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The One Minute Geographer: Some Surprising Canadian Trips
We’ve been looking at Canada’s population distribution and how much of it is concentrated near the Canada — US border. In addition most Canadians live in the southernmost part of Canada, actually south of Seattle. Canadian territory juts down south of Detroit to about the same latitude as Pennsylvania’s northern boundary with New York, or Connecticut’s boundary with Massachusetts.
This leads to some interesting travel surprises. Suppose you live in Vancouver and you use Google Maps to plan your drive to Toronto. As you can see on the map above, almost all of your trip will be in the United States! This is a long haul: 40 hours and 2,720 miles.
You could choose to stay in Canada and head east to see Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg and go north of Lake Superior at Thunder Bay. This will add about six hours and 40 miles to your trip. (Map below)
The main difference in time between driving through Canada vs. going through the US is in speed limits. Time estimates on Google Maps assume you stick to the speed limit. Speed limits on the trans-Canada highway generally range from 50 mph to 68 mph, averaging perhaps 56 mph. (Posted in km in…
