AHC: A more populated Canadian north

Edmonton called them Klondike days, not me. It was too cold for them to think straight. They changed it to something else, but changed it back to K-days, and still call it Klondike Days. It's not hard to get to Edmonton; there's a road.

How many here have been to dog sled races? Show of hands?

Yeah, I know all that already - I've lived in Edmonton for most of my life.

I have never been to a dog sled race, but that would be kind of interesting.

The point I was trying to make in my last post is how slowly the infrastructure's taken to develop in the Canadian North. Unlike the US, Canada has had historically a far lower population to start with in the east, let alone having harsher winters.

Western Canada and the North have also been historically treated more or less like colonial subjects/frontier lands by Ontario and Quebec. And this mentality does exist to a degree, even to this day. Canada also doesn't have the kind of military-industrial complex the US has had. Hell, even if Alaska somehow ended up as Canadian territory early around the dawn of the 20th Century or earlier, it very likely wouldn't have a population anywhere near as large it has in OTL.

To be frank, short of some kind of ASB-like scenario like a sudden warming back in the 19th-20th Centuries, or Canada becoming a socialist dictatorship bent on relocating large numbers of people to exploit resources (maybe not as ASB, esp. if the Soviets managed to get its hands on Canada), I don't really see how much more populated Canada could be populated north of the 55th Parallel, or the 50th Parallel in Ontario, Quebec and Labrador.
 
Hudson Bay Company originally offered to the USA Rupert's Land before giving it back to the Crown, which then turned around and gave it to Canada. Perhaps, if the Americans buy it they occupy it more.

ONE of the many reasons Canada's western lands were slower in being developed than the USA's is that the HBC deliberately lied and put out propaganda that Rupert's Land and the future Western portions of Canada were unfit for agriculture. If you PoD that thy
 
Hudson Bay Company originally offered to the USA Rupert's Land before giving it back to the Crown, which then turned around and gave it to Canada. Perhaps, if the Americans buy it they occupy it more.

ONE of the many reasons Canada's western lands were slower in being developed than the USA's is that the HBC deliberately lied and put out propaganda that Rupert's Land and the future Western portions of Canada were unfit for agriculture. If you PoD that they never put out that information and instead encourage more settlement that helps.
 
Hudson Bay Company originally offered to the USA Rupert's Land before giving it back to the Crown, which then turned around and gave it to Canada. Perhaps, if the Americans buy it they occupy it more.

ONE of the many reasons Canada's western lands were slower in being developed than the USA's is that the HBC deliberately lied and put out propaganda that Rupert's Land and the future Western portions of Canada were unfit for agriculture. If you PoD that they never put out that information and instead encourage more settlement that helps.

With all modern technology, agriculture on pre-cambrian rock in the Canadian Shield, the permafrost zones, and the Alberta Badlands is pretty much a no go.
 
I'll echo the cold complaint (& Saskatoon isn't anywhere near 60 North:p). There's a more important reason, IMO: you can't farm tundra. (Okay, farming the Palliser Triangle was pretty stupid, too.:confused::rolleyes:)

So, unless you've got bison ranching or you import the entire Lapp population or something, what is there?
 
I wonder if you couldn't go something with goats in the tundra.

But I still feel the key is improved early infrastructure. A rail line to the Arctic Sea would make economic development in the region dozens of times cheaper than it was OTL. Because right now you have two choices, by air and by barge, both of which are hideously expensive.

And the Yukon is actually fairly habitable all things considered, a line to Whitehorse and eventually Dawson would be a massive boon to the people there and any would be investors.
 
The Gunslinger said:
A rail line to the Arctic Sea would make economic development in the region dozens of times cheaper than it was OTL.
True. What are you using it for? There's not much industry & scant population. It's not "build it & they will come". (Yes, I know, the correct quote is "he"...:rolleyes:) Furthermore, who's paying for it? (It damn sure ain't gonna be cheap, building on tundra.:eek:) And finally, consider the railway to Churchill: it didn't exactly create a population exodus to the shore of Hudson Bay:rolleyes:...& building & maintaining it hasn't been profitable for a rail company yet, AFAIK.
The Gunslinger said:
the Yukon is actually fairly habitable
There's a difference between "habitable" & "attractive". More to the point, there's no reason for more population absent something keeping them there. The population of Canada, in the main, clusters where there's agriculture or industry. In the north, there isn't enough industry, not even in oil & diamonds, to need more population, & there's nothing much else bringing people there. Absent massive bison ranching or a boom in demand for caribou meat:rolleyes: (& just picture the screams from the green loons over that one:rolleyes:), I don't foresee any change...
 
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True. What are you using it for? There's not much industry & scant population. It's not "build it & they will come". (Yes, I know, the correct quote is "he"...:rolleyes:) Furthermore, who's paying for it? (It damn sure ain't gonna be cheap, building on tundra.:eek:) And finally, consider the railway to Churchill: it didn't exactly create a population exodus to the shore of Hudson Bay:rolleyes:...& building & maintaining it hasn't been profitable for a rail company yet, AFAIK.

There's a difference between "habitable" & "attractive". More to the point, there's no reason for more population absent something keeping them there. The population of Canada, in the main, clusters where there's agriculture or industry. In the north, there isn't enough industry, not even in oil & diamonds, to need more population, & there's nothing much else bringing people there. Absent massive bison ranching or a boom in demand for caribou meat:rolleyes: (& just picture the screams from the green loons over that one:rolleyes:), I don't foresee any change...

The North will never be populous, but it could be more populous. You need the railways for mining and moving of the ore south. As it stands unless you've got a whopper of a deposit you can't really afford to extract it.

You might have over a hundred communities like Arviat or Baker Lake instead of the dozens we currently have.
 
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