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Comment by nommm-nommm | Hacker News Reader

A "fact" that usually gets thrown around is that 3/4ths (or more) of the Canadian population live within 100 miles of the US border. It's probably pretty accurate.

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Canadians-live-with...

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Because the rest is cold.

... says the guy who used to bicycle to university in -37C (-45 with wind chill!)

Fun fact: the plastic buckles on knapsacks will shatter like glass in -45 weather. Try biking to school while holding a knapsack in one hand. On snow and ice.

I'm smarter now.

Biking to school in -35C weather isn't too bad if you're properly dressed and practised at it. The trick is to avoid sweating.

It's when something goes wrong when you realize just how bad an idea biking in -35C weather. Being dressed for exercise in -35C weather means that you're severely underdressed for delicate bike repairs at the side of the road, and you can get dangerously cold very quickly.

- someone else who is also smarter now.

> The trick is to avoid sweating.

would I would imagine that you might want to avoid any - ice + snow patches as well, don't know if you can get * tires for bikes.

I used to bicycle commute to work in Ottawa year round (I'm not smarter now, but I work from home instead) and as you say, it's totally feasible (fun even!) as long as you dress smartly and ride at a fairly casual pace. If your bike breaks down you're definitely better off walking it somewhere warm to make repairs rather than fixing it on the side of the road!

And that a large percentage of the US population lives near the canadian boarder. The line was drawn through the great lakes. So everyone in New England, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati etc can be said to be living near the canadian boarder. It's not that canadians need to be near the US, but near the water routes for trade with the rest of the world.

Chicago is over 200 miles from Canada. Lake Michigan is not part of the border with Canada, so the nearest point on the border is off in Lake Erie near Detroit.

But they are right beside the water body (the great lakes) that divides the nations. For purposes of trade, Detroit is practically on the boarder.

Detroit is right on the border. I assume you meant Chicago? Lake Michigan is entirely within the United States. Saying Chicago is "practically on the border" because it's on a lake which connects to another lake which contains the border doesn't make any sense to me. You might as well say that San Francisco is near Canada since it's on the Pacific Ocean.

Practically, and also actually.

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge both cross the Detroit River, which is only about 600m wide under the bridge and 750m over the tunnel.

Both of those links get a lot of cross-border traffic, and there has been a new bridge under construction since 2012, I think.

>everyone in New England

This is pretty silly. I just did some measurements in Google maps and not a single point in Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island is even close to 100 miles from the Canadian border.

I didn't day 100 anything. I said near. The people of new england are near ports for trade with the "old world" of europe, just as canadians are near the great lakes. The boarder was all about ports, not population, even in the west. It's all about the waterways to the world, not being within some magic distance to any boarder as the crow flies.

This makes no sense.

When people say something is "near" something else they mean its geographically close. You were replying specifically to "Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border," in the comments of an article specifically about geography, which makes your "near" definition make even less sense. You might as well say "New York City is like in Chicago's back yard since you can get there by boat." or "Bergen is near Miami because they are both on the Atlantic Ocean."

"Line was drawn through the great lakes".

You might want to check that.

Please examine the image very closely; it appears to be based on the border. Note Lake Superior and positions near lake Erie. https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-073611f762cf3ef329ee65...

About 45 pixels to border, which is down the middle of the lake.

There was much silliness with the boarder. They actually drew some of it using blank maps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMkYlIA7mgw

(And that map missed a huge part of the can-us boarder, focusing only on the southern one.)

Yukon not see it?

Isn't that partially due to where the transcontinental railroad was laid? (Cue "Canadian Railroad Trilogy")

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