Canadian cities that should have been bigger than they actually are?

[irisheyes]

Shelburne, Nova Scotia is an interesting one. For a short time in the 1780s, Shelburne grew fast— it was actually bigger than Halifax.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Until posting Kingston here, I never really gave that town much thought. It looks like it might be a nice weekend getaway to explore.

It definitely is.

[MolsonExport]

Kingston is very pretty, except for the inappropriately-named Princess Towers, which vies with Clockzilla in Laval to be the ugliest building in Canada.



Princess Towering Hats:

[MonctonRad]

One of the rare circumstances where the addition of cellphone transmitters to the roof actually adds to the charm of the building.

[Nouvellecosse]

That building is actually quite cool and interesting even though it's ugly. And I'll always take interesting and ugly over bland and basic.

[MolsonExport]

well, it is interesting in the way that a train wreck is also interesting. Sort of like how Princess Beatrice's Fallopian-tube hat is interesting.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Queen's campus (in the heart of the city):



SOURCE: https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/sites/gazettewww/files/2025-10/DJI_20241016172659_0717_D-HDR.png

Damn, that might be one of the most scenic rugby fields in the country. Reminds me of Trinity College Dublin:

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Kingston is very pretty, except for the inappropriately-named Princess Towers, which vies with Clockzilla in Laval to be the ugliest building in Canada.

To make it even weirder, originally a student cooperative called Elrond College (yes, that Elrond).

[AuxTown]

I love buildings with a story:

https://www.queensjournal.ca/how-a-1960s-queens-student-utopia-fell-from-grace/

This is the most flattering angle IMO:



Living above a Dairy Queen....yes please!

[MonctonRad]

Using the best euphemisms available, the Princess Tower is certainly "impactful", "transformative", and is impossible to ignore........

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

well, it is interesting in the way that a train wreck is also interesting. Sort of like how Princess Beatrice's Fallopian-tube hat is interesting.

It helps if you think of it as Kingston's version of the Chungking Mansions (scaled down in all respects from Hong Kong craziness to Kingston of course).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by irisheyes

Shelburne, Nova Scotia is an interesting one. For a short time in the 1780s, Shelburne grew fast— it was actually bigger than Halifax.

Shelburne was briefly the largest city in the geographic area that is now Canada. It was larger than Quebec City and Montreal too. New York was around 25,000 people back then, while Halifax was about 5,000.

It had around 16,000 Loyalists who arrived from the USA. But the town was not in a location that could support that many people comfortably in those days and fizzled.

The Maritimes in general had a problem with farmland being relatively sparse and away from some of the harbours. The Annapolis Valley, Hants, etc. are close to Halifax today but in that era there was the old "Post Road" (which went back to Acadian times) and it would have been a multi-day trip. I think if the farmland of the Annapolis Valley and PEI had been concentrated around a harbour like Halifax, it would have been one of the largest cities in North America well into the 1800's.

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by someone123

Shelburne was briefly the largest city in the geographic area that is now Canada. It was larger than Quebec City and Montreal too. New York was around 25,000 people back then, while Halifax was about 5,000.

It had around 16,000 Loyalists who arrived from the USA. But the town was not in a location that could support that many people comfortably in those days and fizzled.

The Maritimes in general had a problem with farmland being relatively sparse and away from some of the harbours. The Annapolis Valley, Hants, etc. are close to Halifax today but in that era there was the old "Post Road" (which went back to Acadian times) and it would have been a multi-day trip. I think if the farmland of the Annapolis Valley and PEI had been concentrated around a harbour like Halifax, it would have been one of the largest cities in North America well into the 1800's.

The fact of those American born but British subjects led George Washington to exclaim that his only regret about the Revolutionary War was not being able to do more for the Americans in Nova Scotia.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by acottawa

To make it even weirder, originally a student cooperative called Elrond College (yes, that Elrond).

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

It helps if you think of it as Kingston's version of the Chungking Mansions (scaled down in all respects from Hong Kong craziness to Kingston of course).

ah yes, it would be appropriate to describe the Princess Towers as the Chunking Mansions of Kingston. No doubt it is also De Luxe.

[LuluBobo]

If you were to run a simulation of Canada 100 times, I would bet probably 60 of those come out with Edmonton significantly larger than Calgary. And another 30 where it is noticeably larger.

Far older. Provincial capital. Larger and older university. Closer proximity to natural resources. More significant river. Closer proximity to Indigenous communities. Yellow Head Pass is a more easily navigable mountain pass than Kicking Horse Pass.

Winnipeg and Edmonton have the two strongest "natural" advantages in the prairies.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Indeed. Even Glorfindel would be unable to obfuscate and hide the Princess Tower from view..........

[Nashe]

Reminds me of the Earth force ships in Babylon 5 from the '90s:

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

The fact of those American born but British subjects led George Washington to exclaim that his only regret about the Revolutionary War was not being able to do more for the Americans in Nova Scotia.

There's also a letter from George Washington about how they wanted to attack Halifax but it was too well fortified and they couldn't spare the forces. Then the British evacuated Boston for Halifax, and there the odds of being able to take over the Maritimes became very slim. There were probably almost as many British soldiers as inhabitants who could rebel.

There was a small rebel attack on a fort near Moncton but the British forces defended successfully. One alternative would be NB (which was part of NS back then) becoming part of the USA, while the British only defended peninsular NS. For this to happen the Americans would have had to do something like wipe out the British forces in Boston, or Britain would have had to withdraw them entirely. In those days, Britain had a huge naval advantage and travel by land was extremely hard (even just going from say Boston to Saint John, which today is a 6 hr drive).

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That actually sounds amazing! I wonder if it's too late to include that on the list of nation-building projects.

Yeah, that sounds great!

I'm into this idea of Prince Rupert as a mini-Hong Kong of the north. Just from a quick google maps-level analysis, there looks like enough flat-ish land for at least a Kelowna-sized city though, linked with just a few bridges:



Kelowna at roughly the same scale for comparison:

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Everyone has a different preference for weather but, for me, Prince Rupert has a worse climate than any major city (>100k) in Canada. I think that only the Arctic would be worse. Some stats:

- There is no month with less than 100 mm of precipitation, which is what Vancouver gets in March
- The warmest month, August, has a daily maximum mean of 17C and a daily mean of 13.8; this is about the same as Vancouver in May
- The 1,258 hours of sunshine Prince Rupert gets per year is 35% less than Vancouver. Prince Rupert's sunniest month, May, is somewhere between a Vancouver March and April in terms of sunlight.

Still a better climate than Anchorage, and they've got nearly half a million people up there. Proof (?) perhaps, that with enough people around, a bunch of them will live anywhere.