CANADIAN Language and Culture Help

[Josh]

I'm not Canadian, but please don't get mad at me for posting this:


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Keep in mind though, Canada is a very vast country. It takes 5 hours by plane to get to Vancouver from Toronto.

Because Canada is so big, we'll probably need to have 2 schools...one on the west coast and one on the east coast. These schools, as someone said earlier, would definitely have smaller populations than Hogwarts.

Hmm, a school in the middle lol? No, Hogwarts is in Scotland which is around five hours (at least, maybe even 7 depending on route and if it's right on the coast) from London, and that doesn't include the hours getting to the station. This is the same for the time to cross Canada right? I don't think in the wizarding world distance really matters.

Sorry If I went off topic or what not, just wanted to point that out.

[Treacle_Heart]

While I haven't lived in Canada for a long time, I think I should point out that having an "Aboriginal" house doesn't make much sense. Not because there is not a large population of Native people, but because lumping all the different cultures together makes no sense.

This is true, yet people do it themselves. A friend of mine from Montreal has told me of how the cliques are made from your background, ie the Italians, the Greeks, and so on.

Canada is much more English speaking. Most Quebecois even speak English as it is a major job requirment. I couldn't see there being a French school as there aren't many people that would need it consider the normal people vs wizards ratio and the french vs english people ratio.

I think that the students would be able to choose which language they wanted to learn in, much like our muggle schools. We have the option of learning regular french, extended french (social studies in french), immersion french (everything in french), or Mi'kmaq.

-- Julia

[indigo_mouse]

Josh,

Canada is a LOT bigger than Britain. I took the train from Winnipeg (close to the geographic center of the continent) to Vancouver BC - it took 3 days. We got to go through a tunnel in the mountains too.

The three biggest countries by surface area:

# Russia: 17,075,200 km2 (6,591,027 mi2)
# Canada: 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,082 mi2) population 2006 census was 31,612,895
# United States: 9,631,418 km2 (3,717,727 mi2)
# UK: 245,000 km2. (50,351 mi2) population 2001 census was 49,138,831


So you can see that the population of Canada is a LOT more spread out. Although not evenly. Most people live within 100 miles of the US/Canada boarder. So think of it as a really wide narrow band of population. From Victoria to Newfoundland is 8,000 land kilometers (5,000 mi), although Newfoundland is a pretty long way off the coast - its actually closer to London than to Ottawa and has its own special 1/2 hour off time zone. The distance from London to the Orkney Islands is 848 km (air miles). And they are fairly close to opposite ends of the UK.

Now, back on topic - If I were wizards looking to hide a school in Canada, I would put it in Newfoundland. Low population - rugged coastline. Not a big tourist destination. Or Labrador - on the mainland, but all of the above apply. Or if you wanted polar bears in your story, somewhere near Churchill Manitoba would do, although Churchill has quite a bit of eco-tourism. Baffin Island. brrrrrr.

[Josh]

Josh,

Canada is a LOT bigger than Britain. I took the train from Winnipeg (close to the geographic center of the continent) to Vancouver BC - it took 3 days. We got to go through a tunnel in the mountains too.

The three biggest countries by surface area:

# Russia: 17,075,200 km2 (6,591,027 mi2)
# Canada: 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,082 mi2) population 2006 census was 31,612,895
# United States: 9,631,418 km2 (3,717,727 mi2)
# UK: 245,000 km2. (50,351 mi2) population 2001 census was 49,138,831


So you can see that the population of Canada is a LOT more spread out. Although not evenly. Most people live within 100 miles of the US/Canada boarder. So think of it as a really wide narrow band of population. From Victoria to Newfoundland is 8,000 land kilometers (5,000 mi), although Newfoundland is a pretty long way off the coast - its actually closer to London than to Ottawa and has its own special 1/2 hour off time zone. The distance from London to the Orkney Islands is 848 km (air miles). And they are fairly close to opposite ends of the UK.

Yes, but I appreciate its size, but I'm saying that actually, even though it's biiger, the time by flight compared to by train (which they suggested) was less than the time it would have taken for Hogwarts. And the last bit, it's like saying that England spans an entire ocean as there's also Islands we own elsewhere....

Anyway, sorry, just a point
(not spam)

~Josh

[indigo_mouse]

Well, yes I agree, and the time it takes to get anywhere by Apparation is the same, so in theory, students could be taken to school ANYWHERE in the same amount of time.

So I agree that the size of the country really doesn't make all that much difference as to how many schools they would have. I think the population of wizards would though.

So if Hogwarts has about 10 students per house per year, then it would have about 2500 students. Thats not many for a population the size of Britain! And Britain's population is greater than Canada's so in my estimation there should only be one school in Canada.

So where to put it? It should be a quintessentially Canadian place. What do we think about when we think about Canada? RCMP Mounted Police, moose, the Northern Lights, snow, polar bears. Its the Great White North after all. The True North Strong and Free (to quote the national anthem). So I would put the school up near the Arctic Circle.

My pick would be to put it near Flin Flon, Manitoba, population 6,242. A mining town named for Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, who was a character in a science fiction novel, The Sunless City by J. E. Preston Muddock. Its where the road ends and the weirdness begins. To quote from the Wikipedia page on Flin Flon

The character of "Flinty" is of such importance to the identity of the city that the local Chamber of Commerce commissioned the minting of a $3.00 coin, which was considered legal tender within the city during the year following its issue. A statue representing Flinty was designed by cartoonist Al Capp and is one of the points of interest of the city.

The statue is also extremely ugly.

Now, you know I couldn't possibly make this stuff up. It has to be true (and so is the fact that they grow Medical Marijuana in some of the old mines, in spite of the cold climate - because its a constant temperature underground). My imagination is good, but its not that good!

[James Jameson]

Why not make the school unplottable? We don't exactly know where Hogwarts is, for example...

*SPAMSPAMSPAMSPSPAM!!!***

[Viv]

Canada is much more English speaking. Most Quebecois even speak English as it is a major job requirment. I couldn't see there being a French school as there aren't many people that would need it consider the normal people vs wizards ratio and the french vs english people ratio.

Not that I want to bring in politics, but... if you consider the politcal issues we are having in Quebec about the whole language thing, and the fact that there is a huge debate about separating our province from the rest of the country, I do need to point out that maybe, Quebecers would want a French school of their own. Of course, in Hogwarts, they try to promote inter-house unity and such, but the truth is that there are some barriers between the students because of their background (pure-bloods vs non pure-bloods, Gryffindor vs Slytherin, etc.), so it wouldn't be different in Canada. And in Canada, we have the language barrier/debate... Prejudices are everywhere and it could happen that English Canadians wouldn't want to be mixed up with French Canadians and vice versa.

I just want to clarify that I do not support that policy and I think it'd be great to mix everybody together in the same school and break barriers, but reality isn't always that simple. I like Julia's idea of having the option to choose which language students want to learn in... but... then again, we wouldn't encourage the two solitudes to mix up. Yeah, it's complicated!

Why not make the school unplottable? We don't exactly know where Hogwarts is, for example...

Yes, why not? You don't need an exact location for the school. We know Hogwarts is in Scotland, but we don't know much more, as we know Beaubâtons is somewhere in France, because the students speak French, but JKR gave no clues about the city or the region they come from. It could be anywhere in the country and then, it would be up to you to decide which climate you want (is it snowing a lot like in Quebec, or raining all the time like in Vancouver... the possibilities are endless!) and if you want snow bears or not (or puffins like in Newfoundland... I suggest puffins, they're so much cooler! ).

[Kcharles]

Yes, puffins rock!


I do think that the Aboriginals wouldn't want to go to school as the other inhabitants of Canada would, because the Aboriginals have many diffrent customs, and diffrent ways of doing things. The Quebecians might want their own school too, as they do want to be a diffrent country and all that jazz.

Do you think it would be possible for the english speaking witches and wizards to all go to school in America?

[Lizzy]

I think they might all go to the States, although I don't think they'd like it. If they were any thing like the Muggle World they'd need some sort of Wizarding passport, wouldn't they? (I've never actually been across the border, though, so I have no idea how this works) It would probably be a big hassle. The Canandian Ministry would probably have something in Canada. I don't think they'd all get shunned to the States.

However, since the States would have more people, they'd probably have bigger and better schools. More kids means more funding, right? So some parents might send their kids south.

[OliveOil_Med]

I think they might all go to the States, although I don't think they'd like it. If they were any thing like the Muggle World they'd need some sort of Wizarding passport, wouldn't they? (I've never actually been across the border, though, so I have no idea how this works) It would probably be a big hassle. The Canandian Ministry would probably have something in Canada. I don't think they'd all get shunned to the States.

That could definantly be a possibility.

Canada is a LOT bigger than Britain. I took the train from Winnipeg (close to the geographic center of the continent) to Vancouver BC - it took 3 days. We got to go through a tunnel in the mountains too.

Yes, Canada is a very large country, but what you would really have to take into account is the population size. For example, the population of the United States is five times that of Britian, so it would make since that they would have more than one school.

What I would suggest is going onto Wikipedia and looking up the population of the U.K. and then the population of Canada. Then you would have a much better idea of how to set up a wizarding school there.