Forum:Canada in Atlantis

I don't believe we've ever discussed this. I know I've never brought it up, though it did stand out for me last winter when I read the Atlantis short stories.

In TSB, Helms makes mention of the "Dominion of Ontario" in discussion with La Strada. From the context of the comment and La Strada's response, it becomes clear that this Dominion is, like OTL Canada, a parliamentary democracy/constitutional monarchy that shares its monarch with the UK--Victoria in this case.

Now when the Dominion of Canada was created in 1867, only two provinces were developed enough to have any real clout in interprovincial pissing matches: Ontario and Quebec. If the maps on the novel covers can be trusted, at least part of Quebec would appear to be on the Atlantean landmass, and at any rate different colonization patterns and a different Seven Years' War most likely conspired to preclude the formation of a Quebec as we know it, though we can say so little about Terranova with any degree of absolute certainty. I would guess that, in the absence of a Quebecois rival, Ontario so dominated the federation that the whole country took its name.

Seems straightforward enough, but there is reference in one of the stories--I don't remember which, though if I had to guess I'd say AiA, since it concerns birds--to "Canada geese." It might be an inconsistency, like when Helms mentions tobacco even though every other Atlantis story calls it pipeweed. If the comment was in AiA, it might be that the entity in question was reorganized/renamed in the intervening years, as happened in OTL, too. But I'm wondering if there might be a region within the Dominion of Ontario called Canada, or whether Ontario encompasses no more territory than the OTL province and Canada is something else altogether--whether Britain's Terranovan holdings never consolidated, in other words. This could make sense: Part of the reason for the first BNA was to prepare for the eventuality of a US invasion after the ACW showed that the US had the potential to dominate all of North America militarily. Terranova contains no comparable potential hegemon, so British colonists would feel no need to circle the wagons (unless maybe they wanted to try to dominate the continent themselves?), and Turtledove has a similar dynamic defeat Canadian confederation in DSA.

Or maybe Canada is a province within the Dominion of Ontario: From 1841 to consolidation there was a Province of Canada (sometimes called "United Canada") which encompassed territory roughly conforming to the modern borders of Ontario and Quebec. Ironically, when this province lent its name to the whole country, it lost its application to the province. In 1841 it was created by consolidating two colonies known as Upper and Lower Canada. Much of Upper Canada was located near the ancient fault line that HT used to separate Atlantis from Terranova, so it's easy to imagine that there was only ever Lower Canada, and if there's only the one it wouldn't have been given a name like "Lower Canada," but simply "Canada."

Meanwhile there's another colony called Ontario, or perhaps just a region, which lends its name to the nation as a whole? I really don't know. Anyone care to speculate? Turtle Fan 19:57, June 20, 2011 (UTC)