Another year has gone by, and it’s time to celebrate Canada’s Birthday once again. While the big 153 is going to look slightly tamer this year, taking a COVID hit, just like everybody else’s birthdays, we Canadians are still going to enjoy the summer day off, and celebrate as safely as we can. In the name of Canada’s big day, we here at IFM decided to pull together some interesting, amusing or down right unusual facts about our great country.
1: We’ve always known that Canada’s temperature can be more than a little changeable, going from winter one day, to summer the next and then back again, but Pincher Creek, Alberta’s got the rest of us bet. In 1962, a Chinook caused the temperature to rise from -19C to 22C in just one hour!
2: The Westboro Baptist Church, an extreme anti-gay American church, and its members were banned from entering Canada in 2008, when they intended to protest at the funeral of a man who was murdered on a bus, as they believed the murder was God’s response to Canada’s liberal views and laws on abortion, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage.
3: Canada apparently consumes more mac and cheese than any other country in the world. Canada is also the number one consumer of donuts in the world. We only have 30-million people in Canada, but we eat 1-billion donuts annually.
4: It’s no surprise to anyone that Canada is cold. Ottawa is the second coldest capital in the world, and the lowest temperature ever recorded in Canada was in Snag, Yukon Territory coming in at a whopping -63C.
5: The sheer size of Canada is a marvel, particularly to those from Europe who cannot visualize it. Wood Buffalo National Park (Spanning the Alberta North West Territory border) alone is bigger than several countries including Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
6: In 1967, for the Montreal Expo, a secret deal was supposedly made between France’s President, Charles De Gaulle and Montreal’s mayor to move the tower; unfortunately, so the story goes, the company that manages the tower vetoed this move and it was never attempted.
7: Churchill Manitoba is known for it’s polar bear population, it is even a tourist attractions, however, these bears are far from cuddly. In Churchill, residents keep their cars, and even their houses unlocked so that there will always be safety to flee to in the case of an attack. It’s even in the city by-laws.
8: Hans Island is a small uninhabited Island located between Greenland and Canada. As such, Canada and Denmark have been fighting over an uninhabited island for some time, the joke going that they supposedly leave bottles of alcohol (Schnapps for the Danes and Whiskey for the Canadians) as they switch their flags.
9: Although Canada is a giant country, we have a relatively low population for so much land. So much of Canada is uninhabited, that we have roughly 3.7 people per square km.
10: Quebec manufactures more than 77% of the world's maple syrup, and even has a strategic maple syrup reserve to ensure global supply in case of emergency. Yepp. You read that right.