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Most people do not know very much about Canada. Mention the country and usually one of the two images will spring up to mind. On the one hand, you might picture a sparsely populated, frozen country where people live in igloos, eat fish, hunt bears and constantly endure snow and cold. On the other hand, you might think Canada is a country that is "just like America" . Even Americans are inclined to think of Canada as the 51 st state, a part of America that through some quirk of history is not one of the United States’ states.
It is easy to understand how such misleading impressions of Canada have been engraved. It is true that most of Canada lies very far north. Large tracts of the country are wild, virtually unpopulated Arctic tundra, full of dangerous animals and freezing temperatures. But most Canadians live in the south of the country, along the 49th parallel: about 90 percent of the population is estimated to live in within a few hundred kilometers of the Canadian-American border, in a climate that is much less extreme.
Canadians and Americans are friendly neighbors, and Canadians frequently visit the US to do such mundane things as buy cigarettes and alcoholic drinks and gas for their cars--these things are less expensive in the US, where government taxes are lower. Most Canadians speak American-sounding English, eat hamburgers, wear jeans, play baseball and enjoy American television shows. And nowadays, many "American" TV shows and movies are actually filmed on location in Canadian cities and towns, which can look just like the US, but where labor costs are lower. It is no surprise that people often assume that Canadians are just like Americans.