Here are 16 interesting facts about Canada:

1. Canada is the second-largest country in the world by land area.
2. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with over 243,000 kilometers of shoreline.
3. Canada has more lakes than any other country, with over 2 million lakes covering about 8% of its land area.
4. The country’s name comes from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.”
5. Canada is home to the world’s oldest known rock, the Acasta Gneiss, which is approximately 4.01 billion years old.
6. The country has six time zones: Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern, Atlantic, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
7. Canada is home to the world’s longest street, the Trans-Canada Highway, which spans over 7,800 kilometers.
8. The country has a vast array of wildlife, including bears, moose, wolves, and beavers.
9. Canada is the world’s largest producer of maple syrup, accounting for over 70% of global production.
10. The country has a diverse population, with over 20% of Canadians being foreign-born.
11. Canada has two official languages: English and French.
12. The country is home to the world’s largest freshwater island, Manitoulin Island, located in Lake Huron.
13. Canada has a strong reputation for its natural beauty, with many famous attractions like Niagara Falls, Banff National Park, and the Canadian Rockies.
14. The country has a thriving arts and culture scene, with numerous museums, galleries, and festivals.
15. Canada is known for its friendly and welcoming people, with a high standard of living and a strong social safety net.
16. Canada is no one’s 51st State 🇨🇦

The scientific name Nessiteras rhombopteryx may look more or less like any other. As with many Linnaean labels, the species name rhombopteryx references the creature’s overall appearance — in this case, its diamond-shaped fins. But there’s one key difference here: The creature it describes doesn’t exist (probably). Nessiteras rhombopteryx, or “Ness monster with diamond-shaped fins,” is the proposed taxonomic moniker of the Loch Ness monster, also known as Nessie. As a brief cryptozoology refresher, Nessie is a fabled reptilian monster believed to reside in a lake called Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. For nearly a century, people have scoured the lake with binoculars, sonar, and other equipment, hoping to glimpse this anachronistic plesiosaur. Although “confirmed sightings” number more than a thousand, no specimen has ever been captured and cataloged. 

And that last part is important. Usually, for a species to receive a scientific name, scientists must have a “voucher specimen” in hand for future reference. However, in a non-peer-reviewed article in the December 1975 issue of Nature, U.S. researcher Robert Rines and British naturalist Sir Peter Scott put forward the name Nessiteras rhombopteryx based on only photographs and sonar data. In the article, the authors argued that “recent British legislation makes provision for protection to be given to endangered species; to be granted protection, however, an animal should first be given a proper scientific name.” In other words, the scientists had to give Nessie a name to save it (if “it” exists at all). 

Although the legend of Nessie is beloved throughout Scotland (bringing in tourist dollars never hurts), not everyone was sold on giving the mythical elusive plesiosaur an air of scientific credibility. About a week after the name’s announcement in December 1975, a Scottish MP rebuffed the pseudo-scientific endeavor, saying there just might be a reason why “Nessiteras rhombopteryx” is an anagram for “Monster Hoax by Sir Peter S.”

Have you ever had a sneaking suspicion that you’re experiencing a scenario that’s already happened? Then you’ve dealt with déjà vu. The term is (as you may have guessed) French, and the literal translation means “already seen.” But in everyday life, déjà vu refers to the weird feeling you get when you’re in a situation that feels like you’ve already lived it, and are somehow living it again.

Research shows that there’s a direct relation between déjà vu and seizures. Specifically, the phenomenon is linked to temporal lobe epilepsy and has been described in people with a known medical history of the condition.

But plenty of people have experienced déjà vu who don’t have a history of epilepsy or seizures. In healthy people, déjà vu is believed to be caused by a memory mismatch, where a new experience is stored in long-term memory and completely bypasses the short-term memory. In this scenario, you have that weird sensation that you’ve been through an experience before when in reality, it’s just your brain’s memory system having a glitch.

There are also other causes of déjà vu that might have more to do with your daily habits than your medical history. One of the most common causes of déjà vu is being overly distracted. Sleep deprivation is another. If you’re walking through life in a perpetual sleep-deprived haze, you might feel like you’re reliving experiences when in truth, you’re just too exhausted to parse reality from dreams.

By 1944, 40% of U.S. produce came from victory gardens.

In the spring of 1942, a new problem was emerging in wartime America: food shortages. Most commercial crops were sent overseas to the troops, and anything left over couldn’t be distributed to civilians around the country due to wartime supply chain complications. Food rationing was implemented to remedy the situation, but it did little to curb the hunger pangs of millions of Americans, who turned to a food production plan that had emergeddecades earlier during World War I. In March 1917, the National War Garden Commission encouraged private citizens to “sow the seeds of victory” and grow produce to feed people at home and abroad. School grounds, vacant lots, and backyards were transformed into bountiful gardens, which became known as “victory gardens.” 

Victory gardens came back bigger and better than ever during WWII, succeeding thanks to the cooperation of schools, government agencies, businesses, and private civilians. The movement was heavily promoted by the government through propaganda posters and messages, and although victory gardens weren’t mandated, many Americans embraced the idea as a patriotic duty. It didn’t take long for millions of victory gardens to sprout up around the country, producing bushels of carrots, kale, lettuce, beans, cabbage, and other veggies. The gardens came in all shapes and sizes, from tiny window boxes to grow a few tomato plants to large community plots that could feed several families — every bit helped. By 1944, a year before the end of the war, an estimated 20 million victory gardens had produced around 8 million tons of food for U.S. troops and civilians. Even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted one right on the White House lawn. 

Given that the United States was born amid an anti-monarchical fervor, it’s fitting that the sole royal palace within its confines is located more than 4,700 miles from the nation’s capital. There, amid the high rises and palm trees of downtown Honolulu, stands Iolani Palace, the home of Hawaii’s 19th-century royal dynasty. 

After King David Kalākaua rose to power in 1874, he elected to tear down the deteriorating coral block building that housed his predecessors and erect an ostentatious new home in a style that reflected the grand palaces he had visited while touring Europe some years prior. The “Merrie Monarch” went through three architects to get the residence he craved, winding up with a concrete-facing brick structure marked by six towers and open-air verandas stretching around all sides. The interior featured the lavish Throne Room, State Dining Room, and Blue Room to entertain dignitaries, along with a massive koa wood staircase to the private chambers of the second floor. Additional luxuries like indoor plumbing and a telephone pushed the final bill into the neighborhood of $350,000 before the palace opened in 1879, and that was beforeelectricity was installed in the late 1880s.

Unfortunately, this display of extravagance served Hawaii’s rulers for just over a decade. Kalākaua’s sister and successor, Lili’uokalani, was deposed in an 1893 couporchestrated by American businessmen, and the palace became the offices of the provisional, territorial, and then state governments until 1969. Reopened to the public as a museum in 1978, Iolani Palace serves as a reminder of Hawaii’s days as a sovereign nation, as well as America’s complicated history with monarchies.

Unicorns

The rare, magical unicorn was once thought of as native to India, although it also appears in Chinese myths and Mesopotamian artwork. The first Western account of the unicorn comes from the Greek writer Ctesias, who wrote a book on India based on stories he had heard from traders and other visitors to the Persian court. His book described a creature with a white body, purple head, and blue eyes, plus a long horn of red, white, and black. In later accounts, the unicorn is described as the size of a goat, with a beard, spiraled horn, and lion’s tail. Although no fossils of any unicorn-like creatures have been found, they were apparently real animals to ancients like Pliny the Elder, who wrote in detail about their supposed behavior and characteristics.

By the Middle Ages, unicorns were the subject of an elaborate body of folklore. They were said to be pure white and to dwell in forests, where flowers sprung up wherever they grazed. Because of their purity, they were associated with both the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. A unicorn’s horn — called an alicorn — was powerful medicine, able to purify water and detect poison. Royals drank from cups supposedly made from unicorn horns, but in fact often made from narwhal tusks sold by enterprising Viking traders. (At one point, the King of Denmark believed he had a unicorn-horn throne, but later scholars think it, too, was made from narwhal tusks.) Powdered unicorn horn was also a popular item in apothecary shops.

Because they were symbols of strength and nobility as well as purity, unicorns also frequently appeared on heraldic crests. In fact, the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland, where it has been part of the royal coat of arms since the 1500s. Another famous unicorn depiction is in the unicorn tapestries of France, which were produced in the late Middle Ages and still fascinate scholars today.

Dec. 25, is Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Yehoshua, a poor Jewish carpenter’s son, in the back­water Hebrew village of Bet Lehem south of Jerusalem just over 2,024 years ago.

The early church placed the date of the nativity on the 14th of the month Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, around the Fast of the Firstborn, which falls in March or April of the modern Gregorian calendar, depending on the lunar and solar year. Various churches throughout the Roman Empire used different dates coordinating with local festivals.

As the early church gained followers, power and political clout in the Roman Empire, it became Christianity’s second holiest day after Easter.

Around A.D. 200, most churches had moved the date to Dec. 25, conveniently coinciding with Roman winter solstice festivals of Saturnalia, Sigillaria and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” commonly observed by Roman citizens. It fell on the shortest day the year, symbolically making Yehoshua the Christ, or the bringer of light, and falling about nine months after Nisan.

While moving the birth date of a historical figure seems odd to us now, it was not so to the Romans, who worshipped a pantheon of gods in the state religion and regularly moved holy days based on the calendar’s conve­nience. Most ancient people just counted themselves a year older based on the seasons, with actual “birth days” a more modern convention.

After the church sect formerly led by Yehoshua’s brother Ya’akov, aka St. James the Just, was annihilated by the Romans in the Siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the splinter church sect founded by St. Paul in Rome became dominant. As more and more Gentiles joined the small Jewish commu­nities founded and guided by Pauline teachings and trans­formed it into Christianity, the Pauline church expanded to pagan regions of Europe and beyond. Consequently, local converts incorporated their traditions into the holiday.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the church was the one cultural remnant holding Europe together during the Dark Ages, making religious festivals ever more important.

Most of the Western world still used the Julian calendar during and after the fall of Rome, dating years after the Roman consul in power, imperial regnal dates based on the year of the Roman emperor’s reign or year since the founding of the city of Rome in 753 B.C.

The Western World still looked to the Byzantine emperors for calendar dates after Rome fell to the Goths.

In what is now A.D. 525, Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus proposed a new calendar dating system based on the assumed birth date his savior. The new calendar was used throughout Christianized Europe by A.D. 800. The Gospels cite the reign of Roman client king Herod the Great and the Roman census of Judea occurring at the time of the Nativity. The Census of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, Roman governor of Syria, took place in 6 or 7 B.C. and Herod died in 4 B.C., so Dionysius Exiguus’ calendar is four to six years off.

During the Reformation, pastors of Protestant churches on the continent and “low” Church of England congrega­tions resisted excessive celebrations, seeing the events as “too papist” as they emphasized pomp and circumstance. Meanwhile, those in “high” Anglican churches still ecclesi­astically near the Roman Catholic Church from which they had broken in the 16th century encouraged grander celebra­tions of their savior’s birth.

Early iconoclastic Puritans, first in England and later in the American Colonies, often imposed bans on Christmas celebrations, which eventually relaxed as other religious minorities moved to the colonies and divisions became less intensely scrutinized.

Many people for whom Christianity is a framework but not a lifestyle choice no longer attend services regularly. For many, Christmas is the once-a-year visit to the local church for a nativity scene, a sermon and a candlelit fare­well while singing Christmas hymns.

Santa Claus has a much longer tradition around Christmastime. He has his roots in Germanic and Norse folklore. The Norse God-king Odin, in the guise of a blue-cloaked and bearded old man, would ride through the sky on his eight-legged warhorse Sleipnir and deliver gifts during the darkest nights of winter.

In our secular culture where religious affiliation has grown less important, the holiday is merely a reason to gather with family and celebrate our relationships to each other with gift-giving.

Deep down, we all love friends and family, but having a holiday to wrap it around makes it easier to show our true colors, our deeply held love of those nearest to us, without suspicion of ulterior motives. We all have big hearts and a selfless love for our neighbors, but wrapping it up in a shiny red bow lets the rest of the world accept that fact with the same joy with which we give it.

Christopher Fox Graham

When Marco Polo saw a rhinoceros, he thought it was a unicorn.

The unicorn is a fanciful being of purity usually depicted in medieval art and literature (and modern fantasy and pop culture) as a dainty white horse or goatlike creature with a majestic horn. So when the famed Venetian explorer Marco Polo, who traveled throughout Asia from around 1271 to 1295, saw a “unicorn” up close during his travels in what is now Indonesia, he was disappointed — to say the least. “Their hair is like that of a buffalo … It is a hideous beast to look at, and in no way like what we think and say in our countries,” Polo wrote in his diary. “Indeed, I assure you that it is quite the opposite of what we say it is.” 

What Polo had actually spottedwas likely the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), the smallest rhino species in the world, and the only rhino with “hair like that of a buffalo.” That’s because the Sumatran rhino is the closest living relative of the now-extinct woolly rhinoceros, which lived during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. Unicorns and rhinos had long had a garbled association in the European mind — the earliest account of a unicorn, from the Greek physician and historian Ctesias, seems based on a rhinoceros, and the word “unicorn” itself evolved out of an ancient game of telephone involving an animal described in the Bible by the Hebrew re’em and confused accounts of the rhinoceros.

Despite its name, the Sumatran rhino used to have a native range that stretched across central and southeast Asia. Today, scientists estimate that there are fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, and most — if not all — live on protected lands. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund are working with governments to protect the rhinos and fight the poaching and other crimes that contribute to their dwindling numbers. After all, the world has marveled at the creature for hundreds of years — and it deserves a chance at survival, even if some people have said it’s a “hideous beast to look at.”