
Canadians don’t live as far north as you think - binki89
https://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/
======
bnegreve
It 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)

~~~
ascorbic
Fun fact: The Shetland Islands off the north coast of Scotland have the same
USDA climate zone as south Texas (9a), but are around the same latitude as
central Alaska.

~~~
lucaspiller
TIL Texas isn't as warm as I thought...

~~~
ascorbic
It's a little misleading, because climate zones are just based on minimum
average temperatures. British winters are similar to Texan winters, but
British summers are more like Alaskan summers.

~~~
noxToken
> _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.

~~~
TwiztidK
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.

~~~
sandworm101
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.

~~~
cylinder
>Texas=dry

Oh how misguided you are

~~~
sandworm101
That's the texas I've seen. Compared to Alaska and the rest of pac northwest,
Texas is a desert.

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Ensorceled
This 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.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
The point is that many Americans treat 'Canada' as a bucket in which
everything is cold weather. And yet the whole swathe of the northern states
Minnesota, North Dakota, upper Michigan, etc. are _significantly_ further
north and colder than where the bulk of the Canadian population is.

I once had a coworker from Atlanta at our office in Toronto. Overheard him on
the phone talking to his wife, gobsmacked by the cold, which he said "it's
just so far north!" and yet that's not the reason -- we're no further north
than northern California. He happened to be here during a cold front that came
out of northern Ontario. It's a classic continental climate; summer heat here
is as intense as that of many southern US states.

The climate on the north side of Lake Ontario is actually milder than on the
other side due to lake effect and weather patterns. Just got back from a trip
to the Finger Lakes; our wines in the Niagara region are noticeably riper than
those from down there.

~~~
brooklyndavs
Thats funny. I wonder if the same coworker from Atlanta would make the same
comment about a city like Chicago? I've spent years in both Chicago and
Toronto in the past and it seems like the climate is almost identical. Toronto
maybe being a touch colder in the winter, but not by much. Summer I remember
was almost identical (hot and humid). Chicago also has that classic
continental climate, as does most of the upper midwest.

Actually, I think the climate on the south side of Lake Ontario is a bit
warmer and wetter (thus the lake effect snow). The cold air is moderated a bit
as it crosses over the lakes, but it also picks up all that moisture. In fact,
I think the windward side of all the Great Lakes are similar and might be in
different climate zones vs the leeward side of the lakes. I know in Western
Michigan for example there is a bit of a fruit belt because of this.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
The weather patterns here are predominantly with the prevailing winds of west
to east. Most of the weather in this area comes over from Michigan. Most of
the weather hitting upstate NY is not coming over from Lake Ontario and being
moderated by the lake, but comes from the west. Yes, the lake effect snow is a
thing more on the south side, but the plant growing zone for example is 1
level higher on the northwest corner of the lake than on the south bank.

------
randlet
A 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
They 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.

~~~
eloisant
Actually 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.

------
herge
The 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
The _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
If 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
By 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.

------
strommen
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, 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
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
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
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.)

------
nommm-nommm
A "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-
with...](https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-
within-100-miles-of-the-US-Canada-border)

~~~
sandworm101
And 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.

~~~
mikeash
Chicago is over 200 miles from Canada. Lake Michigan is not part of the border
with Canada, so the nearest point on the border is off in Lake Erie near
Detroit.

~~~
sandworm101
But they are right beside the water body (the great lakes) that divides the
nations. For purposes of trade, Detroit is practically on the boarder.

~~~
mikeash
Detroit _is_ right on the border. I assume you meant Chicago? Lake Michigan is
entirely within the United States. Saying Chicago is "practically on the
border" because it's on a lake which connects to another lake which contains
the border doesn't make any sense to me. You might as well say that San
Francisco is near Canada since it's on the Pacific Ocean.

------
ska
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.

~~~
shawn-furyan
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 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
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.

------
foofoo55
That 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
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

------
xutopia
I 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.

~~~
rpgmaker
If 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._

------
rmccue
Note that the link here is to the blog generally; the specific post here is
[https://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/canadian...](https://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/canadians-
dont-live-as-far-north-as-you-think/)

------
RyanMcGreal
Hamilton, Ontario, the city where I live, is roughly the same latitude as
Marseille, France.

~~~
increment_i
Hi fellow Hamiltonian!

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Likewise! _doffs hat_

------
tdsamardzhiev
London (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
Toronto has a huge temperature range. -30c to +30c is not unheard of over a
year.

------
baldfat
Latitude 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

~~~
a_c_s
I think your second group of numbers is off: -5C is 23F

~~~
colomon
First group as well.

------
jsingleton
Canada 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
South 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
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI)

------
eric_h
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!

~~~
sospep
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 :)

------
sandworm101
Should 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)

------
chippy
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.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
That probably has more to do with the lack of sunlight due to weather, not
latitude

~~~
bhandziuk
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.

------
codingdave
For 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.

------
dkraft
They don't live as far south as they would like, either.

------
musha68k
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.

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_experim...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment)

~~~
mfoy_
Well, that escalated quickly.

~~~
musha68k
Yeah, 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_
I think your message is coming off as too much like "The answer is obvious!
Wake up sheeple!"

~~~
musha68k
Yupp indeed, hubris is not a virtue!

Even if maybe off-topic and too self-important - Joseph Tainter's writings
might be interesting to anyone wary of the hidden complexities surrounding us:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Diminishing_ret...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Diminishing_returns)

Also an IMHO very insightful interview with Mr. Tainter on the omegatau
podcast:

"Societal Complexity and Collapse"

[http://omegataupodcast.net/2015/10/184-societal-
complexity-a...](http://omegataupodcast.net/2015/10/184-societal-complexity-
and-collapse/)

------
JoeAltmaier
Saw 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).

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Or 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
Only 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.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
You missed my point. I'm not talking about the loyalists who moved. I'm
talking about the people who stayed. The settlement along the great lakes was
already here before the American revolution, both in English/French
settlements, and the natives who were here in high concentrations before that.

Modern day settlement along the border reflects a continuation of patterns
that were already here.

Though Toronto being a huge population centre instead of Hamilton or Niagara
area apparently has to do with the need to be some distance from the border
with the expansionist militaristic 19th century Americans.

~~~
stan_rogers
Toronto had the dual advantages of a nice big natural harbour and several
handy mill streams in one tidy little location, along with navigable trails
and rivers leading to timber and fur resources. It also used to have a _lot_
of prime agricultural land within spitting distance; most of that has since
been paved over.

