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Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com

111–120 of 137 posts

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#111
post #64

One 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.

I'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…

But 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.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British winters are similar to Texan winters Hmm. That's not so bad. What does everyone complain about? > but British summers are more like Alaskan summers You poor, poor people. Though they probably say the same about our 100F (~38C) summers.

Speak for yourself. Texas Winters with Alaska summers sounds awesome! The best summer weather I've ever experienced was 70-80 during the day and 60s at night. Absolutely perfect weather, until snow started to fall from November to June. If I never had to experience 100F heat again (excepting saunas), then I would die a happy man.

Then I guess you can move to San Diego…

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#113
post #108

Because 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.

That probably has more to do with the lack of sunlight due to weather, not latitude

Having 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.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#114

Thanks 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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11181367 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British winters are similar to Texan winters Hmm. That's not so bad. What does everyone complain about? > but British summers are more like Alaskan summers You poor, poor people. Though they probably say the same about our 100F (~38C) summers.

Speak for yourself. Texas Winters with Alaska summers sounds awesome! The best summer weather I've ever experienced was 70-80 during the day and 60s at night. Absolutely perfect weather, until snow started to fall from November to June. If I never had to experience 100F heat again (excepting saunas), then I would die a happy man.

I'd take the Alaska summers, but only without the Alaska bugs. What's the point of Sun if blocked by grey clouds of gnats?

Regardless of temp, Wet = bugs. Texas = dry.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#116

That article really needed a map: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-214-x/2010000/m003-eng.htm

Those 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

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#117

The 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…

Also 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 o…

Buffalo 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.)

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#118
post #61
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-14C in Ottawa right now, it's the wind that makes it nippy, though.

+10C in St John's, NL right now.

+16 C in Langley, BC (Next to Vancouver) yesterday, gonna be a balmy +15 today. Crocuses are up and my herb garden is already kicking.

Re: Canadians don’t live as far north as you think

#120
post #102

This 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!

tell 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 :)
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