This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Heidi Vlach discusses time as a measurement of distance in Canada.
Time as a measurement of distance in Canada by Heidi Vlach
For a lot of Canadians, an hour is a measurement of distance. Technically impossible, but it's true.
I hadn't thought it was strange until I had to explain it a few times to visiting Europeans. Canada is the second largest country in the world, with a population of only 35 million people peppered across all this space. Major cities are hundreds of kilometres away from each other. Practically speaking, exact distance to a destination doesn't matter -- it only matters how long the travel will take. So while the road signs say that Sudbury is 386 kilometres away from Toronto, most people here will tell you that Toronto is "four hours" away. That's approximately how long it'll take to drive 386 kilometres, after all. Why nitpick?
But it runs deeper than that. Metric measurement is the official Canadian standard (hence all the road signs giving kilometre measurements). That standard was only introduced in 1971 and it wasn't unanimously supported. Many older adults are more comfortable with imperial units -- the units they grew up learning. Ask an anglophone Canadian their height and they'll probably give you a feet-and-inches measure. Changing the national standard of measure doesn't happen overnight. Even now, many product labels still list two forms of measurements (e.g. millilitres and ounces), in the same way labels are written in both national languages, English and French. Just because metric is the technical standard doesn't mean everyone needs to be forced to use it in daily life.
Because of this, I grew up with my teachers using metric (mostly) and my family using imperial (mostly). A lot of American media spills over the border, so American TV shows added to my tendency to use imperial. I prefer nice logical centimetres if I'm measuring out a sewing project, but if I look at a person to guess their height, I understand it much better in the "five foot however-many-inches" terminology I hear on a daily basis. I wasn't taught a standard system so much as I was taught a particular state of cultural shift.
Many people of my generation show their cultural shift in the same centimeters-and-feet pattern as me, and I've never known an older adult to find it strange. Like a lot of things in the Canadian mosaic culture, measurement units are mostly a matter of personal preference. And if a Canadian doesn't remember exactly how far 100 kilometres is, they probably at least know the kilometers-to-miles ratio they need to estimate the answer. Everyone manages to get along and not sweat the details too much.
So I'm fairly sure hours are used to measure distance because that allows all Canadians an easy compromise. Everyone knows how long an hour is. And unless you drive at an unusual speed, everyone takes approximately four hours to travel from Sudbury to Toronto. With that out of the way, we can all get back to discussing the weather.
Heidi C. Vlach lives in northern Ontario, Canada.
Thanks for this, Heidi - in fact, we in CA (and, I hear, in the Pacific Northwest as well) use time for distance in this way. However, I think it's very interesting to note the contrast with Europe. In Japan, too, I found that people don't equate time with distance in this way.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for having me, Juliette! Interesting that Americans use this turn of phrase, too. I'm wondering if the size of the country and population density have something to do with it. A place with close-packed cities and landmarks might just have more vocabulary for travel than "x hours in one direction".
ReplyDeleteOh, and I thought of another thing that might be relevant - Australia is very metric, but they do still measure height in Imperial inches...and some older people measure weight in stone!
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Montana, we used time as a measurement of distance also, and now that I live in Ontario I find the same thing. But I think Heidi is right; in Chicago we usually describe a location by cross streets or landmark or neighborhood, and the person would have an idea of distance in their head based on those descriptions.
ReplyDeleteThough I know my family uses the whole Vitamin Cottage (favorite grocery store) is twenty minutes away. We only get into cross streets, etc. if there is no equal point of reference to give a time on.
ReplyDeleteML, thanks for mentioning landmarks. That's a big one for many large cities. I know that time isn't a good measurement of distance in Japan in large part because traffic conditions are so variable. At very least, a short distance takes much longer than it would here.
ReplyDeleteIn Norway it's not uncommon to give distance as the time it takes to arrive - usually follow by a statement on the mode of travel; after all an hour by foot is much closer than an hour by car.
ReplyDeleteAn older Norwegian unit of measurement was the "rast", meaning a rest; a suitable distance to walk before you needed a breather. Up in the northernmost parts of Norway the Sami still measures distances in "kaffekok", that is how many times you stop and make a cup of coffee along the way.
I also live (and grew up in) Ontario, but I really only "get" metric units - I can do some soft conversion in my head (inches to centimetres, that sort of thing), but miles and Fahrenheit are an utter mystery . . . .
ReplyDeleteI do a lot of measurement of travel in terms of time, though it gives me problems when conditions force me to travel much slower than normal, especially at night. Then I struggle to keep track of whether I should be approaching my exit soon or not.
ReplyDeleteThen again that mainly applies to places I travel regularly. Or places with much distance and few landmarks. Or both.
ReplyDeleteAustralia has places where a visiting alien researcher would conclude humans either didn't exist or were an endangered species, so small is the population scattered across such vast landscapes.
ReplyDeleteIn these areas, a variation of the distance-as-time measurement is used. Distance is measured in how many cans of beer are drunk during the distance travelled...:)
That's certainly possible, David! I'd want to interview the local population before I take your word for it... Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteTwo thoughts. I'm told that in Europe 100miles is a long distance, while in the U.S., 100 years is a long time.
ReplyDeleteAgain, in Afghanistan, an 18th century king caused caravan-serais (sort of motels with rooms above, kitchen in back and stables for animals underneath the rooms, plus high wall to keep out bandits) to be built "one days camel caravan travel apart" To this day in Afghanistan, people measure distances in 'serais'', which are a variable distance apart (dependent on terrain, etc.)but a standard time.
Unknown, yes, all those measurements are relative to the local cultural contexts. Interesting about Afghanistan. If you have lived there, perhaps you might be interested to contribute to the culture share yourself!
DeleteThis is true for us here in Upstate New York. If you ask us how much farther it is to any given place (except if we don't know where it is) we will give you an estimated amount of time left until your arrival. If you ask us, for example, "how much farther is it to Rochester?" We will say, "about another 1/2 an hour." Instead of, "about 30 more miles." Down by New York City, however, it's different. They measure distance in miles. If you go to New York City and ask, for example, "how much farther is it to Manhattan?" They will tell you, "about another couple miles." Instead of, "about another couple minutes. I think that's because in New York City/Downstate New York, travel times vary too much, whereas here in Upstate New York, travel times are more consistent. For them, it could take 6 minutes to go 6 miles by car, or it could take 3 hours. Whereas for us Upstate New Yorkers it usually only takes 6 minutes to go 6 miles by car
ReplyDeleteHa ha yes I am from upstate NY also and I was going to say the same thing. I always give a drive time as an estimate of distance. I never think twice about it but I think some people here in Georgia where I live now think it is strange.
DeleteThis was a really interesting post! I saw using time to measure distance used as a cultural Canadian thing today, I didn't realize that it wasn't standard to measure using time. The weird imperial/metric hybrid of measurement is something I am all too familiar with; metric for liquids, imperial for weight and height, metric for distance. It's complicated. And I can not do the conversion in my head at all, I have to look it up in order to convert from the two systems. It's chaos.
ReplyDelete