To celebrate Canada Day, I thought it would be appropriate to present some fun facts about Canada that will make you look at our beautiful country in a whole new way. For example, did you know that we produce more maple syrup than any other country? Or that our official phone number is 1-800-0-Canada? Find out more fun and interesting facts below.

Canada has the most lakes

Did you know we have more lakes than every other country in the world? Of our 3 million lakes, 563 are larger than 100 square kilometres. The Great Lakes alone contain about 18 percent of the world’s fresh lake water.

It’s as cold as Mars

If you’ve ever had to chisel your car out of snow and ice, you know Canada can get pretty cold in the winter. The average low for the month of January in Ottawa is -14.4ºC (6.1ºF). However, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Canada was in the small village of Snag on February 3, 1947, at -63ºC (-81.4ºF). That’s roughly the same temperature as the surface of Mars.

All letters to Santa Claus come here

It doesn’t matter whether you send Santa a letter from New Zealand or Zimbabwe for Christmas, it ends up in Canada. Santa’s official address is Santa Claus, North Pole HOH OHO. Volunteers reply to millions of letters each year in over 30 languages.

Low gravity

Did you know that areas around the Hudson Bay region have lower gravity than other parts of the world? Scientists believe this is caused by a combination of convection occurring in the Earth’s mantle and the Laurentide Ice Sheet. which left an indent on the area after it melted 10,000 years ago. The indent has been slowly rebounding, scientists say, and could be responsible for the “missing” gravity.

The largest underground mall

Underneath the city of Toronto, is a system of pedestrian walkways called PATH connecting 1200 stores and restaurants, 50 office towers, 20 parking garages, 5 subway stations and a railway station. With 30 km of walkways, it is the largest underground shopping complex according to the Guinness World Records.

Canada has the longest coastline in the world

If you walked and never stopped to eat, rest your feet, or even sleep, it would take you four and a half years to walk the length of Canada’s coastline. We’re bordered on three sides by three different oceans: the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific. To put that in perspective, Canada has 202,080 km of earth’s 356,000 km of oceanfront property. The only other country that even comes close is Indonesia, which has a total of 54,716 km of coastline.

Manitoba has a lot of snakes

Are you into reptiles? Want to see more snakes than you’ve seen at once anywhere else in the world? Head to Manitoba’s Narcisse Snake Pits. Twice a year, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes head to the surface of their winter dens to mate. The ritual lasts two to three weeks before they head off into local marshes.

The only walled city in North America

Quebec City has a special feature that makes it unique in Canada and the US: it has walls. Quebec City is the only city north of Mexico that still has fortified walls — known as the Fortifications of Quebec. First the French and later the English built up Quebec City’s fortifications between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Quebec’s entire historic district, including the ramparts, has since been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Canadians eat a lot of mac and cheese

When it comes to the consumption of boxed Kraft Dinner, Canadians eat a whopping 55% more per year than Americans do. Out of the 7 million boxes of mac and cheese sold weekly around the world, Canadians purchase 1.7 million of them.

---

Sources: http://globalnews.ca/news/2084556/5-odd-facts-about-canada/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/missing-gravity.htm
http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/postalservices/a/writesanta.htm
http://www.purecanadamaple.com/pure-maple-syrup/facts-about-maple-syrup
http://www.foodrepublic.com/2013/02/21/why-do-canadians-eat-so-much-kraft-mac-n-cheese/