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I think some small towns are havens for everyone. I live in a smaller town (pop. 100,000) only 30 miles east of downtown Vancouver. I can sit in the Food Fair in the mall and listen to snatches of conversations of passers by and I'll hear languages from seemingly everywhere. Along with both French and English spoken in numerous unidentifiable accents, I hear French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Punjabi, Tagalog, Arabic, Persian, that's just to name a few. And there are restaurants to reflect the ethnic cuisines of the residents. Oddly enough, considering how close this town is to Vancouver and even closer to Coquitlam Center, there are very few Chinese people in this town although there are several Chinese restaurants, and several Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants.
A common denominator in this town is that so many of the people do NOT work in Vancouver and that makes this less of a bedroom community than some of the other GVRD metro towns. This is a blue collar and agricultural, forestry and animal husbandry area and many of the residents tend to look down with disparagement on the elitism and snobbery of (not all, but many) Vancouverite city slickers who seem to be unaware of the existance of anything outside of downtown Vancouver (the core of their universe).
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Totally agree. A large number of people on the lower mainland seem to think that BC ends at Langley. Everyone else is either a persecuted First Nations member, or worse, Albertan...
Totally agree. A large number of people on the lower mainland seem to think that BC ends at Langley. Everyone else is either a persecuted First Nations member, or worse, Albertan...
I wouldn't call a town of 100,000 small, nor a town. I grew up in a town of 100 people in central BC. Well, maybe 300. About 1/3 of the population speaks German and about 1/3 speak American. Only about 1/3 are actually born in Canada.
I wouldn't call a town of 100,000 small, nor a town. I grew up in a town of 100 people in central BC. Well, maybe 300. About 1/3 of the population speaks German and about 1/3 speak American. Only about 1/3 are actually born in Canada.
Saskatchewan and Alberta, especially the small towns are havens for French. Mostly coming from the Metis, but there's a reason that all those little places are Lac la X, Ille d' X, Bonnyville, Batoche, and every St. in the Bible.
I need to get out more. Everywhere I've been in Canada, except Quebec, everyone speaks English. Some have foreign language accents (as with all new Canadians), but they speak English.
In Quebec, I've heard many different languages.
In many European cities, it's considered very rude to speak a language other than the national language.
I need to get out more. Everywhere I've been in Canada, except Quebec, everyone speaks English. Some have foreign language accents (as with all new Canadians), but they speak English.
In Quebec, I've heard many different languages.
In many European cities, it's considered very rude to speak a language other than the national language.
I don't think anyone denying that English is by a huge margin the main language (often close to the only one) outside Quebec. So yeah, English is a language almost everyone uses at some point in that large part of the country.
But if you're spending the say in the St-Boniface district of Winnipeg, or Fahler, Alberta, or Gravelbourg, SK, you *will* hear people speaking French for sure.
If you're in Hearst, Sturgeon Falls or Hawkesbury, Ontario, or Meteghan, Nova Scotia, it's most people around you that will likely be speaking French.
My Dad was from Mazenod, which is about 10 miles from Gravelbourg. Small world.
Neat! I've never heard of Mazenod the town but it sounds like a name French Canadian Catholic colonists would have given to their town back in the day.
I wouldn't call a town of 100,000 small, nor a town. I grew up in a town of 100 people in central BC. Well, maybe 300. About 1/3 of the population speaks German and about 1/3 speak American. Only about 1/3 are actually born in Canada.
A community of 100 to 300 people is what I would call a village, not a town.
My community didn't start out as a single town. It was originally 7 disparate, small villages that served as trading posts or river ports. They all spoke English for trade purposes plus, within their respective communities, their own languages. One was settled by Hawaiians, one by Brits and Scots, one by Dutch, one by Sikhs, one by Japanese, one by Swedes, one by French. Each one had it's own graveyard, its own place of worship, its own small trading post/general store/post office. With miles and miles of undeveloped acreage, wetlands and forest in between.
Over the course of the past 100+ years they have each grown, expanded and eventually merged together into one town bounded by 3 rivers, one each to the east, south and west and impassable mountains to the north. Served by one hospital, one city hall and court house, two RCMP stations, two libraries, several shopping centers, medical clinics, churches, schools, a small community college and all the other usual services and amenities that one expects of a well functioning and prosperous town. But where each of those 7 original villages were located there are still descendents, properties, languages spoken, cultures, names, enterprises established that are the legacies of those original settlers. And now the one region as a whole of them all come together has had its regional boundaries expanded north even more and is being developed northwards up into the foothills of the mountains and there are more people from other parts of the world settling here and bringing their cultures and languages with them.
My calling my place a town and your childhood place a village is based on the following distinctions:
In British English we can distinguish between a city, a town, a village or a hamlet using a historical perspective.
Using this generally held historical perspective we can see the following distinctions between cities, towns, villages and hamlets:
A CITY:
has a cathedral or a university or both. In 1907 the government decided that for a town to have city status it should have a population of over 300,000 and/or have a significant role in its geographical region. This has been adjusted a number of times over the last century, towns must apply for city status, they are not awarded it automatically.
A TOWN:
has a market
A VILLAGE:
doesn’t have a cathedral or a market but it will have a church
A HAMLET:
is very small with only a handful of houses and usually doesn’t have any shops or other services. It would be unusual for it to have a church, but occasionally they do.
My calling my place a town and your childhood place a village is based on the following distinctions:
In British English we can distinguish between a city, a town, a village or a hamlet using a historical perspective.
Using this generally held historical perspective we can see the following distinctions between cities, towns, villages and hamlets:
A CITY:
has a cathedral or a university or both. In 1907 the government decided that for a town to have city status it should have a population of over 300,000 and/or have a significant role in its geographical region. This has been adjusted a number of times over the last century, towns must apply for city status, they are not awarded it automatically.
A TOWN:
has a market
A VILLAGE:
doesn’t have a cathedral or a market but it will have a church
A HAMLET:
is very small with only a handful of houses and usually doesn’t have any shops or other services. It would be unusual for it to have a church, but occasionally they do.
Interesting. Here in British Columbia a city is over 10,000, a town is over 5,000, and a village is under 5,000 if it is incorporated (has a city hall). If the population density is under 500 people per sq. km, then it gets designated as a District Municipality. There are some other designations as well like Island Trusts, Resort Municipalities and one Regional Municipality.
On top of that, there many exceptions to the rule. For example, Greenwood is a city even though it only has 300 people.
Neat! I've never heard of Mazenod the town but it sounds like a name French Canadian Catholic colonists would have given to their town back in the day.
French and Irish. Pretty much sums up all of southern Saskatchewan. Last time I checked, I think the full time population of Mazenod was about 20. There was a point where they would give you a house and land for free if you would live in it, just so they could maintain a tax base and minimums for provincial funding.
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