The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/Canada

Part of the Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap Project.

Canada, Rocks and Trees (and Water)

Stubbish, someone should dump in a precis of Canada, preferably light on the moose/meese and the 'eh's.

The Maritimes

Another stub. Oi, we need Newfs! You can't all have gone to Lethbridge!

Newfoundland (and Labrador!)

No real strategic targets of much worth, save for the offshore oil rigs on the Grand Banks. Low population density would probably mean that any attack would only take out >10 000 people. Only real military target would be the airbase at CFB Goose Bay, and even that is small and barely worth a bomb. For survivors, cultural tradition would be extremely helpful. There's a long history of fishing as well as self-sufficiency, and this is ingrained in the local mindset. Anybody coming from the mainland would likely have trouble adapting to the climate, which is sub-optimal for farming, as the growing season is only roughly 3 months long.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is, economically, rather weak. Only a few off-shore oil platforms will be major economic targets. As for military targets, the city of Halifax, although small, has the majority of the country's Naval infrastructure, a large, natural deepwater port, as well as the regional command hub for the military. The provincial capital is also here, making it an even bigger target. CFB Greenwood, the largest airbase on the Atlantic coast is also a major target, being home to a number of airborne ASW and Anti-shipping assets. Finally, due to prevailing wind conditions, a large amount of fallout from the United States can be expected to drift over the province. Short term, Nova Scotia's medical infrastructure will be taxed heavily, most likely to the breaking point due to the large number of cases of radiation sickness. The northern part of the province will be hit especially hard, due to a large number of refugees fleeing south from New Brunswick, and north from the hard-hit regions of the southern part of the province. Over time, the region will recover due to a deep-set tradition of DIY and hospitality, and large coal deposits will allow a faster return to heavy industry than other regions.

New Brunswick

Of all the provinces in the Maritimes, New Brunswick will be the hardest hit. Home to CFB Gagetown, the second largest military base in the entire commonwealth, as well as the port facilities at Saint John, this province houses some very rich military targets. Due to the size of Gagetown, it will likely warrant the use of two or more devices to totally ensure it's destruction. As for economic/infrastructural targets, there is Canada's largest oil refinery in Saint John, along with power generating plants, and the nearby nuclear plant, Point LePreau. In addition there is a large manufacturing base, ranging from plastics and oil based products, structural steel and concrete, and the remains of a former shipyard. Saint John would probably be targetted with two bombs due to the economic infrastructure. There are a small number of mines throughout the province, however these will likely be too small to be targeted by nuclear weapons, instead being fought over by locals as a haven from the large amount of fallout blanketing the region. The city of Fredericton houses the provincial capital. However, it lacks any major tactical targets and will likely be spared. The fallout and shock damaged from the weapons hitting CFB Gagetown, however, will be just as lethal here, due to it's close proximity. Fallout from CFB Greenwood in Nova Scotia is a concern if the wind is from the south east. After the dust settles, much of outer New Brunswick will fare just fine. Due to a large population of outdoorsmen, life will likely go on as normal. The first winter will likely be very rough, but due to local hospitality, many will survive to prepare for the next year. Much of the central province will become a no-mans-land, due to the large quantity of fallout blanketing the region, complicating travel along what remains of the Trans-Canada highway, and will also push most of the survivors north, possibly into Quebec.

Prince Edward Island

Province only slightly larger than this sentence, with very little of anything worth targeting for nuclear weapons. But in all seriousness, stray radioactive fallout could easily poison all of this minuscule province's locally-famous farmland (it's just a small island after all). This would cause the equally miniscule population to abandon the place or die, leaving Anne of Green Gables (one of the province's and Canada's most famous cultural icons) to have a terminal sad.

Eastern Canada

Hmm... I wonder how Toronto would fare. It is a huge (for Canada) city, but... I don't think it has much military, or political importance (on an international stage). It has tons of economic importance, but I don't imagine that be as important for the initial strikes.

Perchance, Toronto doesn't get hit. That would become then a mecca for survivors from both Canada (Ottawa, and our military towns/cities (especially the big ones in Quebec) and the Northern States.

With its access to the Great Lakes and then St. Lawrence (could hit up any surviving US cities along the way) and then Atlantic Ocean and major airports it could become a major Trade city from the get-go. Most likely mainly with ships and not aircraft.

To add to that, it is also incredibly multicultural we could see race riots break out in places like Chinatown as the populace finds out who dropped the bombs.

But lets be real, if someone decided to drop the bombs, Toronto is the New York of Canada. If you really want to fuck your hated enemy up, are you going to use just enough TNT to blow his house up but leave his hat collection in the garage alright? Yea I thought so. (Note from local: Even if Toronto doesn't get hit, the city it overlaps to to the south, Hamilton, will. It's home to major armories, hosts multiple regiments and more importantly has massive steel mills. IRL it was on the target list for the Soviets back in the cold war, there's no chance it won't get a warhead. So Toronto is going to be fairly irradiated regardless of whether or not it gets hit.)

Ontario

North Bay is still the backup NORAD post and, without doubt, the top Canadian target. Toronto houses several military bases and the emergency measures offices are there as well. Base Leitram (part of the whole five eyes deal) and several other active installations are all scattered around Ottawa which, of course, would go. Niagara falls would take it on the chin even if only due to its proximity to US air base and power installation. Airports and other standard doctrine targets mean several other cities would get hit also. Southern Ontario would take it pretty hard. Below is what somebody else wrote:

CFB Trenton is pretty much the only thing worth bombing, and after that they can land on the 401 to grab an apple pie in Colborne. Easy win, and delicious booty.

Quebec

Stub for the Red-Headed Stepchild of the Canadian culture. The poutine in Montreal and Quebec city would melt indeed!

Western Canada

Stub for a summary of western Canada. Bears, trees, little pockets of Canadians surrounded by vast tracks of...Canada. Think of North Dakota enlarged to cover most of western USA.

Manitoba

Stub, likely underwater thanks to the Red River.

Saskatchewan

I'm not a local of Saskatchewan, so perhaps if someone else would like to add to this section, please do so.

Saskatchewan is largely the same as Alberta, but without the large urban centres. It has very little political or economic power, however it produces large amounts of food and has been coined "the breadbasket of the world." Perhaps, if the bomb droppers were totally sadistic, they would drop bombs on the grain fields in order to cut the supply of grain and oilseeds to Canada, the United States, and other locations. More realistically, massive amounts of fallout drifting up from former Minuteman missile batteries (which will be blasted to hell by dozens of Ruskkie ICBM's) will heavily irradiate farmland here, posing a serious threat to its viability for generations after the war. Saskatchewan is much like the prairie states in the US, but is politically moderate.(edit) who ever wrote this is clearly unaware that sask has the largest single uranium deposit on earth and tons of oil and massive reserves of potash and coal. Regina also serves as a transportation hub for lob laws aka Safeway and no name while also having a near 200,000 fatality rate which is about 80% if a bomb over 10 mt were ever dropped.

Alberta

Alberta is a average-sized province (which is to say fcuk-hueg compared to most USA states; it's just a little smaller than Texas) and is fairly resource rich, with vast reserves of oil (both oil sands and the more traditional oil fields), large amounts of natural gas and coal, a fair amount of high-quality farming land and wide grazing lands, very large timber reserves and large supplies of water in northern Alberta (southern Alberta has drought problems occasionally). With the Rocky Mountains to the west, and thousands of miles of plains to the south and east, Alberta would be pretty isolated from world events in the case of a complete collapse of world civilization.

Calgary is notable on a global scale for one major reason. It is a major economic hub in western Canada, being the location of several oil-field company headquarters, major banking nodes and related/dependent businesses. A strike to downtown could decapitate a number of Canadian oil producers and seriously affect commerce and transport in Western Canada, this being the collateral effects to the nearby Trans-Canada highways and railways (the headquarters of the Canadian Pacific Railways Corporation is in Calgary, for example). On the other hand, Edmonton is the provincial capital (legislature, &c). It also happens to be a major nexus of petroleum refining and transport, and one of the few major train bridges that cross the North Saskatchewan river system. Edmonton presently has a single large mixed-forces military garrison on its northern border (CFB Namao), however it previously had several armouries, one major command and control garrison-base (Western Command Greisbach) and the aforementioned CFB Namao, which at the time, was air-force focused. Calgary possessed and possesses currently fewer military resources by comparison.

Politically, Albertans are predominantly fiscally conservative and, unlike some stereotypes, socially moderate. For those who don't know Albertans, think of a stereotypical Texan without the patriotic hubris or racial antagonism (not unlike Austin, TX in some odd ways; Cascadia, yo!; Shut up, it was dumb independence idea in any case). Traditional roles play a major facet in the cultural life, this in part due to the increasing immigration of people from the myriad rural communities to the major cities, which bring rural value structures into the urban centres regularly.

Alberta would definitely be a target during any major war, since it has the world's second-largest oil reserves, beaten only by Saudi Arabia. Due to the size of the province limiting practical foot-travel, and the relative density/concentration of people in the major cities, any survivors would probably flee towards the rural areas of Alberta, being that Alberta is still heavily rural in its land use and dotted with small towns where resources and aid would likely be found.

Were Edmonton (likely due to the presence of CFB Namao), the biggest Canadian military base in the country) or Calgary hit with a nuclear explosion, the loss of life would not be as great as most other cities, as both cities have only a population of around a million people. With wide city sprawl, it would take multiple small yield weapons to guarantee destruction. However, both cities have marked suburban sprawl, so firestorms would be likely considering the common 'matchstick' construction practices in western Canada. Fallout would be distributed widely due to the strong winds which blow across the prairies and probably sucked into the jet-stream that blows across North America.

Civilization would survive in the cities in the case of limited destruction, but would probably devolve to a rural-based decentralized style of government if there was no central control from Edmonton or any other major city (highly probable; the provincial disaster plans include a gov't fail-over/relocation contingencies to many of the major cities). Depending of the level of destruction, Edmonton would probably remain the capital, although this would likely devolve to Red Deer (a smaller city roughly half-way between Edmonton and Calgary) in the case of an urban decapitation strike taking out the major cities.

British Columbia

I'm not a local of BC, so if you are please add and fix this part of the article.

Vancouver would probably be the main target of a nuclear weapon attack in Canada. It is Canada's only major Pacific seaport, and is one of the most commercially advanced cities on the Pacific rim. It is a high-density city, however, and a nuclear weapon would cause a lot of damage. Vancouver is similar to [1], and were both to survive the apocalypse, they would probably find themselves in a mutual protection pact of sorts. Vancouver has a number of prime industrial targets that may also be hit. This includes the Burnaby Oil Refinery, The port of Metro Vancouver, and various ferry terminals. The Seaspan shipyard is another possible target as nuclear-capable subs and ships could be repaired here. The Coquihalla highway is another possible target as it is a main trading route with the rest of Canada. Vancouver Island hosts CFB Esquimalt, the pacific fleet is there, as well as CFMETR. Also CFB Comox, a prime target. All International Airports such as Vancouver International, Victoria International and Abbotsford International would be viable targets since they could be used as Emergency Air Bases for both the Canadian and the U.S.A.F. since McChord AFB in Seattle, Fairchild AFB in Spokane and Whidbey Island NAS would all be destroyed. British Columbia is very hilly, and most of its population is situated on the coast. Northern British Columbia is heavily forested, and has very few people living throughout it. There is enough farmland around Vancouver to be self-sustainable, and has the nearby Pacific ocean as well, which is a highly fished area. That is, assuming anyone within a radius of 300 Kilometres of Bangor Trident Nuclear Submarine Base, west of Seattle, survives the multiple strikes of Thermonuclear Warhead detonations and then the deadly clouds of radiation and the fallout which will be spread for hundreds of kilometres by the prevailing winds.

Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon

Some of the lowest population densities in the world, combined with a large lack of strategic value (lack of industry, large military installations) make much of northern Canada a poor choice for nukes. Seats of governance, such as the capitol cities of each territory, could be potential targets. But the strategic value in bombing a town with a population that could fit into a large apartment building, combined with a lack of any real internationally influential seat of power, means most of northern Canada would be spared the burden of direct attack. On the other hand, if a bomb were to land anywhere in northern Canada, Yellowknife would be it. The military Joint Task Force Northern headquarters is located here, inside one of the largest cities around. It should also be noted that there are several smaller military outpost spread out all over the north, mostly as a way of reinforcing sovereignty. And even though Canada claims it has no nukes, we all know you don't send a bunch of soldiers to guard snow and ice (in a country with more access to A-bomb material than any other, it should be noted) if there isn't a ballistic missile somewhere nearby. Think about that. (cough cough, DEW line and Arctic Rangers HQ, I believe) because Canada doesn't have nukes (because they're all stored by agreement in the USA in bordering states) (Hush.)

Considering this area is a population desert anyway, and most people who would elect to live in such remote and harsh places tend to be bit of the survivalist type by nature, life would continue much as normal, with a more survivalist edge to it. No doubt the local populations would band together into more tightly knit communities, wary of outsiders fleeing north. Attempts to replace any reliance on outside sources with internal, reliable ones would no doubt be made and compared to many places, with easily available fresh water, large amounts of wildlife, and vast swathes of untapped resources few places could be better equipped to survive the apocalypse in grand fashion.

Two things put a damper on the hopefuls that managed to survive here: Fallout, and Nuclear Winter. Fallout is a bit of a stretch, but it could ruin all that fresh water and has ample opportunity to mutate/kill all the wildlife. Glacial Ice could become one of the only sources of uncontaminated water (and again in this respect, the North has vastly more in supply then many other places) with dangerous, hostile runs through mutated forest and savage wildlife avoiding roving gangs of hostile "southerners" to harvest enough of a supply to survive for another year before winter returns.

And the second thing winter, is an open/close case. While people living up north are well equipped to deal with the cold, if the winter starts and doesn't end, how long do you think your gonna hang around in a frozen wasteland before you make a break for the south and the irradiated beaches of some Mexican resort? Uh huh, I thought so.

Ultimately if your gonna include this in your campaign, the built in hook would be the run south, away from an inevitable icy death. If the world hasn't been turned into a scoop of ice cream, then you would be running north, to one of the last, vast, mostly uncontaminated pieces of land around.