What do Canadians think of the NINE Nations of North America?
This was a clever book written in 1981 by author Joel Garreau, but it created connections between the countries of North America and connected my country with yours.
Nation 1) New England – Now Includes the Canadian Maritimes!
Nation 2) The Foundry – Now includes Toronto and Montreal in the same box as New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, and the industrial cities where the industrial revolution first peaked
Nation 3) The Breadbasket – Includes Manitoba and part of Saskatchewan in with the US Midwestern states where fresh farms produce all kinds of wheat, corn, like the CWB would have a part of regulating.
Nation 4) Dixie – Okay okay okay this is the Southern USA, Canada and Mexico are both excluded from it.
Nation 5) Mexamerica – This ties the Southwest Arid Desert section of Arizona and New Mexico with the Mexican Continent and the spicy southwest thing, though there is a piece of BC that could fit with MexAmerica, the world’s smallest Desert on the way from Whitehorse to Carcross perhaps?
Nation 6) Ecotopia! – Very green and lush, Northern California, Oregon, Washington state, the sunshine coast of BC, coastal Alaska! IT’s soooooo pretty and eco-friendly
Nation 7 Quebec- Oh yes this is another great and speaks for itself. And like Dixie, this is very culturally exclusive, ONLY Canada here
Nation 8 Islands – Canadians have to love this one on vacations. South part of Florida and the Carribean Islands. Palm trees and tropical beaches.
Nation 9 – The Empty Quarter – This is where it takes 700 km to get from any Point A to Point B and it includes the West, with the exception fo the coast! Here you connect like Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Wyoming; Great Falls, Montana; Calgary, Alberta; Edmonton; all of Upper Western Ontario; Churchill, MB, Yellowknife, Prince Albert; ALL FARRRRR stretches of emptiness.
The cultures of North America once fell into these 9 categories or more possibly, plus aberrations.
Do today’s Canadians think these NINE NAtions of North America are as relevant now?
6 Responses
greatwhitenorth2
17 Feb 2010
knh959
17 Feb 2010
I’ve always believed that North America should have been divided into two countries vertically rather than horizontally. Taking national pride and patriotism out of the equation if one thinks about it rationally a border that ran from the arctic circle directly south dividing North America in half is a much more logical way to divide the continent. Looking at demographics, topography, industrial, rural and commercial development and travel it makes perfect sense. Nova Scotia lobster fishermen have much more in common with Maine Lobster fishermen than they do with the Ontario manufacturing industry. Hamilton steel mills have much more in common with Pennsylvania steel mills than with Manitoba grain farms. Prairie grain farms have far more in common with North Dakota farmers than they do with BC Foresters. BC Foresters have far more in common with Oregon foresters than they do with Nova Scotia lobster fishermen.
90 percent of the commerce of North America flows in a north/south direction with over a billion dollars per day in goods crossing the border. . Think of how much more simple commerce would be if that 5 thousand mile long horizontal border between Canada and the United States didn’t exist.
It can never happen obviously but it’s something to ponder.
Sébastien
17 Feb 2010
I think it’s lame.
Three Seventeen
17 Feb 2010
Those thoughts have their place. What bugs me though is how so many people think North America = Canada + U.S.A. only.
Ecotopia? I’ve always thought of it as "Cascadia", named after the Cascades Mountain Range down the West Coast.
One day our current borders won’t exist, no matter what we think.
It’s interesting to ponder, but who really knows?
bwlobo
17 Feb 2010
Would these nine nations form some sort of Republic or Democracy, or would they just be like independent libertarian nations…
The native Americans had something going here!
Willster
17 Feb 2010
I’ve read this book not once, but twice, and am very impressed by it.
Me, I live in the "Breadbasket" and have travelled widely in North America and agree with everything it has to say. It really popped into perspective when an american friend told me how much North Dakota (which has a long leftist/populist) tradition and South Dakota or Montana (both of which are very politically conservative) dislike each other. This makes sense because North Dakota is in the "Breadbasket", where people traditionally have had to co-operate in order to survive while Montana and South Dakota are in "the empty quarter") where there is more ranching and oil production, and there is sort of a winner-take-all attitude.
It’s a heck of a good book, but I don’t know if it has any practical long-lasting value aside from being a good "read" and quite thought-provoking. Any sort of a formal political merger between Canada and the US is a long way — several centuries — away.
Sounds like a good way to divide things up if the rumours of a North American Union were to ever become a reality.
I don’t think Quebec would be very happy about losing Montreal and I don’t know how Alberta would feel being in a zone called the "Empty Quarter".