138 Facts About Canada | Legacy Facts

# "Canada" is an Iroquoian word which means "village."

# Borealia, Cabotia, Transatlantica, Victorialand, and Superior were proposed alternate names for Canada in 1867.

# Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area.

# Canada boasts six time zones.

# Canada is only 1.5 percent larger in terms of land than the United States.

# Forests occupy 31 percent of Canada.

# At 151,600 miles, Canada has the longest coastline in the world.

# Canada has more lakes than the rest of the lakes in the world combined.

# There are over 250,000 lakes in Ontario, Canada. They contain around 1/5 of the fresh water in the world.

# The U.S./Canada border is the world's longest international border and lacks military defense.

# Canada has 9 percent of the supply of renewable water around the world.

# In British Colombia, there is only one desert in all of Canada. It is just 15 miles long and is the only desert in the world that offers visitors a long boardwalk to enjoy the scenery on.

# The official telephone number of Canada is 1–800-O-CANADA.

# "A Mari Usque ad Mare," the Canadian motto, which means "From sea to sea."

# The maple leaf is a symbol of Canada and is prominently featured on the national flag.

# The National Animal of Canada is the North American Beaver.

# The national sports of Canada are hockey and lacrosse.

# Red and white are the national colors of Canada.

# The Moose and Caribou are the national symbols that are most recognized in Canada.

# While ice hockey is the most prevalent sport in Canada, lacrosse is the official sport in the country. In Canada, the modern ice hockey game was developed, based on games played since the 10th century. The rules first published in 1877 in the Montreal Gazette.

# Banknotes in Canada, Mexico, India, Russia, and Israel have Braille-like markings for the blind on them.

# Canada consists of ten provinces and three territories.

# The population density of Canada is one of the lowest in the world, with 3.7 inhabitants per square kilometers (9.6 per square miles).

# Around 90 percent of the population of Canada lives within 100 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border.

# Canadians are sometimes called "Canucks" too.

# According to the phone books of Canada, Li is the most common surname in Canada.

# Canada has fewer residents than the metropolitan city of Tokyo.

# Canada is among the happiest nations in the world which ranked 7th in 2018 Happiness Report.

# Most Canadians can speak either English and French or both.

# Montreal is the world's second-largest French-speaking city, after Paris.

# Canada's tap water in fact is better than the bottled water.

# Loonies and Toonies-widely used names for coins of $1 and $2.

# Canadians say "sorry" so much that in 2009 a law was passed stating that an apology can not be used as proof of admission of guilt.

# National parks throughout Canada are free for children.

# Canada is the most educated country in the world: more than half of its residents have college degrees.

# The University of Victoria offers a course called "Science of Batman” which seeks to explain "The extreme range of human body adaptability explored through the Caped Crusader's life."

# According to an international study, babies in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy cry more than anywhere else.

# In Canada, the police departments issue "positive tickets" when they see people doing something positive.

# In Canada, there are only 459 cars for every 1,000 people.

# Canadians can order a Queen Elizabeth II portrait and have it shipped to them free of charge.

# Residents of Churchill, Canada, leave their cars unlocked to provide an escape for pedestrians who might encounter Polar Bears.

# Montreal is home to many beautiful churches and is often referred to as the City of Saints or City of a Hundred Bell Towers.

# License plates are shaped like polar bears in Canadian Northwest Territories.

# The Atlantic Ocean sometimes freezes in Newfoundland, Canada so people play hockey on it.

# The Northwest Territories are nicknamed The Land of the Midnight Sun since in the summer solstice the sun rarely sets.

# In Quebec, Canada, the Hotel de Glace is constructed annually using 400 tons of ice and 12,000 tons of snow. It melts away every summer, only to be rebuilt the following winter.

# A Canadian's average life expectancy at birth is 81,16 years, the world's eighth-highest. At 78.14 years, the United States ranks 46th.

# 247 is the number of car accidents involving moose every year.

# In the United States and Canada, there is a service called "Cleaning for a Reason" that cleans the houses of women with cancer for free so they can focus on their health.

# 42.6 percent of Canadians are Roman Catholics, 23.3 percent are Protestants, and 16 percent claim to have no religion, according to the 2001 census.

# Canada produced quarters that were collectable with glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs and other animals on them.

# Since 1969, Canada mail still does not run on Saturdays.

# Many important inventions have been made by Canadians including kerosene, the electron microscope, electronic organ, insulin, IMAX film system, snowmobile, and electric cooking range.

# About 10 percent of Canadians are Vegetarians or Vegans.

# In Alberta, the term "trick or treat" was used for the first time.

# Poutine is one of the most popular foods in Canada. It's a dish of French fries, curds of cheese, and gravy.

# The McLobster is sold exclusively by Canadian McDonalds.

# The Hawaiian Pizza was invented in Canada and is Australia's most popular pizza.

# Canada has a strategic reserve for maple syrups to ensure global supply in emergency situations.

# In Quebec, Canada, 77 percent of the world's maple syrup is made.

# Canada consumes more cheese and macaroni than any other country in the world.

# Canada consumes the most doughnuts and has the most doughnut shops per capita of any nation in the world.

# Approximately 80 percent of all alcoholic beverages consumed in Canada is beer. One Canadian consumes approximately 79 liters of beer every year.

# There are icebergs floating over from Greenland off the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts. They are harvested for the production of beer, wine, vodka, and beauty products.

# Yonge Street in Canada is the world's longest street, with 1,896 kilometers (1,178 miles).

# Canada's 15,000-mile Great Trail connects all the hiking trails, footpaths, and boardwalks across the country to form the world's longest trail.

# With 2,537 hours of sunshine every year, Estevan, Saskatchewan is the sunniest place in Canada.

# Trans-Canada highway is the longest highway in the world, which stretches over 4,722 miles (7,604 kilometers) in length.

# The lowest recorded temperature in North America was -81.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-63°C) on 3 February 1947 at Snag, Yukon Territory.

# The strongest current in the world is found in Slingsby Channel, British Columbia's Nakwakto Rapids. The current was measured at speeds of up to 18.4 miles per hour.

# Canada has the world’s smallest jail. Which is located in Rodney, Ontario. This jail has only two cells and an area of about 15 feet by 19 feet.

# Manitoulin Island, Canada is the largest freshwater island in the world.

# Manitou Lake on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron is the largest lake within a lake in the world (41.1 square miles).

# The world's northernmost permanently inhabited location is Alert, Nunavut which is only 507 miles (817 km) from the North Pole.

# Snorri, the first North American child to be born to European parents (Thorfin and Gudrid), was born around A.D 1000 in Vinland.

# The largest coin in the world is the Big Nickel in Sudbury, Ontario. It's a huge reproduction of a Canadian nickel from 1951 and measures 9 meters in diameter.

# In 1527, a letter was sent to King Henry VIII by John Rut of St. John's, Newfoundland was the first letter from North America.

# Molson Coors Canada is the oldest Brewery in North America. It is still in operation and it started in 1786.

# The first person to use wood fibers for paper production was Charles Fenerty, a poet from Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1839 he started experimenting, and in 1841 he produced paper from wood pulp.

# Canada holds the record for the most gold medals ever won at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, winning 14 Golds.

# Large parts of Canada have less gravity than the rest of the Earth. This phenomenon was discovered in the 1960s.

# Parts of Hudson Bay and Quebec's surrounding regions "missing" gravity. This is one of the very low-gravity areas on Earth.

# St. Paul, Alberta, boasts the first official U.F.O. landing pad and welcome site in the world.

# Canada is home to large animals such as moose and grizzly bear, but it is also home to around 55,000 insect species and around 11,000 mite and spider species.

# The longest beaver dam in the world is located in northern Alberta which measures 850 meters.

# Churchill, Canada is home to the only polar bear prison in the world.

# Canada is home to 60 percent of the polar bear population in the world.

# Thousands of snakes gather each year in Manitoba, Canada, at the Narcisse Snake Dens. It is billed as the world's largest gathering of snakes.

# Ottawa, the capital city of Canada was originally named Bytown after Colonel John By, who headquartered there while the Rideau Canal was constructed to connect the Ottawa River with Lake Ontario.

# West Edmonton Mall was once the largest shopping mall in the world, located in Edmonton, Alberta. It is now ranked 5th but still contains the largest indoor amusement park in the world.

# Toronto's CN Tower was the tallest free-standing structure in the world until it was eclipsed in 2007.

# Alberta has 50 percent of the global bitumen supply.

# Canada, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, has the world's third-largest oil reserves of any country.

# Canada is the second-largest uranium producer in the world.

# After The United States and the USSR, the third country in space was Canada, which in 1962 was considered to have the most advanced space program.

# Canada is a major cheese manufacturer and consumer. Canadians produced 350,000 tons of at least 32 cheese varieties in 1997 and ate an average of 23.4 pounds per person, the most popular being cheddar.

# In Saint John, New Brunswick, the Moosehead Brewery produces 1,642 bottles of beer per minute.

# One of the thirteen articles of the 1781 U.S. Articles of Confederation states that it will automatically be accepted if Canada wants to be admitted into the U.S.

# 1.7 Billion years ago, when the continents of the Earth were largely one land mass, the northern part of modern Australia would be part of Canada.

# The oldest undisputed evidence of human activity in North America was discovered in caves on the Bluefish River in northern Yukon, of 20,000-year-old stone tools and animal bones.

# Cryptozoologists claim that Canada is home to a number of cryptids, including Sasquatch, a giant sloth-like creature known as the beaver eater, a cannibalistic wildman named Windigo, and a number of lake monsters, such as Ogopogo in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia.

# Vikings settled the east coast of Canada about the year A.D 1000. At L'anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, archeological evidence of a settlement has been discovered.

# In Canada, playing cards were once used as currency because of a chronic shortage of coinage.

# Canada was originally named "New France" in 1750. The name Canada derives from "Kanata" which is a Huron-Iroquois word meaning village or settlement.

# Newfoundland was the first region of Canada that Europeans explored. Ironically, in 1949, it was the last region to become a province.

# The iconic red and white maple leaf flag of Canada was designed to replace the Union Jack and began its first use in 1965.

# On July 1, 1867, when the British Parliament passed the British North America Act, Canada became a country.

# Americans have invaded Canada twice, in 1775 and 1812. They lost both times.

# Canada declared war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War 2 before the United States did.

# During the Second World War Canada gave buttons to people who tried to enlist but were refused to show their willingness to fight for medical reasons.

# Every year, the Netherlands sends 10,000 tulips to Canada as a gesture of thanks for sheltering their Dutch princess during World War 2.

# Since the 1930s, Canada and Denmark have fought over an uninhabited island, leaving each other bottles of alcohol and changing their flag.

# The Afghan war's first Canadian casualties happened during a U.S. training exercise.

# Since 1984, Canada has had no weapons of mass destruction and has signed treaties repudiating its possession.

# Justin Trudeau worked as a nightclub bouncer and a snowboard instructor before he became the Canadian prime minister.

# In 1873, the Mounted Police was formed, with nine officers. The Mounted Police merged with the Dominion Police in 1920 to become the famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which now has over 28,000 members.

# Canada housed, fed, and sheltered more than 33,000 passengers as flights were diverted or grounded during 9/11.

# It is estimated that more than any other group of immigrants, 93,000 Canadians live in the USA with expired visas.

# Westboro Baptist Church members are banned from entering Canada.

# In Canada, carrying a product intended for personal protection from a human attack, like a Pepper spray, is illegal.

# In Canada, having comics that portray criminal acts is against the law.

# Canadian James Naismith invented basketball to give his students in physical education at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, an indoor team sport for long winters to play.

# In Canada the baseball glove was invented in 1883.

# The first indoor hockey game was played in Montreal on March 3, 1875.

# SNOLAB is the deepest underground lab in the world, which is 2 km deep and is located in Sudbury, Ontario.

# In 1967, the Eiffel Tower was relocated to Canada, almost temporarily.

# For more than 50 years the Canadian province of Alberta has been rat-free.

# In Ontario, Canada, there's a strip club that doubles as a Sunday church.

# Minister of Citizenship and Immigration declared that Santa Claus is Canadian.

# One million letters are sent to Santa Claus every Christmas under his own postal code: "H0H 0H0, North Pole, Canada."

# Dildo is a town located on Newfoundland Island, Canada.

# The Newfoundland town of Dildo has an annual festival, Dildo Days, led by their mascot, Captain Dildo.

# Canadians own The Mall of America.

# Canadians are popular for using the "eh" interjection, so much so that it is listed as a legitimate word in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

# Many famous authors, including Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), and Alice Munro (Lives of Girls and Women) have come from Canada.

# The term 'Beatlemania' was coined by Sandy Gardiner, a journalist with the Ottawa Journal in the 1960s, while writing a story about the Beatles.

# A bear cub, called Winnipeg, was shipped from Canada to the London Zoo in 1915. The bear inspired an A.A Milne to write about Winnie-the-Pooh after loving to visit the bear in the zoo in Winnipeg after his son Christopher Robin had.

# A Canadian man was arrested in 2015, after tying over 100 balloons to a garden chair and flying over Calgary city.

# In Canada, prostitution is legal but buying a prostitute's services isn't.

# A group of children protested in 1947 after they raised the price of chocolate bars from 5 cents to 8 cents.

# A Canadian man saved a newborn baby from a dumpster in 2010, only to find out that he was the father.

# Many famous Canadians include Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey, Ryan Gosling, Drake, and Shania Twain.

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