# How much land in Canada is easily inhabitable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 17, 2019, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908 "2019-10-17T17:31:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/21 "2019-10-18T12:55:48Z")
I’ve seen strawberries being grown commercially on the west coast of Norway at 61.8 degrees north. It wasn’t even at sea level. That’s as far north as the Greenland ice cap or the northern half of Hudson Bay. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/22 "2019-10-18T19:12:51Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Eastern wusses! > > I walk to work when it’s 40 below. > > 😉 Is that -40 F or -40 C?😃 When I walked to 4 miles to work (before I retired) I drew the line at -25 C. The Montreal underground city does not connect to any university as was claimed above. It also goes through a number of commercial buildings some or all of which will close nights and weekends, so less useful than it might be. But east to west, it is probably over a mile and has some N/S extensions. I have walked most of it many times. Without going above ground you can pass 6 Metro stops. I think it interesting to observe that if you drive from Montreal to NY or VT, you will see farms solidly up to border, but there seems to be very little if any agriculture just south of the border. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/23 "2019-10-18T19:42:26Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > 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. [The Great Sandhills](https://greatsouthwest.ca/great-sandhills/), which I believe are not technically a desert as the annual precipitation is too high. There’s a rough triangle between Leader, Swift Current, and Maple Creek where agriculture is…challenging. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/24 "2019-10-18T20:00:41Z")
Thanks, Gorsnak. I knew someone here on the Dope would know the name. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2019, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/25 "2019-10-19T03:20:03Z")
There’s also the [Athabaska Sand Dunes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Sand_Dunes_Provincial_Park) way up north in Saskatchewan, one of the northern-most active sand dune areas in the world. ---
**Author:** ![EdelweissPirate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@EdelweissPirate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdelweissPirate)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/26 "2019-10-20T13:00:36Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > The [Gulf Stream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream) allows that to happen. It really shows how much climate is dependent on sea temperatures. Don’t underestimate the effect of having an ocean to the west. Paris is at roughly the same latitude as Seattle, WA and just south of Vancouver, BC. All three cities have similar weather. Considerably south of those cities are Boston, Portland, ME and Beijing; all three have much colder winters than the first three. It seems to me that having a sea to your west is the driving factor in mild-wintered high-latitude places. The Gulf Stream may play a role, but it’s secondary. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/27 "2019-10-20T23:20:02Z")
Southern Alberta is semi-arid, and has been called a semi-desert. It’s not technically desert because it gets slightly too much precipitation, but the chinook winds cause rapid evaporation and as a result the plant and animal life get desert-level amounts of water. So the region looks pretty much like desert with sagebrush, cacti, lots of rattlesnakes and other typical desert creatures. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/28 "2019-10-20T23:25:17Z")
As far as 90% of the people living within 100 miles of the border, that’s true but not because Canada is uninhabitable above that, but simply because of a handful of huge cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, etc. Canadians congregate along the border for economic reasons, and not necessarily because of climate. But there are lots of cities above the 100 mile line - Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Kelowna, Winnipeg (barely), Regina (also barely), etc. Edmonton is almost 400 miles north of the U.S. border, and the entire region is well populated and full of farms, ranches, etc. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/29 "2019-10-21T04:53:07Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Thanks, Gorsnak. I knew someone here on the Dope would know the name. There’s also the area known as the “Palliser Triangle”. > **[Palliser's Triangle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliser%27s_Triangle)** > > Palliser's Triangle (French: Triangle de Palliser), or the Palliser Triangle, is a semi-arid steppe occupying a substantial portion of the Western Canadian Canadian Prairies, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, within the Great Plains region. While initially determined to be unsuitable for crops outside of the fertile belt due to arid conditions and dry climate, expansionists questioned this assessment, leading to homesteading in the Triangle. Agriculture in the region has since suffered from fre... When Palliser explored the area in 1857 it was during dry times. He concluded it was uninhabitable. By the time the CPR railway was built in the mid-1880’s, the area was in the wet cycle and it was thought the prairies were good for farming. it took a few cycles to realize droughts come and go about every few decades. There was the dustbowl of the 1930’s like the USA, and the repeat in the 1980’s. But it’s not desert per the OP’s question. Not most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/30 "2019-10-22T02:20:30Z")
Canada is a big country. 80% of Canucks live in cities, and most of these are in the south where the weather tends to be warmer. About 5% of Canadian land is suitable for growing crops. About 10% is covered with fresh water. About 10% is covered with muskeg, a kind of mossy swamp which is hard to build on. About 40% of Canada is covered with forest; 10% of the world’s trees. If “habitable” means you can build, hunt and fish, then maybe 2/3 of the land is habitable? If it means growing crops, then only about 5%. Unless you are a good swimmer or fond of wild berries. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/31 "2019-10-22T02:32:28Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The usual stat is that something like 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. We know your population is massed along the border in preparation for an invasion. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/32 "2019-10-22T03:18:40Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > We know your population is massed along the border in preparation for an invasion. Canadians invade the US every year, right about this time, in fact. After 6 months, we manage to repel the invasion and they go back home. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/33 "2019-10-22T04:45:48Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Canadians invade the US every year, right about this time, in fact. After 6 months, we manage to repel the invasion and they go back home. Five months and 25 days, usually. If you’re out of the country for six months, you lose health care coverage and have a waiting period when you come back. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/34 "2019-10-22T07:31:19Z")
Most Canadians I’ve met outside Canada have been in Central America between the fall and spring equinoxes. My wife and I are mistaken for Canadians there because we’re courteous and well-bathed, -groomed, and -dressed. One year we drove Arizona-Honduras-California-Yukon-Alaska-Idaho-Arizona. The worst drivers were in Whitehorse. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2019, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908/35 "2019-10-22T08:33:03Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Five months and 25 days, usually. If you’re out of the country for six months, you lose health care coverage and have a waiting period when you come back. Does someone actually track the comings and goings of all those snowbirds? Maybe the Health authorities get to access the Customs’ database or something? Or is it all on the honor system? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-land-in-canada-is-easily-inhabitable/841908.md?page=1)