150 Little Known Canadian Facts #13

85.  Pincher Creek, AB, experienced a Chinook in 1962 that changed the temperature from -19° C to 22° C in just one hour. To date, this is the fastest and largest temperature change on record in Canada.

86.  If you want to lose weight without exercising or dieting, head to the Hudson Bay Region. The gravity there is less than most other places on Earth—one-tenth of an ounce to be exact. This lower gravity was discovered in the 60s, and the widely accepted hypothesis among scientists to explain it has to do with the last ice age and the Laurentian Ice Sheet. The ice sheet was over 3 kms thick, and it pushed down the rock quite far and reduced its mass. The rocks are still recovering from this pressure.

87.  PEI used to have a ban on pop cans, the only type of ban of its kind in North America. Between 1984 and 2008, a person had to purchase refillable glass bottles for all carbonated drinks.

88.  According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2016, Canada is the ninth least corrupt country in the world. Ahead of Canada from first to eighth are Denmark, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Singapore. The U.S. ranked 16^th.

89.  According to Canada’s National Household Survey (NHS) of 2011, 6.7 million Canadians are foreign-born and arrived in this country between 2006 and 2011.

90.  Canada is home to approximately 2 million caribou and 15,000 of the world’s 25,000 polar bears. As for our national symbol the beaver, which has represented Canada for 300 years before it was official in 1975, no official numbers can be found for the Canadian beaver population, but it’s said that pre-fur trade there used to be approximately six million and by the end of the 19^th century, there were about 100,000. Today, there are approximately 10 million across North America.

91.  In 1823, Sir John A. Macdonald was elected president of the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, now known as Manulife Insurance.

92.  Canadians love their beer. As of 2015, according to Beer Canada we drink around 63 litres per person of Canadian and imported beer a year. In total, that comes to about 22 million hectolitres drunk every year of which 84% is Canadian brewed. And with all that consumed beer, there are a lot of empty bottles, and about 99% were returned for recycling.