Why America's North is Emptier Than Canada's South

As European who never even thought about Montana, I can confidently say that this information will be very useful to me.

I live in a city with a population of over 250,000 people in Japan. People often ask me how I feel about living in the “countryside.” I always pull out Google maps and ask them to pick any spot in the middle of the US and zoom in so I can show them what “countryside” actually means. It’s hard for them to imagine how empty that area is when they are just used to images from movies.

I lived in Montana for about 4 months, we drove from the east coast it was about 39 hours of driving and when we hit Montana at one point we drove for about 5 HOURS without seeing a single car and when night fell it felt like we where driving into a endless void because it was so pitch black. I was terrified of dear I kept falling asleep and jumping up. With all that said, Montana is by far THE most beautiful state I've ever been to, and we didn't even go to yellow stone or glacier. I was in constant awe of the grandeur and beauty of the vast mountains and endless fields.

Here in Winnipeg the closest major city to our south is Minneapolis which is a nearly 8 hour drive. It really feels like you're on an island of civilisation in the middle of an ocean of farmland out here. It always confused me why this is the case but now it makes a lot more sense.

It’s great to finally have a clip about geography

A year ago, I never thought I spend 30 mins glued to my screen learning about why Montana is empty...

A couple of months ago I flew back and forth between Seattle and St. Louis. I had a window seat both ways and the sky was cloudless for 80% of the trips. I looked out the window almost the entire time. Once I left the two anchor cities, I literally did not see one town with more than a dozen or two houses in it. I was wondering how this could be the case in a country with 330,000,000 people in it. Now I know why.

It's also worth noting that the main railway and highway system in Canada roughly straddle the US border, so in a way the southern edge is the economic centre of Canada. Edmonton is the most obvious outlier here. The Canadian shield is a truly inhospitable but beautiful set of places. If you have to drive between Eastern and Western Canada without transiting through the USA you have to go through some of the most desolate and amazing places it's possible to see.

Albertan here - I cant believe how much I'm learning here. I've heard of things like Aspen-Parkland and Pallisers Triangle, but I'd never put together what it all means and how it impacts settlement, land use, and our economy. I did always wonder why Alberta supported two cities over a million while Montana had nothing. Thank you for this!

As a Canadian living in the corridor we're taught that even with all the factors you mentioned, Alberta is still pretty empty. I had no idea the north midwestern states are even EMPTIER than that.

I'm a long time fan of your videos and I was so impressed and happy that you made a video about my home! I'm from Edmonton, Alberta and I can say that yes, it is a great place to live. Despite the colder months, we have nice and long days during the summer and some of the best festivals in the world. Thanks for making this great video!

It's also fun to mention that since the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is so densely populated, interconnected and wealthy, there are serious considerations to build high-speed rail there. Imagine driving up from Montana and seeing that!

It’s quite shocking to discover that my whole life was basically summed up by this video: a migrant to Alberta, whose family are ethic Ukrainians settled in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, who moved to Edmonton Alberta for a job in the energy sector. And here I’ve always thought I was a special snowflake 😂

As an Albertan, I’ve always wondered why this is the case. Needless to say, I appreciate your coverage of the topic

As someone who lives on a island in the south pacific this information is useless to me but yet here i am

As an Albertan it was heartwarming to hear someone say something positive about us for once. Thankee 😊

It's also worth noting that the Canadian region in this video is dramatically growing in population too. Both in big cities and rural cities. Mostly through immigration.

I lived in North Dakota for 5 years and most of the time I lived there I just assumed that there was nothing but barren wasteland north of me because that was what I was surrounded by. I was quite surprised to notice that there were large cities north of me and always wondered what the cause of that was. This video definitely satisfied the curiosity I've carried for years.

As a Canadian here, Alberta is continuing to grow so fast bc Vancouver and Toronto are so expensive to live in. People who move out of Alberta to live in BC or ON, end up moving back bc it's just not affordable sadly

I really appreciate watching this video as somebody from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Very few people are really aware of the unique geography we have here, and because it in large part lacks the flashy and romanticized terrain of BC and Alberta to our west, it is often disregarded as plain and boring to people. I also appreciate the depth you went into regarding where many of the inhabitants of this area came from. Like you touched on in the video, my ancestors fled here from Ukraine during the Bolshevik revolution essentially because of a genocide being committed against them. Unfortunately, as a result of that, as well as Canada's own cultural genocide against Indigenous people here (the prairies have some of the largest proportions of Indigenous people in Canada), there is a lot of generational trauma and subsequent mental health and addiction issues around here.