Canada is one of the best countries in the world to get an education. However, there are many things about the Great White North that you may not know! Today, we’re counting down 7 surprising Canadian facts you probably weren’t aware of.
1. This famous Canadian interjection is an actual word in the Oxford English Dictionary. The definition is “an exclamation used to represent a sound made in speech, especially one used to express inquiry, surprise, or to elicit agreement.” Pretty cool way to kick off our list of Canada facts, eh?!
2. Superman may be known as the great American hero, but his origins lie in the Great White North. Canadian comic book artist Joe Shuster created the famous DC Comics character with writer Jerry Siegel in the 1930s while the pair were still in high school. The pair eventually sold their comic strip to Detective Comics Inc. (which later became DC Comics) for $130 USD. Superman made his comic book debut on April 18, 1938, in Action Comics #1, a series that continues to be published to this day.
3. Well, sort of. In the Hudson Bay region, the average resident weighs a tenth of an ounce less than they would anywhere else. Why? Well, it all goes back to the last ice age, which ended over 11,000 years ago. During this period, much of Canada was covered by a giant glacier called the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Ice is really heavy, so when the ice began to melt about 21,000 years ago, the Earth underneath it began to slowly spring back. However, the Hudson Bay region is still deformed to this day and so has less mass than it should. Less mass means less gravity, which explains why you’ll weigh just a little bit less if you set foot in this part of Canada.
4. Canada is internationally recognized as a multicultural nation and that’s not just due to good marketing. According to Statistics Canada, nearly 7 million Canadians were born in a different country (for context, Canada’s population was 37.06 million as of 2018). This makes Canada the most diverse country among G8 nations! The majority of Canada’s foreign-born population live in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta.
