It would be a great place to play outdoors in the summer. But summer’s only reliably about 10 weeks long.

We had to genetically engineer wheat in order to grow it fast enough to avoid frost damage. It’s really fucking cold on the Canadian prairies.

That’s a huge pet peeve of mine. I hate seeing penguins on Christmas stuff.

Britain was conscripting US sailors to fight Napoleon, and the US was pissed about that. So, they invaded Canada to use that as a bargaining chip against the British.

The invasion of Canada was a spectacular failure, with almost every major battle taking place on US territory (if the front is in your country, you’re not winning). But, the British were also unable to capture any territory from the US, despite a very successful blockade of US ports.

With Napoleon defeated, the British were able to bring their full military might to bear against the US. The Duke of Wellington was asked to take command in Canada, and he wrote, in a letter to the Prime Minister, that sending him to Canada would be a huge waste of time. As he said it, the line defined by the great lakes couldn’t be passed by either side without naval superiority on those lakes, but neither side had any chance of achieving that. He did, however, suggest that capturing New Orleans might allow the British to trade it back to the US in exchange for Maine.

Despite Wellington’s assurances, the British shipped 20,000 soldiers to Montreal, who did no good at all, because the front was simply too big for either side to do anything with.

And then they negotiated peace.

So, if the US goal was to get the British to stop conscripting their sailors, that did happen, but mostly because after Napoleon was defeated the British had no need for American sailors.

The war basically served no purpose at all save to give us something to laugh at. We’re taking about battles involving literally dozens of men with maybe 4 cannons to a side.

Canadians take far too much pride in that war (mostly for having burned down the White House).