Canadians, does it bug you that half your West Coast is part of the US.?

[edhopper]

I am not being cute. This came up in conversation about Alaska.
I know the history is complicated, but is this an issue talked about in Canada?
Are Canadians pissed about it, or is it let bygones...

[Walleye]

1. Hell, we're only lucky that Trump didn't give it back to Russia

[edhopper]

2. True that

[Sneederbunk]

3. Look a a map. Does it bug Americans that Canada

looms over the US?

[edhopper]

6. Only if you see North as up

To Australia it's at the bottom.

[elleng]

4. 100% of the West Coast is American,

PART of it is Canadian, Part United Statesian, Part Mexican, so WTF!!!

[edhopper]

7. Point taken

[Bucky]

18. Canadians use "American" to refer to the US

semantic nitpicking about commonly understood terminology doesn't help many conversations.

[Shrek]

30. +1

Thank you.

[Raine]

22. Exactly, we're all on the American continent

South, Central, North all those countries are located on the American continent.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. We don't think about such trivial things

Instead we enjoy the freedom from the insanity below the 49th Parallel.

No Proud Boys
No Manchin or Sinema
No Trump
No Healthcare bankruptcies
No Big Lie

Who cares about measuring to see who has the longer…

coastline?

[edhopper]

8. Not about measuring

I was thinking of access and resources

I am in no way trying to taunt Canadians here.

[egduj]

9. I'm pissed that California has ALL of Arizona's west coast.

[Bucky]

19. Ha!

Bravo!

[Trailrider1951]

21. LOL!

Thread winnah!!

[Calista241]

33. I lol'd. Bravo!

[Hortensis]

38. :)

[Bev54]

10. No, I was born and raised on the West Coast, Vancouver Island

Never once heard any word about it.

[edhopper]

11. Thanks

[Celerity]

12. it is way over half

[edhopper]

17. I am just talking about

The panhandle, not all of Alaska.

[Celerity]

20. I cannot read minds.

[edhopper]

35. sure,

why I clarified.

[applegrove]

13. I was pissed off about the Alaskan panhandle when I was a child. Not when

I grew up. What is done is done.

[Disaffected]

14. None of those.

Nobody here gives a hoot AFAIK. It has essentially zero effect on our lives or future.

[edhopper]

15. Thanks.

[roamer65]

16. From the end of the Alaskan panhandle to Vancouver is some of the most beautiful...

territory on Earth.

I will never forget my diving trip up the Johnston Strait to the end of Vancouver Island.

[Hekate]

23. Alaska used to belong to Russia. If not for Seward's Folly, it still would.

So there’s that bit of world history to ponder.

[FakeNoose]

24. We bought the Alaska Territory from Russia

Was Alaska ever part of Canada? I don't believe so.

[LeftInTX]

25. We bought it from Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Or you could ask why the Alaskan panhandle is so narrow

Here's an interesting Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_North_America_since_1763

The Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1825 set the boundary between British Canada and Russian Alaska at "10 marine leagues inland" (30 nautical miles, about 35 miles) up to the 141st meridian west, then north along that. Why did Britain get the inland area which is now the Yukon Territory? Because, I suppose, Alexander Mackenzie had followed the river now named after him all the way to the Arctic. The Russians had concentrated on the coast; the British had gone for the big journeys across territory. What the First Nations thought about it all is another matter, of course.

[Hortensis]

27. This probably shows a big reason it's not considered a big deal.

Pretty far north.

I love the Vancouver area and could live there very happily. But Canada's west coast isn't exactly heavily populated, and that's all marine coast climate and generally significantly warmer and more livable and farmable than the AK panhandle farther north. In fact, coastal climate changes right around where AK starts and is probably part of the reason the border became where it is.

I've wondered sometimes what it'd be feel like to be Canadaian with awareness of all that magnificent but unending wilderness to the north. Until, somewhere on the other side of the Arctic Ocean's ice, Russia. We have civilized Canada for our northern neighbor, and it feels nice, though much less wild and adventurous.

[Klaralven]

28. Canada, 3000 miles long and 200 miles wide.

[Hortensis]

31. :) I'd read that you could now walk coast to coast on a

trans-Canada trail and just looked The Great Trail up on a map. Wow!

Most of it would fit in that, but a whole lot more than I guessed does not. According to their own map, the southern E-W route goes to Vancouver, but a northern arm heads off on a long journey up the western wilderness to the Beaufort Sea. (!) The trail does not go to Alaska.

[Klaralven]

32. I'm pretty sure the picture isn't the last bit from the Dempster Highway to the Beaufort Sea

[Hortensis]

37. Lol, guessing not. Only one of thousands of spots I'd love to cycle,

though. Including through isolated tundra, albeit probably more like a couple hours for that than weeks. What a great resource for Canada, though. I found a little portion in Quebec that was Google-mapped. Vicarious travel.

[Johnny2X2X]

29. I've spent a good deal of time visiting Ontario

I've probably been to Toronto 40 times. Niagara Falls a few times, Windsor a couple dozen times. I just love Canada and Canadians. I'd move there in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself.

My corporation has several plants/offices in Canada and they'd help me and my wife with work visas. For now we're staying put as our parents age, but if our parents are gone, Canada is a real option.

[eShirl]

34. Mainer being quiet over here in the corner

[edhopper]

36. I hear you

In Laws from Ft Kent.

[Hortensis]

39. :) I'm sure Canadians are grateful these days to be surrounding Maine,

as opposed to, say, FL, that other corner.

They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards. ~ Creighton Abrams

[jobendorfer]

40. Oregon and Washington were claimed by the UK, back in the day

There was a meeting in the mid 1840s at Champoeg, Oregon, to settle the question of whether the Oregon territory (little t) would remain a British dominion (i.e., part of Canada) or join the United States. Naturally, no Natives were invited to the meeting ... but the vote was split down the middle for hours, and finally tipped by one vote from a late arrival, for the U.S.

Some years ago, I learned that the trans-Canadian railroad was built in a 4 year span, 1881-1885. I asked a Canadian museum historian what the rush had been. He grinned and asked if I was an American. When I answered yes, he said, "Let's look at this from a Canadian perspective."

1840-45 Oregon trail period; Oregon joins the United States.
1855 Washington joins the United States
1867 Seward buys Alaska and announces the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny"
1869 American trans-continental railway completed. Feeder lines start pushing north towards Canada.
1870 Formation of the modern Canadian government

At this point (early 1870s) the new Canadian nation begins to realize that it has 40,000 settlers in British Columbia, 80% of whom are living on Vancouver Island. The mainland portion of B.C. is basically empty, and this as American rail feeder lines are starting to approach the nominal border. They decide they need to get Canadian settlers into British Columbia, post haste, and they don't have time to go the wagon train route. They latch the decision to kick off a trans-continental rail project of their own. Work began in 1881 and by 1883 had reached Calgary. It would take another two years to get the route through the Rockies, Selkirks, and Cascades.

On a personal note, my great-grandparents arrived in rural British Columbia via this very railroad, in 1901 -- 16 years after the route was completed.

~J