Memoirs of a Geisha
The mosaic of Nations Ever after this country was a multicultural community, since the immigrants splitted up in Natives and Inuit. Demonstrable the Vikings where the first visitors in Canada, a long time before Columbus. Two less academic underpined (substatiated) theories are: In Quebec some scientists found epigraphs on stones, that proably where from libyan sailors, dated long time before Christ´s birth. And about 500 before Christ a chinese monk named Hui Shan landed in todays British Columbia. You can discover, Canda was always a popular destination for many Nations, even if you leave it with the “official” european dicoverer John Cabot. Not only the British and the Irish, even the French made this country a second home for them. Canada is marked by the long lasting british crown colony. The political system, the justice and the scholl system give evidence for that. These three exsamples follow the model of the former mother country. Only the frenchspeaking population could prevent an “over seas England”. In opposite to their american neighbours, who wanted to be a “melting pot of nations”, Canada was worth of being a “mosaic of nations”. The national qualities of all people, that have found a new home between Halifax and Vancouver, should not become a great canadian unity. The different cultures had to be saved and should contribute to the country´s welfare. The government and the lokal administrations are sopporting this. You can see that in one of the cosmopolitan cities of Northamerica, Toronto. On the “Caravan”, an annual procession of the Nationalities in Toronto, more than fifty countries of the immigrants are represented. Rassism is not a big thing in Canada, all different peoples exist in harmony. Besinde the humanitarian point of view of the liberal immigration policy Canada had also economic background. The semingly endless country had to be populated, people that were capable and willing to work where needed. A former minister of the interior of Canada, Sir Clifford Sifton, explained at the parliament why he let so many Ukrainian people immigrant: “In my opinion, a hard working farmer, who was born on a clod and whose ancestors where farmers too for many generations, with a thickset woman and half a dozen of children, that is quality.” Now the criterion and the economic demands had changed. About a quarter million immigrants are now aloud in Canada, splitted up in three groups: Famaliymembers of people who already live in Canada, economy imigrants and asylum-seeker. With 50 000 immigrants the asylum-seeker are the smalest group, here the priorities lie on the humanitarian selection procedures. The canadian political system distinguish the economic immogrants in the ones who want to get educatoion in Canada and businessman, who have to have half a million canadian dollars and that are interrested in invest in 150 00 new workplaces. High-tech-experts, like comminication ingeneers or coputerspecialists, are the only searched immigrants. With a point system they assess all eplicants. More than a half of all immigrants are from Asia. Many Boat people from Vietnam found protection in Canada, but also rich Hong-Kong Chinese search for a home. The latter are investigors, since the eighties many millions flow from Asia to Canada. Vancouver and Toronto are the greatest “chinese cities” in America. The most europaen immigrants are the British, the Polish and the Portuguese. The immigration authorities don´t like such developments, they would like to see the immigrants in other, less populates areas. It´s clear that the immigrants want to bee by their people and the savety of the cities. The beloved nature of the canadian peoples, the fishingtours, the camping trips and the hiking tours are just interresting for the second generation of the new Canadians. Between iceberg and vineyard 1936 in the parliament Mackanzie King, the prime minister said : “If some countreis have to much history, so we have to much geography.” He said that in order of the widespread opinion that Canada raised up against his landscape: a state on a gigantic, and almost deserted terrain, with inhospitable climate for many months in the year, with sicial, economic and political lines from east to west and a geographical pattern from north to south. Especialy the both gigantic mountain ranges ran along from north to south: the Appalachians on the atlantic coast and the high massif of the Coastal Mountains like the Ricky Mountains paralell to the pacific ocean. In opposite to that the rivers run from east to west, rinding on them with boats the first white men got to the country inside. Some hisorians say, when there wasn´t the common thought to get through the mountains, there would have never been a canadian state. If it hadn´t been so, the spreaded settlements would have chosen the more compfortable way in the south, to the not so well liked USA. Even British Colmbia don´t wanted to join the canadian confederacy, if the railway wouldn´t run from the antlantic to the pacific ocean. And it happened, and with that the second largest country of the world. It´s exactly 9 976 129 square kilometers, equivalent to 0,7 percent of the whole landscape on aur planet. It takes almost seven hours with plane from the eastside to the westside. If you got by train, you have to stay on railway for fife days and you have to adjust your clock six times. But also the north to south distance is impressive, from Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island to Middle Island in the Erielake are 4627 kilometers. The country in the North is coverd with a stratum of ice and grapes growing in the South on vineyards. The canadian geography is splitted up in six natural landscapes: - The Appalachian region - The lowlands of the great lakes and the Sankt-Lorens-stream - The canadian shield – a two- to fourhundret meters high rock formation - The prairie states - The 800 kilometers broad western Kordillere - The arctic islands. Most of the provinces on the atlantic coast and the Gaspé peninsula of Québec belong to the Appalachians. The todays centre of Canada is the fertile alluvial land around the great lakes, the reason why the canadian and the american boarder run together sometimes. The geological development of the Canadian Shield, also known as Precambrian Shield, is going back to more than 2,5 billion years and sticks like a gigantic horseshoe around hudson Bay. The Interior Plains extend from the southwest Manitobas over the southern Saskatchewan almost over Alberta to the northeast of British Columbia and to the morthwest Territoties. In Canada the mountains in the west are 2250 kilometers long, but run trough the U.S to the Firelands. The Arctic Islands are almost flat landscapes and in the northeast they rise to 3000 high mountains and glaciers. In the polar seas the boarders between land and sea are not that clear, but it´s sure that the Arctic islands are a big part of the 243 800 kilometers long coast. The Atlantic ocean in the east, the polar sea with the Hudsun Bay in the north and the Pacific ocean skirt the country, that has the size of a continent. All provinces have a direct line to an ocean, exept Saskatchewan and Alberta. The boarders to the U.S.A. are in the south 3938 kilometers long and to Alaska 2478 kilometers. Just a third of this country is used, for forestry and pasture, for agriculture, for cities and rural communes or for national and leisure parks. The biggest part of the country is barley accessible, like the northern tundra, between the peaks of the Rocky mountains or the polar seas. The highest point in this country is the Mount Logan in the Yukon Territory. Seemingly a very small part of Canada is settled. Over 90 percent of the Canadian live in a 300 kilmeters broad strip of land, that´s along the southern boarder to the United States. And also in this zone the population density is very different. About 60 percent of the 30 million Canadians are living on less than two percent of the canadian surface. They are settled on the 1000 kilometers between Québec City and Windsor in Ontario. Also the three largest cities in Canada are inthat surface, Ottawa, Toronto and Motréal. Toronto has 3,8 million, Montréal 3 million and Ottawa about 920 000 inhabitants. The Niagara Falls are the most visited special geographical characteristics. The waterfall south of the Goat Island belong to the U.S.A, the northern and more impressive Horseshoe Falls are canadian, it is 54 meters high and 675 meters broad, per minute 155 million liters water are flowing into the ravine. Scientists discovered that approximately 25 000 years ago the waterfalls with the most water where flowing eleven kilometers downstream. Imperceptible the Niagara River is slowly cutting (himself) in the rock plateau. 1678 the missionary Louis Hennepin was the first who described the Niagara Falls: “The whole univers hasn´t got something like that. You still can hear the roar of the falls in a distance of 72 kilometers.” Hennepin wrote that the Niagara Falls where 600 feet high, but in reality they are 178 feet. As he said that, his contemporaries made them a wonder of the world. Since our days this glory stands and it takes about 12 million people a year visit the “thundering waters”, so the translation of the native (Inuit) word Niagara. It´s not surprising that the area around the Niagara Falls had become a tourist place. For american bride and groom Niagara had become that, what was Venice for european freshly married couples: the “honeymoon destination” number one. Nobody knows exactly why. But today, the hotel industry expects about a hundret thousand couples a year and offer many honeymoon – specials. Oscar Wilde, the british cynic comments on this spectacle: “The Niagara Falls must be the second big disapointment about the american merriage.” Well, he is surely wrong with the natural flair of the Niagara Falls. There where some ideas to use the water for energy, actually a part of the water is flowing into a tunnel and drives a turbine (on). But most of the waters are flowing in the ravine without a detour. Canada can afford that. They have more water power than they can use. This country is the biggest water silo (?) in the world, calculated without the frozen water of the icebergs. Approximately 15 percent of the fresh (sweet) water of the whole world is flowing through canadian lakes and rivers, taking 755 000 square kilometers of Canadas landscape. Only calculated with the canadian parts of the grand lakes on the boarders. The biggest lakes in Canada are: 1. Lake Huron 2. Great Bear Lake – in the north western Territories 3. Lake Superior – on the boarder to the U.S.A. 4. Great Slave Lake – in the north western Territories 5. Lake Winnipeg – in Manitoba. The longest rivers are: 1. Mackenzie river – 4241 kilometers, flowing into the atlantic ocean 2. Yukon river – 3185 kilometers,flowing into the pacific ocean 3. St. Lawrence river – 3058 kilometers, flowing near to the antlantic ocean. In 1959 they opened after 5 years of contructing a water street system, that´s unique in the world. Just five sluices had to been build between Montréal and Lake Ontario, to guarantee that ships with 8,2 meters draught can sail throu the half continent. Already in the years from 1913 to 1932 Canada had build a Canal to sail around the Niagara Falls. The barely known Welland Ship Canal, which had cost 132 million canadian dollars, binds the Lake Erie and the Lake Ontario together. The maximum transport capacity of the whole water street system is 110 million tons a year. In that case a year means eight and a half months, because the St. Lawrence Seaway is blocked with pack ice the rest of the year. The canadian rivers are not just for transport, they also have an economical meaning as water source for agriculture, as “chilling zone” for tourists, as cooling for industrial production and last but not least and as I said for energy production. The most important and the ceapest source of energy is the hydroelectric, where flowing water is transformed to electricity. At the same time it is the most non-polluting energy source. That´s the reason why near almost every river is a hydroelectric power plant. In the eighties the efficiency of these plants where extensive exhausted, the reason why the canadians built fuel plants in insustrial areas, former nuclear power plants. The critical outlook to nuclear power and the technical improvement with the transport over a long route gave hydroelectric power plants a new chance. But gigantic projects in the north of Québec made the enviromentalists wake up. On either side of the timberline The enviromentalists have one Nemesis, the lumberjacks: Who cut trees without thinking, The mosaic of Nations Ever after this country was a multicultural community, since the immigrants splitted up in Natives and Inuit. Demonstrable the Vikings where the first visitors in Canada, a long time before Columbus. Two less academic underpined (substatiated) theories are: In Quebec some scientists found epigraphs on stones, that proably where from libyan sailors, dated long time before Christ´s birth. And about 500 before Christ a chinese monk named Hui Shan landed in todays British Columbia. You can discover, Canda was always a popular destination for many Nations, even if you leave it with the “official” european dicoverer John Cabot. Not only the British and the Irish, even the French made this country a second home for them. Canada is marked by the long lasting british crown colony. The political system, the justice and the scholl system give evidence for that. These three exsamples follow the model of the former mother country. Only the frenchspeaking population could prevent an “over seas England”. In opposite to their american neighbours, who wanted to be a “melting pot of nations”, Canada was worth of being a “mosaic of nations”. The national qualities of all people, that have found a new home between Halifax and Vancouver, should not become a great canadian unity. The different cultures had to be saved and should contribute to the country´s welfare. The government and the lokal administrations are sopporting this. You can see that in one of the cosmopolitan cities of Northamerica, Toronto. On the “Caravan”, an annual procession of the Nationalities in Toronto, more than fifty countries of the immigrants are represented. Rassism is not a big thing in Canada, all different peoples exist in harmony. Besinde the humanitarian point of view of the liberal immigration policy Canada had also economic background. The semingly endless country had to be populated, people that were capable and willing to work where needed. A former minister of the interior of Canada, Sir Clifford Sifton, explained at the parliament why he let so many Ukrainian people immigrant: “In my opinion, a hard working farmer, who was born on a clod and whose ancestors where farmers too for many generations, with a thickset woman and half a dozen of children, that is quality.” Now the criterion and the economic demands had changed. About a quarter million immigrants are now aloud in Canada, splitted up in three groups: Famaliymembers of people who already live in Canada, economy imigrants and asylum-seeker. With 50 000 immigrants the asylum-seeker are the smalest group, here the priorities lie on the humanitarian selection procedures. The canadian political system distinguish the economic immogrants in the ones who want to get educatoion in Canada and businessman, who have to have half a million canadian dollars and that are interrested in invest in 150 00 new workplaces.