Normally,
my ESL teaching has the usual focus of courses in reading, writing, and speaking.
This semester, I have the privilege of teaching a class called “Canadian
Context.” I’m especially excited about this course because it lets me see
Canada through the eyes of a newcomer.
Our
first unit was Canadian geography. Looking over maps again made me think about
how they give information at the same time that they mislead. Look again at the above map. Of course its purpose is to show provinces and capitals. But one might see this and think that the Canadian people are spread out over their provinces evenly, like butter over bread. Ontario is covered by its mustard
population, a Nova Scotia by raspberry jam, and Saskatchewan/Manitoba by wasabi.
Now
look at the real picture.
This
is where people actually live. Wikipedia tells me that our population density
is 3.41 people per km2. For two years I lived in a Toronto
neighborhood called St. James Town, and we had more than 20,000 people in less than one km2. (In fact,
St. James Town is the most densely-populated neighborhood in all of Canada, and
one of the higest in North America). I’m not convinced that population density
communicates any real information beyond the geographer's ability to use a calculator.
History has more examples of vast, unpopulated land claims.
Take New France in the 1750s, represented by all of the shades of blue below.
Looks impressive! But even more impressive is that all of the
American heartland was held by roughly 300 French soldiers, garrisoned in the
forts sprinkled around the Mississippi River, and by no more than 600 voyageurs (fur
traders). Historian J.L. Finlay concludes “Overall, then, fewer than 1000
persons secured a pattern of alliances that made more than half of the
continent apparently loyal to France” (69).
On the British side of things, Rupert’s Land gives another
example. In the 1660s, New France placed restrictions on the fur trade; the Catholic
church was growing uneasy about rough young men going off into the wilderness
for months at a time, having liaisons with Native women, and peddling liquor for furs. Two frustrated voyageurs, Medard Des Groseilliers and
Pierre-Esprit Radisson, defected to England in 1665. They proposed to circumvent
the expanding French trade by basing operations in Hudson Bay.
In 1670, at the stroke of a pen, all of the land with rivers
flowing into Hudson Bay was granted to the new Hudson Bay Company. The land was
named in honor of Prince Rupert, cousin of King Charles II, and one of the
principal investors.
The area pictured above covers 3.9 million square
kilometres. If I were to guess, its European population density would register somewhere
in the neighborhood of 0.00/km2. Now that would be a fair statistic.
Sources
J.L. Finlay and D.N. Sprague, The Structure of Canadian History. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall
Canada Inc., 2000.
Political
map of Canada: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Canada
Population density of Canada: http://www.yellowmaps.com/map/canada-thematic-map-679.htm
Map of New France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/dossiers/html/dossiers/FranceAmerique/fr/D3/T3-a.htm
Map of Rupert’s Land: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ruperts_land.svg
