedia links, you can quickly see that Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is ~5 degrees south of both Fermont and Dunkirk. Even Paris is north of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
- seszett 11y agoBy the way since we're talking about France, the article seems to separate metropolitan France and the overseas regions (it lists Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon as a "country"). Otherwise maybe the chart would show quite a bit more "latitudinal population variation" with the southernmost significant populated place being 20° south of the equator.
- colomon 11y agoIt's just next to Newfoundland -- 25 kilometers to there, versus 500ish to get to Quebec.
- sebtoast 11y agoFrom Wikipedia: The town is notable for the huge self-contained structure containing apartments, stores, schools, bars, a hotel, restaurants, a supermarket and swimming pool which shelters a community of smaller apartment buildings and homes on its leeward side. I had no idea. I'm kind of ashamed I didn't know that being from the same province.
- baldfat 11y agoLatitude doesn't equate to temperature. The poor pilgrims thought Massachusetts' winter would be warm or warmer then London's and not to far off of Virginia's. The temperature of the Gulf Stream and its effect on the UK and Western Europe means that while London is 1000k north London UK March Avg in C High 12 Low 5 in F High 53 Low 40 London, Ontario March Avg in C High 4 Low -5 in F High 40 Low 24 Edit copy and pasted F wrong cities
- Ensorceled 11y agoThis is missing the point. People think of Canadians as tough hardy, northerners because it's -8C in Toronto and we've been having really nice February, last year it was like -20C all month. It's -12 in Montreal right now. It's still interesting to think about it but don't try to imply that it's not actually cold, bitter and rough sledding here because we're "south" of London. Because it's 8C in London right now.
- brillenfux 11y agoThat's continental vs maritime climate for you. Rain or not, at least we don't freeze our asses (so bad) over here :D
- sandworm101 11y agoIt was 13* and sunny in Vancouver today. Even though we are north of much of canada's population, snow is very rare.
- mfoy_ 11y ago-14C in Ottawa right now, it's the wind that makes it nippy, though.
- dasil003 11y agoIncidentally that's the coldest temperature ever recorded in London.
- mpg33 11y ago+10C in St John's, NL right now.
- tonyarkles 11y ago-4C in Saskatoon, SK today. The variation is really what makes it tricky. Sure, it's decent today. There's a predicted high of +8C, but Sunday night it's predicted to have a low of -22C. When you're outside in light clothes one day, and then need to bundle up like crazy 2 nights later... It starts to get to you.
- jsingleton 11y agoCanada also isn't as big as you think, as hinted at in the article. It's still big though. Try asking people which they think is bigger, Greenland or Brazil. Brazil is of course much, much bigger but projections can be deceiving if you've only looked at flat maps.
- jp555 11y agoSouth Africa is about the size of Alaska, but it doesn't look like that on most flat globe-projections. Draw a shape around SA in Google's MyMaps, and then drag that shape up to Alaska. The shape grows about 3x bigger.
- raattgift 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI
- epimetheus 11y agohttp://mapfight.appspot.com/us.ak-vs-za/alaska-us-south-africa-size-comparison http://mapfight.appspot.com/us.ak-vs-za/alaska-us-south-afri...
- coldcode 11y agoSo what projection is better at showing the relative sizes of countries, particularly when most projections seems distort at the poles (thus making greenland and canada huge)?
- dragonwriter 11y agoAny equal area projection (e.g., Lambert equal-area cylindrical).
- theandrewbailey 11y agoSecond-largest, longest coastline, but borders one country.
- musha68k 11y agoThanks for pointing to that, I'm always baffled at how few people fail to acknowledge the most "basic" complexities of meteorological reality. I have the suspicion that our inherent bias for linear thinking is the culprit here. Some things can't ever be grasped intuitively and as long as education doesn't at least catch up with our propensity towards boundless optimism our and many more species are essentially doomed. That said, it needs both for our children to be able to survive - boundless optimism and objective thinking. As much as I am a kid of the 80s I don't see capitalism - with all its super exciting promises - being much else than an ever accelerating system to even more short-term thinking and conscious/subconscious ignorance at this point. Yes, it might be less comfortable but we need to change now - each one of us - to save what we have inherited. Talk with people, teach them, be nice and understanding but tell them that it's all in their hands - even if that's a scary thought! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experim...
- mfoy_ 11y agoWell, that escalated quickly.
- musha68k 11y agoYeah, I guess - but hey in my own defence, as somebody working with distributed systems I've seen too many a simplistic world-view blow up in my own face :) Even though I'm not a fan of it, there is a reason for the old ops adage of "never touch a running system". Complexity is hard (i.e. global climate) and even if life on earth is essentially anti-fragile that might not include our own cohort. Also, I just might have pulled a human and have been subconsciously "cross-posting" as this super depressing article on "Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply" is trending on HN right now as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180782
- mfoy_ 11y agoI think your message is coming off as too much like "The answer is obvious! Wake up sheeple!"
- rmccue 11y agoNote that the link here is to the blog generally; the specific post here is https://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/canadians-dont-live-as-far-north-as-you-think/ https://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/canadian...
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoSaw a population map of Canada once. There's a thick line right along the US-Canada border. Its as if Canadians want to be Canadian, but really don't want to live there. They go as far south as possible while still technically being in Canada. (Not counting big coastal cities).
- bryanlarsen 11y agoIt's the same as every other country. All big cities and population centres are on major waterways. The major waterway in Canada is the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence, which is often the border, or else very close to it. Vancouver is on the Fraser, close to the border. Ottawa/Gatineau is on the Ottawa, close to the border.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mfoy_ 11y agohttp://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-166536/Population-density-of-North-America http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-166536/Population-de... Note the population density in relation to bodies of water. It has less to do with borders than you seem to think.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoOr how about the other way around -- Americans just didn't want to be part of the old dominion anymore, and split off, leaving a chunk of population separated by a border? The settlement patterns existed before the American revolution. We settled where the land was good and the resources and fresh water and trade routes were.
- logfromblammo 11y agoOnly about 12% of George III Loyalists moved to Ontario or New Brunswick after 1783, and some of them later moved back to the former colonies while they still had the opportunity.
- tdsamardzhiev 11y agoLondon (UK) lacks a real winter thanks to Gulfstream. So winters would be a lot warmer there. On the other hand, the summer is warmer in Toronto than in London. Really, though, most Canadians live either almost on the border or by the oceans. The weather there is about the same as in northern US. The weather in Alaska (at least Anchorage) is not that bad, either - a decent jacket would easily get you through the winter.
- ska 11y agoToronto has a huge temperature range. -30c to +30c is not unheard of over a year.
- xutopia 11y agoI heard somewhere that 90% of Canadians live within 100km (about 62 miles) of the US border. It's partly for that reason I don't buy the telecom's insistance that prices are higher because of the huge amount of land they have to cover.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoThe claim is actually 100 miles (161km).
- rpgmaker 11y agoIf anyone is interested, this seems to be the source of this claim: http://www.purolatorinternational.com/canadian-market http://www.purolatorinternational.com/canadian-market According to the 2011 Canadian Census, more than 23 million people, almost 70 percent of the population, live in urban areas. Ninety percent of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border. This means that the overwhelming majority of the Canadian population is easily reachable through traditional distribution routes.
- sandworm101 11y agoShould not talk of the can-us boarder, at least the southern one, without watching this great vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw
- ska 11y agoOne thing missing in the analysis is the fact that something approaching a fifth of the countries total population lives in and near one city (Toronto) that is nearly at the southernmost point of the country. Ontario in total has nearly 40% of the population, and most of that is pretty far south relative to much of the rest of the country.
- shawn-furyan 11y agoI'm not sure it's exactly missing so much as not explicitly stated in that way. The author does partially attribute the misunderstanding to the mostly uninhabited northern territory of Canada. The author also says that Canada populates it's northern regions less than Russia does. So, the focus is more on people not being in the north than the fact that they are mostly in the south, but one conclusion casually follows from the other. As I was reading it, I looked at the map, and concluded that a bunch of the population was likely in the Toronto area which juts well below the mean longitude of Canada's southern border.
- ska 11y agoBut it's not simply North/South, it is very specifically almost Toronto and surroundings, vs everywhere else. For example, in BC the population centers are on the southern border (thanks to a) the Fraser river, and b) politics). But in Alberta they really are not. Nor Saskatchewan. Manitoba sort of is, by geography. So if you were to do this analysis on western Canada, it wouldn't be nearly as clear cut. Most of "the south" of Canada doesn't have much similarity with south western Ontario, for that matter.
- codingdave 11y agoFor Americans... yes, they do. With a few exceptions, Canada is north of the USA. So your average person who is not living in the northern US is perfectly correct in assuming that Canadians live in colder climate than they do. For those Americans who do live in the northernmost tier of US states, Canada's climate is more comparable to their homes. But most Americans also think people in those states are living in the Arctic north.
- foofoo55 11y agoThat article really needed a map: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-214-x/2010000/m003-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-214-x/2010000/m003-eng.htm
- bhandziuk 11y agoThose census divisions near Saskatoon and Regina are kind of misleading on first look. Those are certainly not sprawling metropolises as the size and color of the divisions might indicate. The map is very illustrative, nonetheless
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- eric_h 11y agoThis reminds me of the time when I was crossing into Quebec with my parents in July many years ago, and one of the cars waiting to get across the border had Virginia (or some nearby southern state) plates and (alpine) skis on the roof of the car!
- sospep 11y agotell them to head left on the trans canada until they hit whistler, bit of a drive but they can ski until the end of July :)
- strommen 11y agoThe article compares Canada mostly to Europe. It's also interesting to compare Canada to the U.S., which is "obviously" south of Canada on the map. - If you start in downtown Detroit and go south, you end up in Canada. - 13.7M Canadians (1/3 of the population) live in Ontario. Nearly all of these are south of Minneapolis/St. Paul (home to 3.3M Americans). - 10M more Canadians live further north in Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward. Nearly all of these are south of Seattle/Tacoma (home to 3.6M Americans). The only major Canadian cities that are strictly north of the contiguous U.S. are Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg. And going back to Europe, all of these are strictly south of Scandinavia.
- FreedomToCreate 11y agoAlso to note, Ontario experiences harsh winters because of the lake effect from the Great Lakes, but it is the exact same winter that Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Chicago get. Toronto and Buffalo have the same weather essentially. Vancouver rarely receives any snow, and is very similar to Seattle (there only 2 hours apart). I was in Toronto last week and the temperature was in the 50s. The East coast of the US has had a colder and harsher winter than most of Canada. With that said last year in February while I was also visiting Toronto, the temperate reached -31.
- stan_rogers 11y agoBuffalo is much, much more wintery in winter. Its a much better match with Sudbury or Sault Ste Marie. (By sheer coincidence, the American channels carried by cable provider Northern Cable, which serviced those areas, were from Buffalo, at least back in the day. It didn't much matter whether you were watching the local weather or Buffalo/Rochester from December to March; the only difference was the timing of precipitation.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- chippy 11y agoBecause of this, many North Americans choose to disbelieve it when doctors in the UK say that people living in the British Isles cannot get Vitamin D from the Sun over the winter until some time in March.
- dsfyu404ed 11y agoThat probably has more to do with the lack of sunlight due to weather, not latitude
- bhandziuk 11y agoHaving lives in Winnipeg and Seattle I'll say that darkness when I get to work and darkness when I leave work does not help things. Sure it's also cloudy during the day if I manage to go outside at all but it had to happen during typical work hours.
- dkraft 11y agoThey don't live as far south as they would like, either.