Canadian Maps and Graphics

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Architype

When I lived there I actually used to describe it as mostly flat, especially around Halifax. It has mostly low elevation and gently rolling topography. The more northern areas and Cape Breton are exceptions.

https://goo.gl/maps/yLKLDnFtiMrKBp7f7

Certainly no serious peaks, but one of the things I appreciate about the city is the diversity of topography nearby, which isn't immediately obvious when looking at elevation alone. From that perspective, the city itself is no San Francisco (or even a St. John’s) but its hills are part of the character of the place, going sea level to 60 metres, sometimes in just a few blocks (as here).

Inland, the suburban and near-urban rural areas indeed get pretty flat, and pockmarked with small lakes (as here).

But then along the coast, strictly looking at elevation can elide the true variety of the area, from low-lying marshes to beaches and coastal barrens-type scenes, within a few kilometres of one another.

Also some good seaside cliffs, though not generally near Streetview.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Also some good seaside cliffs, though not generally near Streetview.

NS has a lot of variety of scenery, partly because of the varied geology, and it's packed into a small area. You can find farmland that looks like Southern Ontario, drive 30 minutes, then be on rugged ironbound coast. The Fundy area looks totally different from the Atlantic coast and they are separated by maybe 70 km.

Newfoundland has more dramatic topography but doesn't have the small-town-and-farmland type scenery really or perhaps even much forest with larger trees. It is not equivalent to NS with amped-up topography or something like that, they are both qualitatively different.

[le calmar]

Looking at satellite maps, it doesn't look as though there is farmland in immediate proximity to Halifax. Understandable when you know there is some fertile land not far away, there is not much of a point in trying to grow stuff on bedrock. Since fertile land is pretty much non-existent in Newfoundland, you see a few patches of farmland around St. John's and they look out of place in relation to the surroundings. Probably pastures as it doesn't look like there is much there in terms of culture.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by le calmar

Looking at satellite maps, it doesn't look as though there is farmland in immediate proximity to Halifax. Understandable when you know there is some fertile land not far away, there is not much of a point in trying to grow stuff on bedrock. Since fertile land is pretty much non-existent in Newfoundland, you see a few patches of farmland around St. John's and they look out of place in relation to the surroundings. Probably pastures as it doesn't look like there is much there in terms of culture.

There are a few around Halifax like in Hammonds Plains or in the Lawrencetown Road area but they are minor and mostly small scale livestock hobby farm type places. One thing that happened around Halifax is the farmland got built on first as the area developed (since this is where the roads went etc.) and there wasn't much to begin with.

The actual farmland and different scenery is in places like the Annapolis Valley. It start about midway across the province in places like Elmsdale or Ardoise. Google Maps says a car trip from the middle of the city to Elmsdale, an outer suburb, is about 36 mins. Not that Elmsdale or these other towns are super exciting, but they're basically in the neighbourhood. The Gaspereau Valley, one little wine area, is about 1 hour.

[q12]

How much farm land
is there in Nova Scotia?

The Canada Land Inventory (CLI) is a system that
designates land capability for agriculture based on
climate, soils, and landscape. There are seven levels,
ranging from Class 1, which has no significant
limitations for crops, to class 7, which is not suitable
for crop production. Generally, Class 4 or above is
required for farming. Class 4 land has limitations for
many crops. Blueberries, however, grow well on Class
4 land and are a significant crop in Nova Scotia. Class
5 land is suitable only for unimproved pasture land.

Nova Scotia has no Class 1 land. It has about 165
000 hectares (or 3% of the province) of Class 2 land.
If we consider Classes 2, 3, and 4 together, the land
accounts for slightly less than 30% of the provincial
land area. This represents the total arable land base
of the province. Of this land base, only about 15% is
being active farmed.

Figure 1 Land use in Nova Scotia

The following map shows the location of urban
development, land currently used for agriculture
and arable land not being used for farming in
Nova Scotia.

https://novascotia.ca/agri/documents/education/resources_NSFarmPRF16.pdf

[Andy6]

Don't blueberries grow in tiny patches of soil on rocky outcrops? That's your agricultural crop? For shame, Nova Scotia, for shame.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Don't blueberries grow in tiny patches of soil on rocky outcrops? That's your agricultural crop? For shame, Nova Scotia, for shame.

There are highbush and lowbush blueberries. The highbush fields produce a lot and look like normal fields; I'd guess they have similar land requirements to a bunch of other fruit crops. There are also a ton of those around here in the Lower Mainland.

The setup in NS is almost perfect in that the productive agriculture is mostly just far enough not to be conveniently turned into suburbs, whereas around here metro Vancouver would naturally spill right over the main agricultural land in the province so we have a land reserve system and even higher priced urban development land than we would otherwise. Toronto has a similar problem.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Certainly no serious peaks, but one of the things I appreciate about the city is the diversity of topography nearby, which isn't immediately obvious when looking at elevation alone. From that perspective, the city itself is no San Francisco (or even a St. John’s) but its hills are part of the character of the place, going sea level to 60 metres, sometimes in just a few blocks (as here).

Inland, the suburban and near-urban rural areas indeed get pretty flat, and pockmarked with small lakes (as here).

But then along the coast, strictly looking at elevation can elide the true variety of the area, from low-lying marshes to beaches and coastal barrens-type scenes, within a few kilometres of one another.

Also some good seaside cliffs, though not generally near Streetview.

From what I remember of Halifax (original city) the highest point with development or in general is Cowie Hill, an older suburban area, elevation 351 ft. Vancouver's highest is 410 ft., and we don't really think of Vancouver city as a hilly place.

https://goo.gl/maps/wvMZdCKpuCaxr54w7

https://peakvisor.com/peak/cowie-hill-canada.html?yaw=50.59&pitch=5.04&hfov=60.00

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by drew

Flat ground with a headwind will break your cycling spirit just as much as a hill does.

That is so true. When I lived in Regina's NW the wind in the morning seemed to be always from the SE and then shifted to being from the NW in the evening. It was a glorious feeling the odd time I had the wind at my back!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Architype

From what I remember of Halifax (original city) the highest point with development or in general is Cowie Hill, an older suburban area, elevation 351 ft. Vancouver's highest is 410 ft., and we don't really think of Vancouver city as a hilly place.

Cowie Hill is shorter than Geizer Hill (around where the radio towers are in Clayton Park). Google Earth says the highest point on Geizer Hill is about 153 m, 502 feet.

I'm not sure many people would agree with you that these areas are better described as "flat" rather than "hilly". For more concrete context this is what these areas look like. You can compare the buildings for scale:


Source

[Architype]

Originally Posted by someone123

Cowie Hill is shorter than Geizer Hill (around where the radio towers are in Clayton Park). Google Earth says the highest point on Geizer Hill is about 153 m, 502 feet.

I'm not sure many people would agree with you that a 500 foot hill doesn't even qualify as "hilly" but I guess it's arbitrary. For more concrete context this is what these areas look like. You can compare the buildings for scale:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/cw4jd1j.jpg
Source

Geezer Hill (sorry, I mean Geizer Hill) probably wasn't even developed when I was there so I didn't remember it, it would have been more of a backdrop to the city. That site says it's 492 ft., but the actual peak may be undeveloped as well. So, the term "hilly" would also depend on prominence and degree of slope rather than actual elevation, but Vancouver and Halifax are both coastal cities, where it begins at zero elevation. I still don't regard Halifax or Vancouver as "hilly", but in most coastal areas that aren't plains or deltas there is an area of prominent slope towards the ocean.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Architype

Geezer Hill (sorry, I mean Geizer Hill) probably wasn't even developed when I was there so I didn't remember it, it would have been more of a backdrop to the city. That site says it's 492 ft., but the actual peak may be undeveloped as well. So, the term "hilly" would also depend on prominence and degree of slope rather than actual elevation, but Vancouver and Halifax are both coastal cities, where it begins at zero elevation. I still don't regard Halifax or Vancouver as "hilly", but in most coastal areas that aren't plains or deltas there is an area of prominent slope towards the ocean.

If I'm interpreting the extent of Geizer's Hill correctly, the bottom half was developed mostly in the 1960s-70s (Clayton Park) or earlier (Fairview, Rockingham). MSVU is at the bottom of the hill and is basically surrounded by these areas. The uppermost part started getting built out in the late 90s and is now mostly built-out (the slabby apartment buildings with the "little hat" roofs are basically at the summit, and are part of an overall project that's still U/C). In many ways it is still sort of a backdrop to the city and could be broadly defined as the "new parts" of Halifax, with a high proportion of immigrants and relatively good/new infrastructure, sort of a smaller York Region type area.


I tend to think of Halifax as "hilly" (depends what you're comparing it to I guess); maybe a more accurate way of looking at it is that the metro area is basically a series of plateaus that slope steeply towards the harbour (and more gently into a few other valleys) but are relatively flat on top. Downtown is built into the slope and isn't flat at all. Most of the rest of the Peninsula is relatively flat. Most of the nearer suburbs are a bit less hilly than somewhere like North Van or Kamloops (which are literally built into the sides of mountains). Other than in Fairview and older parts of Dartmouth, which have grids that align more or less with "up/down" and "across", most of the street network outside the Peninsula is sort of winding and random which de-emphasizes the slopes.

Saskatoon, or London ON, are cities that I'd think of as "not hilly".

[MonctonRad]

Halifax is definitely hilly (or at least lumpy). The elevation changes tend to be fairly steep. I did not enjoy cycling in Halifax when I lived there. The hilly landscape (as well as the harbour and the NW Arm) however makes Halifax quite scenic.

Most people would consider Moncton flat, drab and boring, and I would generally agree. Cycling is certainly easier here. It is interesting however to note that there is actually a fairly broad elevation change in Moncton too. My house in the NW end of the city sits at an elevation of about 75M (as high as the highest point in the state of Florida, and safe from even the worst sea level rise projections). Lutes Mountain at the northern city limits is at 200M, higher than any point in the built up areas of HRM.

The main difference between Halifax and Moncton is that the former has the "lumpy" topography that I referred to above, while Moncton has a more even topography with fairly gentle slopes.

[Hali87]

Something that makes Halifax feel a bit less hilly I guess is that there aren't many hills that you go "over". One exception would be South Street at Queen, but it's a pretty rare example.

[MonctonRad]

A stereotype map of Canada - Eight Ways of Dividing Canada.

[isaidso]

Bizarre how some Canadians like to propagate the belief that Alberta is 'Jesusland' when, in fact, it's significantly less religious than Ontario.

[savevp]

^ Much of Ontario's religiosity comes from immigrant populations, whereas Alberta has a significant (for Canada) evangelical Christian population. Or at least that is the perception. It is also part of the 'Canada's Texas' stereotype.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by savevp

^ Much of Ontario's religiosity comes from immigrant populations, whereas Alberta has a significant (for Canada) evangelical Christian population. Or at least that is the perception. It is also part of the 'Canada's Texas' stereotype.

Ontario (where I've lived for 20 years) likes to propagate that stereotype of Alberta but perhaps a better place to look is in the mirror. Not only is Alberta less religious than Ontario but they're also better educated. Yet those maps/opinions that Alberta is redneck, backwards, churchy continue to bounce around continually. At some point it's no longer gentle ribbing and becomes annoying and tiresome.

And Ontario gets a pass because those immigrants aren't real Ontarians?

[begratto]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Bizarre how some Canadians like to propagate the belief that Alberta is 'Jesusland' when, in fact, it's significantly less religious than Ontario.

That's not what this Crop survey says :

Religious beliefs in continuous decline for almost 20 years!

For this Holy Week, I have decided to examine our data on the religious beliefs of Canadians. A substantial percentage of the public-49%, one in two Canadians-say that their religious beliefs are important to them. There are some interesting regional variations: the least religious reside in Québec and British Columbia (43%); the most religious, in Alberta and the Atlantic provinces (56%).

But religious attendance seems to be similar in Ontario, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada, with 31% reporting attending religious services at least once a month (in 2012, the most recent data I could find. It's most probably lower now). BC was at 23%, Quebec at 17% (which seems very high to me, I would have expected the rate to be below 5%, tbh).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

That's not what this Crop survey says :



But religious attendance seems to be similar in Ontario, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada, with 31% reporting attending religious services at least once a month (in 2012, the most recent data I could find. It's most probably lower now). BC was at 23%, Quebec at 17% (which seems very high to me, I would have expected the rate to be below 5%, tbh).

The astonishing counterpart statistic to this is "religious affiliation" which I believe is highest in Quebec than most anywhere else in the country. Accordingly, Quebec has close to the lowest percentage of "no religious affiliation" people in the country.

The sight of this statistic has been known to give spontaneous orgasms to Quebec bashers out there, and of course especially to those who oppose secularism measures like Bill 21, etc.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about cultural Christianity or cultural Catholicism (as seen in much of Europe or Latin America) doesn't read too much into any of that. Or at least has a more nuanced perspective on what that actually means.