Geographic Misconceptions
As a follow-on to the recent Geography Quiz….lets hear some of the Geographic Misconceptions or comments you've heard from those who might be a bit Geographically challenged!
Here in the Maritimes…..people think we are a lot further north than we are. -Halifax is further south than Montreal….and at the same latitude as Genoa Italy on the Mediterranean. (but I don’t think I would want to go for a swim here yet!) -All the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick…..as well as a good portion of the island of Newfoundland (not a Maritime Province....another misconception!) are south of the 49th parallel which is the US/Canada Border across the west. -We were in Massachusetts awhile back and staying at a hotel just outside of Boston. Loading up the car on the last morning of our stay the couple parked in the next space noted our Nova Scotia plate: “are you ever far from home……that’s up by Greenland isn’t it?.....how many days will it take you to drive there?” ……. “About 10 hours…….We’ll be across the border at lunch time and home for supper” But I don’t think they believed me. They had Virginia plates……which is roughly the same distance! |
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Regarding your parking lot encounter, I find the geographic ignorance of our American friends knows no bounds. Occasionally you will get surprised however. I'm just back from a week long conference in Washington DC. The same conference next year is in Honolulu, and there was a booth at the conference promoting the upcoming event manned by a native Hawaiian. I dropped by the booth to get a free chocolate covered macadamia nut and chatted with him for a second. He asked where I was from and when I said Moncton, he knew precisely where that was. Turns out his girlfriend is a fan of Anne of Green Gables and they had travelled to PEI at some point in the past, stopping in Moncton along the way. I thought that was pretty good....... |
Ours are obvious - that we're very far north or not as far east.
We are about the same latitude as Seattle, and closer to Rome than Victoria. Bermuda, the Carribbean, etc are all west of us. Another is that the island is small. It's 1,110km to drive from southern tip to northern tip, and 917km from east to west. It takes two days (including the ferry, and if you're lucky enough to not be delayed) to drive from St. John's to Halifax. 22 hours minimum if you dont even need to press the brakes going from highway into ferry. Halifax is also roughly halfway if you're driving from St. John's to Toronto. There is a hell of a lot west of us before the rest of Canada. |
I spent part of my younger years living in an Ontario community just east of Ottawa.
Since my parents were from the Acadian Maritimes we had lots of friends and relatives who lived in Atlantic Canada or Quebec (where quite a few Acadians had migrated). One thing that was very annoying to us was the perception that because we were in "Ontario" that somehow it was really far away - being in Ontario meant we were next to Toronto somewhere. Five hours away. So we'd get people telling us all the time, who were visiting or had visited Montreal, that they'd love to come see us, but it's too far away and they didn't have time! And yet if they were already in Montreal we were barely over an hour away. Maybe they just didn't want to come see us... |
One of the better Newfoundland ones I heard was of a fellow on a refueling stop in Gander...making the comment in the airport restaurant that it was ‘cool’ to be eating ice-cream so close to the North Pole. He didn’t realize he was now further south than he had been when leaving London 5 hrs earlier!
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Misonception: That Winnipeg is categorically a Western City, when in fact it is closer (1518 kilometres) to Toronto than to Vancouver (1871 kilometres)
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I'm not sure how true this is but someone working in tourism in Vancouver once claimed that visitors to the city sometimes point at Vancouver Island off in the distance and ask "is that Japan?"
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But the ignorance of most people about geography and of the world, in general, is really astounding, and you don't have to go far to find it. About ten years ago, I worked for a company where we hired analysts in a series of interviews, one of which would be based on case questions (e.g. "How many kleenex boxes were sold in Canada?"). Anyway, someone we were interviewing began their answer on the right, logical track, but it went south very soon afterward. She began by saying that she would start with the population of Canada: "I think it's about 50,000" she guessed. She didn't get the job. |
The fact that the "south shore" of Montreal is actually east of Montreal, not south, for the most part.
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Sometimes English Canada media (MuckLeans for example, but also more recently the Vancouver Sun) talks about Toronto and Vancouver as the two largest cities in Canada.
(Deliberately?) omitting Montreal. |
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However it's still generally true that the South Shore is due south of Montreal, too... it's just it's also southeast and east, the same way that the North Shore is also, in addition to being north of the city, northwest and west of it. South Shore cities like Delson and Ste-Catherine are actually south of Mtl, while North Shore ones like Terrebonne and Mascouche are north of it. Places like Varennes and St-Eustache are still considered to be on their respective shores even though as you point out they're geographically way more "east" and "west" of the city. In Quebec, as you probably know already, the River is deemed to be flowing west->east for basic geographical purposes. This is furthest from reality on the Montreal to Sorel segment, so Montreal East and Brossard are among the places in the provinces that are the most "out of whack" with actual geography with their East/West/North/South numbered roads and freeways. |
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Just checked on Google Maps: Via northern Ontario: 2,079 km Via northern Michigan-Wisconsin: 2,032 km Via Detroit-Chicago-Minneapolis: 2,236 km (though that's the fastest way due to the interstate highways) Winnipeg to Vancouver: 2,294 km |
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I'm not even sure which I'd pick, they're both good. From Quebec, St. John's is further than Florida using your metric, which is why I've never been to the former in my life, and have no personal ties whatsoever to anyone there, etc.; but it's closer to Quebec using MolsonEx's metric, which is why both of them share a bunch of characteristics (flora, fauna, geography, cultural habits rooted in climate, etc.) that aren't shared with Florida. Another good example would be whether Windsor, Ontario is closer to Detroit than it is to London/Hamilton/Toronto. I think the only right answer is "it depends". |
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Je monte à Montréal. (Up to Montreal) Je descends à Québec. (Down to Quebec City) |
Greenland is the same size if not bigger than Africa. Stupid Mercator projection.
Maps lie. How to Lie with Maps So much of what we know is based on how information is presented to us and a rather large percentage of the population knows little about how statistics and maps can be made to show many different versions of facts and lead us to all sorts of interesting conclusions. |
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More specifically, from a Canadian POV, given that the main means of transportation for a long time was the River, from Quebec City, you're going up to Trois-Rivières, then up to Montreal, then if you want to continue, up to Kingston, then up to Buffalo, then up to Windsor/Detroit, then up to Fort Mackinac, then up to Thunder Bay and Minnesota, and you can follow a river up if you want to go further inland. The "low countries" from a point of view of Eastern Canada, are down towards the Gulf. My mom and mom's relatives and gf's relatives always "go down" to the Gaspé from Southern Quebec. For traditionally seafaring people, that reference is obvious and natural, I'm pretty sure. |
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As for Canada, it's all "up". American border seems to be the dividing line. You go up to Halifax, down to Boston. Up to Toronto, down to New York. Older people would just say "up along" for all of them, though. |
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