Trans-Canada Geography

This morning, on my way into town to run an early errand, I passed a van pulled into a...pull-into-thingy, as I call it...along the side of the road. The van was white, with an orange-gold-yellow-red flame/sun/bright design on it (I was driving at highway speeds so can't be more specific) and had a sign that said, in big letters, SAD.

I chuckled at the contrast between lettering and colouring. But I also knew what it was: a guy is biking across Canada to raise awareness of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

We see a lot of those vans supporting folks biking/walking/running across Canada. Most notably, Terry Fox, whose attempt to run trans-Canada sadly ended near the city.

You might be surprised that everyone comes through Thunder Bay. Especially when you think about these numbers:

1. Canada, east-west, about 5514 kilometres (3300+ miles)
2. Canada, north-south, about 4634 km (2780+ miles)
3. U.S., east-west (continental), 4500 km (2800 miles)
4. U.S., north-south (continental), 3300 km (2000 miles)

Yes, give or take, depends on where you measure, yeah, yeah, all of that.

Your take-away: Canada is a honking big country--with one highway crossing it. ONE. Cleverly called the Trans-Canada highway (though it goes by lots of numbers), it comes right through Thunder Bay.

This is not to say that Canada has only one highway everywhere. One of my main objections to Toronto (or the GTA as we likes to say) is that it's all paved over. However, for much of the east-west breadth of this country, one road is all you get.

North-south, you got...nuthin', mostly. Yes, you can drive into Alaska, but that's, again, one highway, out west. Much of the country's north-south travel is by plane.

There are stories of bridges (train and now car) that, if demolished by acts of violence--say, a bomb in World War II or, in today's terms, an act of terrorism--would cripple the movement of people and goods from east to west. Of course, assuming the violence isn't perpetrated by Americans, Canadians could still GET from points east to points west, but they'd have to go through the U.S.

Which they would do, for the shopping.

My point is that Thunder Bay in many ways feels remote, isolated--one of the famed "ends of the earth." (Tell that to people in Sioux Lookout or a fly-in community. This is their "big city," their shopping destination.) However, it's really right smack in the middle of things, which makes it kind of a fun place to be.

(Cue Ontario Tourism music.)