The U.S./Canada Border: Threat or Menace? Quiz

Answer: Undefended

At 5,526 miles/Il a 8,893 km, the Canadian border is a trivia maven's favorite, or, as one says north of the border, favourite. Expect merciless grilling from grizzled, hard-bitten border agents at checkpoint Charlie... "what's your purpose in Canada, eh?"... "are those business papers you have there?" Few humans can survive this sort of interrogation for too long.

Answer: Alaska

Like Canada, Alaska is thought to be comprised mostly of snow, native peoples, frozen lakes and a sprinkling of other people wearing heavy and unfashionable clothing.

The name "Alaska" came about when someone asked then Secretary of State William H. Seward if he thought he could buy a big, cold territory from the Russian empress for 7.2 million dollars. Seward said, "I don't think so, but Alaska." Do NOT use this answer on a history quiz!

Answer: Slow down

Canada, probably for no other reason than to stick out its (bilingual) tongue at Uncle Sam, has had the temerity for some time to be on the metric system. 50 km/hour is very slow, as are most of the provincial roads one has to slog along before hitting the Trans-Canada highway or some such more impressive-sounding thoroughfare. N.B.

While Canada does have Dunkin' Donuts franchises, it is apparently considered poor form to patronize them. Tim Horton's appears to have set the standard in the donut/doughnut industry in the frozen north, and any American who fails to stop/arret on a long car line to sample Timmy's delights has committed a social blunder/faux pas.

When in Banff, etc.

Answer: All of these

Cornwall is a BIT of an industrial town, and a series of plants there on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River belch out fumes so nauseatingly horrible that they actually leave an aftertaste. It is encouraging, however, that there is industry on the Canadian side of this border; on the apparently less inhabited New York side, there are Indian reservations, casinos, and an amazing number of state prisons.

Answer: In Canadian money

Between June 2002 and mid-November 2002, the U.S. dollar fluctuated between roughly 1.50 and 1.60 Canadian dollars. During all of these periods, and certainly in mid-November, when the exchange rate was up over $1.58, the tourist would save money-- about 55 cents Canadian-- by paying in Canadian money.

Answer: Quebec separatism(e)

Scary. 49.4% of Quebecers/Quebecois voted to split off. Chretien held the country together by a hair's breadth. The separatism movement seems to have fallen into eclipse a bit in the intervening years. As Alberta becomes more and more of a potential source of oil leverage for Canada, it seems less and less likely that the Francophones will plausibly be able to secede and form their own state.

Answer: Newfoundland

Newfoundland is an island and one of the Atlantic provinces. It is the butt of innumerable Canadian jokes, and its residents, the poor Newfies, are a rich source of humor for those Canadians in the contiguous provinces. Nonetheless, Canada's sharpest political humorist, Rick Mercer, is in fact a Newfie.

Answer: Saskatchewan

Jokes about Saskatchewan's legendary flatness abound; the standard, about being able to watch your dog run away for several hours, pops up on just about every Canadian website. The place is supposed to be a kind of northern Kansas, albeit without Auntie Em and Toto, but since no one has ever been there, the jury is out.

A Saskatoon correspondent on this site has advises that the place is so flat that if you drive in Saskatchewan on a clear day amd look straight ahead, you can eventually see the back of your own head.

Answer: None of these

What's right with this picture? "Famous Canadian nightclub" is an oxymoron, nothing in Anglophone Canada is garish (except possibly the CN tower), Canadians employ the British spellings "colour" and "humour", and political incorrectness is about as easy to find in Canada as would be a kosher butcher in Vatican City.

Answer: Windsor, ON

Windsor is just over the border from Detroit; it is one of the southernmost Canadian cities and lies further south than Albany, New York. Peculiarly, both Windsor and Detroit have good harness racing tracks. Most Americans assume that Montreal and Toronto are right over the border, which they are not. Quebec City, the only walled city in North America, lies between the northerly Saint Lawrence River/Riviere Saint-Laurent and miles of nothingness.