Canadian American RV Culture Difference

This has run it's course and is now being closed.

Sea Dog wrote:

wilber1 wrote:

Sea Dog wrote:
I was talking to an American and his wife the other day,
neither had heard of the war of 1812!

Bet you could find Canadians who have never heard of it either.

Do you think so?
I would be very surprised.

Certainly a large majority have but I definately do think so.

wilber1 wrote:

Sea Dog wrote:
I was talking to an American and his wife the other day,
neither had heard of the war of 1812!

Bet you could find Canadians who have never heard of it either.

Do you think so?
I would be very surprised.

Sea Dog wrote:
I was talking to an American and his wife the other day,
neither had heard of the war of 1812!

Bet you could find Canadians who have never heard of it either.

Well, there are scads, and I mean the vast majority of folks from south of us who lump all of Canada together.

- What`s fishing like in Canada?
- Does Canada allow double towing?

& they give topic headings to threads that say nothing about the area they are interested in.

- Going to Canada..................... I want to know if I will be able to help................tell me where you're going. These things need a province and to be checked by province.

On the other hand how many western Canadians have made it to eastern Canada? To know that The Maritimes have their own beauty, their own cultural heritage. & that Newfoundland is different from Nova Scotia......

Just like southern Apalachia is very different culturally from the coastal south.

:C

I was talking to an American and his wife the other day,
neither had heard of the war of 1812!

In many conversations with Americans over the years, I think I have figured out where some of the confusion over Canada's geography comes from, and may explain why they think that they can travel from say Toronto to the Calgary Stampede in an afternoon.
Of course I am talking here about folks other than RV'ers, as many of them have a good knowledge about Canada, some better than the average Canadian!
To many Americans, Canada, all of it, is directly to the north of where they live. I get this from some of the conversations I have had:
From a lady in NY state, "I should drive up there one day and see those Rocky Mountains, we're only an hour from there"
From a guy in Pennsylvania, "If you live 3000 miles from here in Canada, you must live near the North Pole!"
Same Guy, "What you mean you live on the West Coast, California is on the West Coast, not Canada! Canada is 'up north'!"
Me to a lady working in a company located in Boston who didnt have the Boston accent. "Where is your office actually located",
"Right close to you, not far from the border" she replied.
"No, I am on the West Coast, I just gave you my address, I am over 3000 miles from you"
"No sorry sir, you are mistaken, Boston is only about a 100 miles from Canada"
I blame the US media for this lack of knowledge. All of their maps cut off at the border. The local stations may show parts of Canada as highly distorted and mainly covered by station identifying labels, but any national map is cut right off at the border. Anything north of the line is just referred to as 'Canada' , never the province. You always hear 'Miami, Florida', see how funny 'Miami, America' sounds! Maybe this lack of reference to the Provinces is why many Americans refer to them as 'Providences'!

My wife and I commented the other night while watching the news and weather on TV here in Florida, how it was interesting, that Canada didn't have any weather. Now the times I have been in Canada, there was weather, but not on our TV weather stations. Now sometimes Mexico will have weather if they are experiencing a hurricane or major storm, but not just regular type weather. LOL

I have noticed over the years that many more Canadians know more about the US than they do about their own north country. Finding a Canadian that has been to the US is easy, almost a universal requirement of being a Canadian, I do believe. Finding a Canadian that has been to Florida or the US Gulf coast, is not too difficult either. But try finding a Canadian that has been to the Yukon or NWT and that is not easy to do. Here in Florida, I can count on seeing 6 to 12 Canadian provincial car tags on my drive to Home Depot or Wal Mart, about a 5 mile drive. But when I am in Whitehorse YT, to see a car tag that is from another Canadian province is rare.
It is so rare that I still remember camping in Dawson Town, YT and having a Class C park next to us, that was owned by a young couple from Quebec, first language French speakers. Or the time in Carcross, I met two couples, brothers and their wives, that were from Alberta (wheat farmers) that had decided they needed to come to the Yukon before they died.

Whereas, many southwest Native Americans have their doorways facing east, Moslems face Mecca to pray, most Canadian delivery rooms must face south as that seems to be the focus direction of most Canadians the rest of their lives. Spring breakers don't dream of heading north for the celebration, must have something to do with the gravitational pull of the earth's equator or something. LOL

As I have mentioned before, we have about 650,000 Canadian citizens that spend the winter here most years, making Florida the 7th largest un-official Canadian province during the winter months. But on the corollary, I wonder how many Floridians (US Citizens) spend extended stays in Canada, winter or summer? What would be a good guess, perhaps 25, 50 or even 100? I am the same way for if I plan to spend a month or two somewhere, it will be in western Colorado or Alaska. Can't remember ever spending a month at any one location in Canada, even though I love to vacation there, moving around often.

Veebyes wrote:
Now there is a huge difference between the cultures. The average Canadian's knowledge of world geography is usually far better than his southern neighbour counterpart who usually has little knowledge of what is where outside of the US.

But out of fairness I have to say there's a good reason for that. America's land mass is far more developed and populated than is Canada's, thus there's more to teach & learn.

As an example, we have a territory here (officially conjoined with a Province) called Labrador, it is almost the exact same size as Arizona (population 5+ million), but Labrador has a population of just under 30,000 people. That's about 0.006% the population of Arizona. Not exactly sounding like it would take long to cover in geography class.

When there's only so many hours to teach geography you can't fault them concentrating on their own backyard.

relaxin wrote:

or the other group that came accross in Niagara falls, with skies strapped to the roof, they were coming north to do some ski-ing,,,, in june.

So, back in 1969 I moved to Montreal. Well, WELL, the tales about those from the south who came up to Expo towing snowmobiles and asking where there nearest snow was!!

;)