> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.onthetrail.info/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The great provincial cross-examination. - URL: https://www.onthetrail.info/latest/the-great-provincial-cross-examination/ - Published: 2026-08-11T11:20:28.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-11T11:20:27.000Z - Description: What really ties us together? Well, here’s a bunch of weird cultural developments that made us laugh. - Author: Blue jay walker - Tags: The Paper Trail As Isaac and I biked across the country we have constantly hammered on about how different the provinces are. We’ve rhapsodized that their being stitched together into one gangly nation only makes sense because of muddy political history and our current desire to not be swallowed up by the unctuous, salivating, angry, boogie monster that lives beneath our bed. We don’t have a concise national identity, anyone who says we do is likely trying to sell you a t-shirt. Most of our provinces don’t see eye to eye, let alone like each other. Our raison d’être seems paltry thin, as unclear as the smoke laden sky that blankets most of the west every summer as we lean into our new national holiday “fire season.” But in our quest for the broad strokes of understanding we’ve glossed over some crucial points which cannot be left unmentioned if we are to claim our research as comprehensive. So, to make amends I have taken it upon myself to provide you with all the consistencies, similarities, and soul-matches that I’ve managed to find across the 10 Canadian provinces we biked through this summer. From the geographical to the spiritual, it may be we discover that Canadians from BC to NFL have more in common than we first believed. [Keep journalism enjoyable! Support journalism that doesn’t depress constantly](#/portal/signup) --- ### West BC is Alberta without the prairies, Saskatchewan is Alberta without BC. In fact, as we cycled the provinces we were often struck by how erroneous the provincial borders were from a purely topological perspective. It was clear sometimes 100s of kilometers before the provincial welcome sign appeared that we were in a wholly new environment. Starting from the left of the map, as we did biking, it makes absolutely zero sense that a dotted line has been struck through the heart of the rocky mountains. There are actual mountain peaks that have been split in half along the jagged schizophrenic border dividing British-Columbia and Alberta. Continuing east, once the foothills finally roll off there is about a day worth of cycling in Alberta that is obviously just Saskatchewan with a political chip on its shoulder. Alberta is the unsteady half breed of its two neighbouring provinces with oil in his pants. He has one foot in the beauty of the mountains and the other in the steady slowness of the prairies. If we were prescribing solutions to this incongruity it would be simple: when Alberta finally does declare separation, beat the states to the punch and annex most of Alberta back into Canada giving the Rockies to BC and the prairies to Saskatchewan while leaving Drumheller to Pierre Poilievre where the separatists can live in peace with the dinosaur bones. On the flipside it could be argued that the beer chugging, dirt-biking, bonfire blazing, culture of the Alberta Boys (TM – non gender specific) exists deep into the interior of so-called BC. Indeed, in terms of slang, style, and political conservatism the interior of BC often looks more like Alberta than it does the coastline and islands. The hippies on Quadra Island and their lesser tech bro yuppie counterparts in Vancouver don’t blend in with the dirtbags of Revelstoke and Golden as much as they may pretend to. So, if Alberta does choose to stay, you could always throw them a bone and give them most of the BC interior, stopping at Kelowna’s wine country. That way their land mass might finally match their outsized ego. ### Center & West Back to the similarities across provinces, when travelling the prairies, you’ll find some easy comparisons. Manitoba is just Saskatchewan but with trees. It follows that Ontario is just Manitoba but with hills and a few more puddles. The first 1000 kilometers of Western Ontario is so unnoticeably different from Manitoba and so festooned with mosquitos that I truly believe you could liposuction it from out of the world map and no one would notice except for the truckers who suddenly spend $500 less when traversing the long province. Frankly they’d be happy for the change. Quebec and BC have a hippie exchange program that has been running for decades. Young Quebecers buy almost-totaled vans and become tree planters that spend their off days competing to see who can get the worst stick-and-poke tattoo. Some of them eventually upgrade from their vans to house boats and settle down to live on one of the gulf islands where they make a living selling crochet shell covers to well-to-do snails. Additionally, the rednecks of Quebec would get along quite well with the rednecks of Alberta, if only they could speak the same language. They both swear like sailors, treat the bush like their personal party central, and believe their province is the best and that it deserves to be its own nation that the rest of Canada still supports with money and taxes and whatever else they desire. ### East New Brunswick is Ontario but with all the money, culture, and vistas sucked out of it. It has just as many hills yet somehow none of the payoff. NB people would bond with Albertans over how much they hate cyclists, as both of them tried their absolute best to knock Isaac off the road at every opportunity. (Specifically Isaac. Because they always biked behind, the cars would try to hit them for ten points, realize that this is a bad idea, and avoid me.) PEI is the funniest province I’ve ever seen. It’s three potato farms and one children’s book and that’s the entire island. They have so much dirt, and so little gravel, that to build anything at all they must have truckloads of rocks shipped in from NB every single day. In this way the bedrock of PEI is slowly becoming NB, one gravel pebble at a time. One day the takeover will be complete as over 50% of all buildings will technically be derived from New Brunswick boulders and at that point PEI will be forced to hand over their political reigns to the other province. Nova Scotia is New Brunswick without the latent traffic-rage. The second you cross the border everyone mellows out and realizes that they don’t actually have anywhere to rush too. They have the friendliness of Newfoundlanders without the impregnable accent, and the marine focused aspirations as well, but without the incredible isolationism brought on by living on a rock at sea. Newfoundland has a secret connection with a province you may not at first be able to guess: Alberta. As Albertas economy continues to boom and bust with the rise and fall of oil sands, gold, and coal mines, one of their largest work force imports comes from The Rock. All the young workers seeking fortune and jacked up trucks head to the oil sands to try their hand at the pipeline. The modern Albertan Hockey-boy dialect which has now leeched its way across the border into BCs interior is just a commercialized version of Newfie slang. The “oh yeah buds”, “just givers”, and profuse swearing have all trickled down from the rigs that are overrun with Newfoundlanders missing The Rock. --- It’s become clear to us as we bike that though the country may not have one large unifying character, every single one of the provinces bleeds into its neighbour, sharing bits of itself until it is hard to tell where one culture ends and the other begins. At this point in our history there’s only one thing we can all actually agree on however and maybe it’s all that we need: Canada is not the United States. I guess under not-it-ism, we are united after all.