Canadian Maps and Graphics

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Agree with all of that. Nova Scotia rural life usually doesn't equate to isolation.

Perhaps a bit simplistic but a real world analogy hammers home what rural means in Nova Scotia. In my university days, I remember Acadia or St. FX students making the trek to Halifax, in droves, to support their football or basketball teams. These schools are in small towns on the other side of the province but it's really only a 50 minute drive from Acadia; 120 minutes from St. FX. A fair number of Torontonians spend 60 minutes getting to work each morning.

It's the population of the settled places that have built the image in the mind. Leaving aside Cape Breton, it's a bunch of smaller towns orbit Halifax. Even though they may have an industrial base and are quite linked to Halifax, the small-town nature of these places lends itself to a certain mental image.

An analogous situation is hard to find in Canada. New Brunswick might come closest, but lacks the single nexus city. Manitoba does the central single-nexus city (with Brandon playing the role of Cape Breton doing its own thing), but doesn't have the industrial/university/military towns that define NS. They're pretty much exclusively agriculture-based. Southern Ontario pre-WWII might be the closest if we use historical measures.

I'm not enough of an expert to say definitively, but somewhere in the Northeastern US (Vermont? Maine?) might be close today?

[Franco401]

From a display at a National Historic Site, a map of the counties, parishes and lots of PEI. A notable feature is the lack of any organized town outside Charlottetown.

[MonctonRad]

Not true.

Every county was slated to have a seat. Three town sites were planned by Samuel Holland.

- The county seat of Queens County was Charlottetown (now provincial capital and the provinces largest city).
- The county seat of Kings County was Georgetown (on Cardigan Bay, close to Montague). Montague became the de facto county shire because it was better connected to the road network. Georgetown is an interesting place with a classical grid style street network and a few amenities like the county court house and a live theatre, but only has a population of 555.
- The county seat of Prince County was (intended to be) Princetown, situated on the northeastern edge of Malpeque Bay. It suffered from relative isolation like Georgetown, but to such an extent that it is a "failed town", and essentially no one lives there. The shire town of Prince County became Summerside, PEI's second city.

On the map above, all three intended shire towns are highlighted in orange.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by thewave46

I'm not enough of an expert to say definitively, but somewhere in the Northeastern US (Vermont? Maine?) might be close today?

It's pretty common in the US and UK. Not only do they have small university towns or capitals, they also have historically important rural places like Monticello.

It's not just a matter of being close to town but also the historical institutions and wealth or diversified economic base. For example the Annapolis Valley has always been somewhat successful and developed. The NS equivalent of Upper Canada College, King's-Edgehill (founded 1780's or so) is in a rural area. So are/were universities like King's way back when, Acadia, or Mount Allison. Small towns often had merchant fleets up into the 1800's. You could live in Yarmouth NS and trade in the Caribbean, US, or Europe. This was much less practical anywhere else in Canada until railways came along.

The Maritimes developed more or less along the timeline of the US, with a significant amount of pre-industrial social development (that generally doesn't register as a part of Canadian history for one reason or another; mostly I think because there isn't much attention paid to the region so characteristics from other regions get mapped onto it). I think another factor is that there's been less growth in the Maritimes so there are more areas that were coherent rural towns in 1790 yet are still rural today. There are lots of towns in the Maritimes that declined over time, like that Georgetown PEI example, or even cities like Saint John or Sydney that grew very little for a long time, to the point where they don't feel much bigger (if at all) than they would have 100 years ago. And this is somewhat alien as a concept in present-day Canada, even though it's completely normal in world history.

[MonctonRad]

Not Canadian per se, but this Youtube video is quite interesting,

It shows the process of the creator making a world map by drawing a single continuous line (Etch-a-Sketch style). I think it's pretty neat!

• Video Link

[JHikka]

https://twitter.com/ksituan/status/1460636024665636870

[MonkeyRonin]

Found a happy place just north of Regina:


https://goo.gl/maps/8U4Vb6RY1RpygG897

[Dalreg]

If you turned it 90 degrees then yes it looks like a smile. The lake actually runs North/South.

[Nathan]

There's also a smaller "face" where the nose of the larger face is... Looks like a happy narwhal.

For those not from here, the lake, which goes by Long Lake or Last Mountain Lake, is a very popular day trip/resort town location for people in Regina. Just a 45 minute drive to some of the main beaches.

[someone123]

I thought this was interesting.


Source

[J.OT13]

Ottawa Streetcar maps.

1915 Federal Report



1929



1939



1948



1951



June 1954



December 1954



https://manifestomultilinko2.wordpre...aps-1915-1954/

[SignalHillHiker]

An alternative history one making the rounds on Twitter. Basically, it picks up immediately after WWII. At the time, Newfoundland was home to numerous American military bases and of strategic importance. Canada wanted us primarily to avoid the mistake they'd allowed with Alaska and to ensure the Americans didn't get us. The British were, of course, on Canada's side but they wouldn't have been too upset if we went to the U.S., as long as we went. So the map supposes... what if the Americans refused to go accept Confederation and the great powers instead agreed on partition? This would've been one of the more likely scenarios - the anti-Confederation, relatively-heavily populated eastern portion of the island, and the heavily-Americanized area of the West Coast around Stephenville's Harmon base staying independent, while the rural, Anglican bulk across the middle going to Canada.

In an ideal world, this would've worked out great. But the worst case scenario is Corner Brook surpassing St. John's in the years since Confederation, and me being some kind of undocumented Tim Horton's worker in Whitborne, sending money back to Mom and Dad lol

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

...

In an ideal world, this would've worked out great. But the worst case scenario is Corner Brook surpassing St. John's in the years since Confederation, and me being some kind of undocumented Tim Horton's worker in Whitborne, sending money back to Mom and Dad lol

https://i.postimg.cc/8CMpSjdz/FSLyemq-Xw-AAFAVc.jpg

^ Cute. "In an ideal world?" All those nice patriotic Irish folks et al. would have been voting against their best interests, remaining under the thumbs of the RC church & mostly protestant St. John's merchant class!

[Marty_Mcfly]

My favorite part about all of it is the Canadian exclave of CBS.

[SignalHillHiker]

I approve of that as well.

[lio45]

Yeah, I’m surprised that they’re both extreme enough to justify it: that Conception Harbor is enough of a hotbed of Newfoundland nationalism to create a Canadian exclave on the other side, and that that Canadian portion also wants to be part of Canada badly enough for that. (You obviously need both for that map to make sense.)

[MolsonExport]

utexas.edu

[someone123]

I don't see a date on that Montreal map but I think it's from 1894 or so. These maps are a nice way to figure out how old different city neighbourhoods are, although some of them showed future development.

[MonctonRad]

Interesting graphic showing the progression of temperature changes throughout the year in North America.The problem is,what we should do is much different than what will be done.

https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/...36080679563264

If you rewatch the video loop several times, you can see the seasonal lag on the east coast.

[MonkeyRonin]

Map of Vancouver's development in 1909:


https://sunnvancouver.wordpress.com/...-or-quartiers/


Here's a link to the full size map, including the legend: https://imgur.com/PQcFS3e. It makes for a pretty good proxy as to what are now the most walkable, urban neighbourhoods.

And here's a tour of what the city would have looked like around that time:

• Video Link