Sunday, April 14, 2013

Here It Is Again

This comment was posted in the comments at the American blog, Weazel Zippers, but at least this one was meant in jest:
"Stacking 75 percent of Canadians within 100 miles of US border is suspect too" [Ed: The lack of punctuation (a comma and a period) at the end of the sentence is in the original.]
Once again folks, most of Canada's population is located along significant waterways. Waterways that were critical transportation routes during the early era of settlement in Canada and that were highways for the transportation of furs and trade goods during the fur trade era.

For example, the City of Montreal is located on either side of the St. Lawrence River. In fact, old Montreal, the oldest part of the city, is located on an island in the middle of that river. Quebec City is also on that river. Toronto is located at the east end of Lake Ontario. The fact that that water system happens to be close to an international border that didn't exist at the time they were settled is coincidental, but trust me, it was the waterway, as a transportation route, that was the critical factor in the locating of that population, not some future border of some, at that time, non-existent country.

Ottawa is on the Ottawa River. The City of Hamilton and many others in Ontario are located either on or near one of the Great Lakes or on a river that is part of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River system.  That includes Windsor. Believe me, there is not much about the City of Detroit, across the river from Windsor, that is capable of acting as a population magnet.

The City of Winnipeg is on the Red River and it started out its life as a fur trade post called Ft. Garry. Commerce and travel went north along that river, into Lake Winnipeg and from there up the great northern rivers to the fur trading posts on the shores of Hudson's Bay. The largest city in Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, is on the South Saskatchewan River. The cities of Edmonton and Prince Albert are on the North Saskatchewan River. These places were settled long before there was a country named the United States of America several hundred miles to the south of them. Even Vancouver, and the multitude of other cities in what we call the "lower mainland", are on the fertile delta of the Fraser River.

North of these rivers is bedrock and forest, which, although the source of furs, is incapable of supporting agriculture, which was the economic basis of our southern population and which, until recently, was the mode of living for all populations on the planet. The only population centres further north are the small single-industry towns that rely on mining, made possible by that massive sheet of rock known as the Canadian Shield, which, by the way, amounts to over 50% of Canada's landmass, and forestry, supported by the thin layer of soil on top of the Canadian Shield. Further north still, is tundra and permafrost, where nothing much of anything grows.

So that's why our population is where it is. It has nothing to do with the 49th parallel, and everything to do with the economic lifeblood of the nation throughout our history - furs, originally, and then agriculture and finally, forestry and mining. Got it?

Besides, Santa Clause lives in Canada, so be good, okay. But I still love ya.

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Once again folks, most of Canada's population is located along significant waterways. Waterways that were critical transportation routes during the early era of settlement in Canada and that were highways for the transportation of furs and trade goods during the fur trade era."

Of course, they were. Just as in America and Europe, rivers were the original highways.

People ignorant of history are culturally and politically illiterate. That's why the Neo-Fascist Left set the early goals of controlling education and the MSM. Don't educate children, indoctrinate them. Then, when they're leftist-indoctrinated adults without knowledge and critical thinking skills, just feed them reinforcement of the indoctrination.212

April 14, 2013 11:41 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

You know, I really don't like publishing comments from Anonymous. Please use a name/handle next time, if there is a next time. All you have to do it put your name/handle beneath you comment, like this:

Louise

April 15, 2013 1:17 am  
Blogger Louise said...

"beneath your*" comment.

April 15, 2013 1:18 am  

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