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Why is Canada so thinly populated? I'm American, btw. If you look at a map of Canada's population density and black out all of the populated regions with your hand, what you have is still a recognizable area (over 80% of the country) that is recognizable. 90% of the people live in a Chile-like region over the northern U.S. border. I know the answer to this is: "it's the freezing cold weather, stupid". But one thing that stands out at me is the State of Alaska, with it's almost 700,000 people, verses Yukon's 34,000. Indeed, Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut have combined population of only 107,249 people.
I remember travelling as a youth to the Pacific Northwest and when I got to Seattle looked at a map and was amazed that from Seattle alone, I was north of not only every major American east coast city all the way to Maine, but also EVERY major Canadian eastern metropolis - Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, even St. John's, Newfoundland, all south of the 49th parallel. And when I got to Vancouver, even more amazed that it dawned on me that not only was I in Canada's major Pacific southwestern port, but also the most northerly west coast metropolis as well. A pretty good set of statistics.
I was pondering this recently. I was wondering, and I want to emphasize I am not advocating this, I like the idea of an independent and sovereign Canada. I like diversity, but I was wondering. But I was wondering, if the U.S. and Canada were to merge into one country, or WHAT IF, there had never been division, what would have happened? How would population centers have differed or differ?
Right now, it seems like the only province to have cities and metropolises to venture into the north, and even at that only in the center of the province mostly, is Alberta with Calgary and Edmonton. Edmonton is the same latitude as Moscow and the British Midlands. The Fort McMurray region seems to be the furthest north "metropolis" in the provinces if you exclude Whitehorse and Yellowknife in the northern territories.
Theoretically speaking, if the U.S. and Canada were to merge into one country, would the population, especially of the north, grow? Why is the population of Yukon's largest city Whitehorse, so low - 20,000+ compared to Fairbanks at 35,000 and Anchorage at a whopping 300,000 metro population? Would the population of the Yukon and places like northern British Columbia increase? Why isn't a city like Prince Rupert a much bigger metro area being a northern Pacific port and railhead?
There are vast swathes at unpopulated areas on northern Ontario and Quebec at relatively low latitudes, some of them such as Timmins, Ontario, south of the 49th parallel (!), the U.S.-Canada western boundary. The only major northerly settlement of Quebec is in the area of the James Bay project.
Under a united North America, would these areas experience population growth. Would an interstate freeway system be extended into Canada. Currently it seems the major U.S.-style system is along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor. In effect, despite the road, it seems Canada is still very much a nation divided by the Canadian shield, as many Canadians do road travel across the country via U.S. interstates (!) to save time.
United a unified North America, would I-5 be expanded to Alaska? Would I-95 go up to Halifax? Would a full freeway network be expanded across Canada? And the north?
What cities would suffer under the arrangement? Would Buffalo, New York become a mere suburb of Toronto, would all of its televisions stations and sporting goods move north? What about Seattle vs. Vancouver. Would Vancouver overtake Seattle as the major port and metropolis of the Northwest?
I've often wondered the same thing with regards to Alaka and our territories, especially the Yukon. It's obviously not just the cold weather that is keeping people out of our northern region, I believe Alaska is warmer then NWT and Nunavut but I cannot imagine there is a big difference in parts of the Yukon and as you said Northern BC. The Yukon has a lot of natural resources and have good paying jobs so it's strange the population isn't bigger, I don't know how easy it is to get a job there. It may not even be a job related issue but it is weird.
Most of the population of Alaska is on the southern coast around Anchorage and in the Panhandle around Juneau. Both of these areas have relatively warm climates considering their latitude. Anchorage has similar winter temperatures to many southern Canadian cities like Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Calgary. Warmer than some of them in fact.
Juneau is even slightly milder than Toronto in the winter.
Nowhere in Canada's north do you find such mild winters at these high latitudes.
Also, remote "pioneer" areas tend to be populated by people from the established parts of the same country. The "base" population that Alaska has been populated from is ten times bigger than the "base" population for Canada's north.
Even if only 0.0001% of the people in the lower 48 decided to move to Alaska, that's still 10 times more people than 0.0001% of the population of Canada's 10 provinces moving to the territories in the north.
Well I know that much of northern Quebec is either inhabitable in terms of fertile soil and a majority if the Province is native property. Ontario pretty much goes the game way. As soon as you hit the Canadian shield, it's not worth the effort to set up communities there as the land's too tough and non-arable.
I agree with Acajack in that latitude maps poorly into temperatures, especially when an ocean is involved. Fairbanks is the only significant population center in Alaska that isn't directly on the ocean. Besides, why is Vancouver so big when Astoria or Eureka are so small?
That said, I'll take the easy cop out and claim this is due to a range of factors that also ultimately have to do with why US population is 10 times that of Canada.
If there was a warm water current on the east coast of Baffin Island (and even on the coast of Labrador) similar to the Alaska Current and moderating winter temperatures to around 0 C, there would probably be a lot more population in these areas.
One question puzzling me is how come Alaska takes up the best coastal areas of Pacific Northwest, even a large chunk of coastal BC, while Canada gets the frigid inhabitable vast inland...
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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The USA spends more on military than the rest of the world combined, and a good number of bases are in Alaska. Canada has energy jobs there, Alaska has energy and military.
No one wants to live in Canada because even though the dollar is at par, everything STILL costs 25% more.
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