15th February: Canada Flag Day

Today is Canadian Flag Day. Here are 10 lesser known facts about Canada:

1. Canada had existed as a country for 100 years before it got its own flag, the 11 pointed maple leaf on a white square, in 1965. Before that it used the British flag.
2. Canada got its name through a mistake in translation. The name Canada comes from an Iroquoian word, "kanata" meaning settlement or village. When French Explorer Jaques Cartier arrived in the country, local people invited him to their kanata, ie, their village, but Cartier's party thought it was their name for the country.
3. Canada is the second largest country in the world. In fact, it is bigger than the entire European Union put together. It even has national parks which are bigger than countries: Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories is bigger than Albania and Israel. Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta and the Northwest Territories is bigger than Denmark and Switzerland.
4. Yonge Street in Ontario is the longest street in the world - 2000 kilometers. Canada also has the longest highway in the world - the Trans-Canada Highway which is over 7604 kilometers (4725 miles) long. A third longest record is that Canada has the longest coastline in the world at 202,080 kilometers. The border between it and the USA is the longest unprotected national boundary in the world.
5. At the other extreme, the world's smallest prison is in Ontario, and measures only 24.3 sq metres.
6. The most northern permanently inhabited place in the world is in Canada - Alert, Nonavut. It is just 817 kilometers from the North Pole. It isn't a town, as such, but a home to military and scientific personnel while they are working in the area. The area of Nonavut is home to fifty percent of the world's polar bears. At one time, vehicles registered there would have Polar Bear shaped licence plates.
7. On the subject of Bears, a bear cub called Winnipeg was exported to London Zoo in 1915, where a little boy called Christopher Robin Milne fell in love with him and used to call him "Winnie" for short. So Winnie the Pooh was named after a Canadian bear.
8. The only walled city in North America is in Canada - Quebec City's walls were built by the French in the 17th century. The walls now form part of a UNESCO World heritage site.
9. It can get very cold in Canada. The coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was in Canada. A temperature of -63 C (-81.4 F) was recorded in the small village of Snag on February 3, 1947, which is roughly the same temperature as the surface of Mars.
10. Canada also has a desert. It's in British Columbia, is 15 miles long, and is the only desert in the world which has a boardwalk for tourists to walk on.