I know most of Canada’s major cities are along the US border. (thank you game shows 
)
A great deal of the land is in the Arctic.
Map
How much land there is considered easily inhabitable?
Does Canada have huge desolate deserts like the US?
I’ve seen very little of Canada except the exterior shots from Corner Gas in Saskatchewan. It was described as prairie?
We use the term “prairies” instead of Great Plains. The southern portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are mainly prairie, so they are called the “Prairie provinces”. Bit of a misnomer, as the northern parts of each of them are boreal forests.
Large portions of Canada are sparsely populated, but the presence of First Nations and Inuit in the north says that it’s not uninhabitable land. It’s not easy though, since agriculture is pretty much out the farther north you go.
The usual stat is that something like 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. When I mentioned that once to an American, he said “so you all live pretty close together, then?” Uh, no, not at all.
Demographically, our population distribution looks like a map of Chile on its side.
Depends on your definition of inhabitable… People live all over Canada, just not in large numbers.
People tend to live where the land is arable - and a population density map of Canada will show you exactly where that is. Most of the north is part of the Canadian Sheild (aka the Precambrian Shield.) Being very old, it has is somewhat flat, but the recent bouts of glaciation scoured off any topsoil. it is scrub forest and swap (muskeg) and tens of thousands of little lakes - all of which grow mosquitos. The climate is too cold and the growing season too short for adequate farming even if one synthesized adequate soil. Building roads over muskeg swamp that could be a hundred feet deep or more is difficult. When you get far enough north, permafrost is a factor - that swap is frozen deep down, but if you disturb it, or cover it with roadbeds or buildings, it may be insulated enough to melt and start becoming soft, heave etc.
All in all, the opposite of the USA’s hot southwest desert. There are a few communities where indigenous people have gathered, and a few mining communities, but not a lot of other reasons to settle there. (And, same as Americans, many Canadians prefer to live in or near big cities, not way hell and gone up north.)
The Rockies - very tall mountains - pose the same problems in western Canada as in western USA - difficult to travel through, not farmable. The Appalachians range continue up into New Brunswick and parts of Quebec. there is a minor amount of desert scenery in Albeta in the “rain shadow” of the Rockies, and drought can be a hazard some years across the prairies, again like in the USA.
if the land was arable, it was settled in the last great settlement push before WWI.
In answer to your question: “Does Canada have huge desolate deserts like the US?” Nope, we only have a tiny wee little desert!
I’ve heard about the underground city in Montreal. That’s very clever. .
Building that complex may not qualify as easily inhabitable. But it sure beats battling the cold weather.
In Toronto , we call that the PATH. Same idea.
Eastern wusses!
I walk to work when it’s 40 below.
If you want to get a sense for how much of British Columbia is inhabitable, turn on Google Maps’ terrain feature, and see how much of BC’s population is packed into that tiny bit of flat land around Vancouver.
QtM, currently hanging out in Vancouver and loving it.
My wife & I want to visit Banff National Park and hike the trails.
I have family that visited there in the 80’s and often told us about the hotel and the stunning views.
We’ll have to plan a vacation and visit Canada. It may take several vacations to see much of it.
It’s such a big country.
How cold is that in American?
(checks conversion table)
:eek:
Bah! That’s a dry cold. 
‘Habitable’ is subjective, vs ‘survivable’ which is… well, ya do or ya don’t. But I reside at blizzard-elevation in California’s central Sierra Nevada range, and it’s ‘habitable’ here because a dentist and pizza parlor are a mile away, and Trader Joe’s and CostCo are less than a 90 minute drive.
Weather ain’t bad here. To me, nothing in the US east of the Rockies is ‘habitable’ - yet people reside there anyway, the loons. Mexico’s ‘habitable’ zone is mostly above my home elevation while Canada’s looks to be way down low.
Sure, humans can reside in many horrid climatic conditions. But can we call that ‘living’ ?
“Known as the hottest place in Canada, Osoyoos is surrounded by the Okanagan Desert”
The pictures look like outside my house and I’m cold. Average high in July: 29.4 C / 84.9 Freedom units. Brr.
Here you can see how little of the country is used for agriculture:
Most of the rest isn’t really arable. Mountains, Precambrian Shield, or tundra. Increased global temperatures won’t really change this much, the it would make certain areas such as Peace River country (that blob of agriculture in NW Alberta) more productive with a longer growing season.
There is the Clay Belt in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec. It has decent soil despite being in the Canadian Shield, but the growing season is too short.
There’s a section of SW Saskatchewan (which I can’t remember the name of) that’s no good for agriculture, even though it’s not that far north of the border. I know they tried to settle it back in the early 20th century and the farmers gave up after a few years. I thought that might qualify as desert.
I was surprised to learn a few years ago that, as a resident of southern England, I live further north than well over 90% of Canadians. I think Edmonton and Saskatoon are the only sizeable Canadian cities further north than me.
The Gulf Stream allows that to happen. It really shows how much climate is dependent on sea temperatures.
Yes, it’s strange just how far north Europe is compared to North America. Places that we consider to be the sweltering south, like, say the French Riviera, are on the same latitude as Minnesota. And the Gulf Stream means that you can grow palm trees on the west coast of Scotland, on a similar parallel to Juneau, Alaska.