Question for Canadians: Where could one put a Fictional City in CU Canada ?

[Ninja-Bear]

On 4/21/2023 at 10:06 PM, Hermit said:

Now and then I get the urge to make a fictional city for my players to game in. New Constantinople, for example, was in the US Pacific Northwest.

Lately I've been thinking of going outside my comfort zone .. only a little and I thought "Where would be a good spot to put a Fictional City In Canada?"

 

 

 

I figure as there will be some Silver Age logic (Albeit Tarnished Silver in my games), I can BS a lot on reasons for it having happened in the CU (My version of it) where it didn't in the real world. But I figured some of the Canadians (And Canada adjacent) folks we have on our boards might be a valuable source of wisdom and suggestions on things like "What Province could use a city with an extra million people (more or less)?" or "What touches in it's history or reason for being would make it more Canadian (or at least Canadian flavored so to speak)?"  And so on. I don't want it to be just "Millennium City in Canada" or "Vibora Bay North" though I like both of those settings.

 

Input welcome in this moment of whimsy

I asked something like this along tome ago. I was going to put a fictional Canadian City right across Lake Erie as I lived in Erie at the time. 

[Hermit]

58 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Your instinct to pay tribute to Scott Bennie is admirable.   Perhaps those brothers founded the first settlement on that site, although "Bennie" as an English first name in that era sounds improbable.

 

But it's your city. Wherever you end up putting it, you can name it whatever you want. We're just making suggestions.

 

Well, "Bennie"  probably would be a nickname for Benjamin North But yeah, I think it would be a nice if small homage.

 

And I'm very grateful for the suggestions, particularly from those that know Canada better than I (Which is admittedly a long list even if you don't count the Canadians ) . I like your idea... as a possible Inroad for Non Canadian supers to join the Local superheroes at Northgate, I might have a program set up via an agreement with the city government and UNTIL that allowed something of an exchange program to allow/encourage a few superheroes to assist. This might indicate a rise in supervillains or other problems that need more manpower (or 'super man' power) so perhaps the 'current day' is suffering a bit of a crimewave?

[Lord Liaden]

Plenty of action in the CU Canadian north these days to justify more of a super presence on its fringes -- Teleios and his monsters, Kigatilik and his demons, Vultok returning from the dead, the Gadroon dug in, potential prison break from Stronghold North. Additionally, the Steelhead Division of the RCMP (dealing with "super" threats) also operates the "Steelweb," a series of sensor installations designed to track superhuman movements and anomalous power sources in remote wilderness areas. A city with advanced technological infrastructure near Canada's midway point sounds like a logical place for the Steelweb's operational center.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[GDShore]

Quote

Given the Canadian Federal Budget late last month proposed clean energy tax credits for sources including nuclear, I am hard-pressed to consider the country down on nuclear.

While you are right about the budget, the climate for new major resource projects is grim, the environmentalist would oppose more importantly so would the the First Nations. If you think otherwise check what is happening in southern Alberta over coal mining. Maybe, and I do mean maybe a new source of Lithium might slip thru an environmental review right now, nothing else is going to. The provinces are fighting this, but the feds. hold the high cards.

[GDShore]

Quote

Second, the discovery of some valuable mining resource in the Canadian Shield to the north. I would suggest high-grade uranium, although in a "super" world you could substitute something more exotic. 

Actually, you did suggest exploiting uranium, as well as saying that this would spark increased industries ect. ect. While the budget does propose nuclear power investment in the last budget, support for same is not high in particular in the western provinces and by almost all of the First Nations people. The politics of founding a new city in the west would make for an interesting back story.

[Cancer]

Sudbury, Ontario has a deep-mine laboratory site (SNOLab) originally exploited for a neutrino detector.  Lacks a lot of the attractions others have described upthread, but for science that is already really weird it's a very solid beginning.

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, GDShore said:

Actually, you did suggest exploiting uranium, as well as saying that this would spark increased industries ect. ect. While the budget does propose nuclear power investment in the last budget, support for same is not high in particular in the western provinces and by almost all of the First Nations people. The politics of founding a new city in the west would make for an interesting back story.

 

Ah, here's where I think the misunderstanding lies. Hermit has been talking about using a modified version of the Champions Universe, i.e. an alternate Earth with a parallel but differing history from ours. On that world my proposed Northgate would not be a "new" city. Like the fictional Vibora Bay and Hudson City on that Earth, Northgate could have a history of settlement going back centuries. I visualize rapid growth and industrialization of the site in the post-World War II era, as with so many other cities in North America. Uranium exploitation would have taken off during the 1960s, and Northgate's development of high-tech industries would have progressed over the half-century since then. Today it's as well-established as Winnipeg itself, and First Nations opposition to its existence would be taken about as seriously.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Lawnmower Boy]

The idea of a subterranean science city under Sudbury, burrowing into that ancient nickel-iron asteroid strike, is a fun one. Lord Liaden's Northgate makes for a good "Millennium City" vibe, but maybe violates the DC "expat city" vibe, where Star City, Central City, Gotham and so on are supposed to be recognisably a real world city in a slightly unreal but familiar geographic setting. 

 

The problem here is spelled out in the crossover conversation where the DC heroes identify Marvel Earth as being slightly smaller, with a lower population, than DC Earth due to all those cities, their geographic catchments, and also made up foreign countries. I take Hermit as asking for generic million-or-so people cities for superhero settings, and since Canada only has 40 million people, you'll quickly create a new and different Canada if you go crazy here. With that in mind, I will propose additional million+ cities for the provinces which can support them. (Prince Edward Island has a sad; but if you ignore that, I give you Avonlea; the Anne of Green Gables-inspired city in eastern PEI, full of tourist traps and Japanese tourists.)

 

-In BC, there's really only one place for another city, which is on Vancouver Island opposite Vancouver between Nanaimo and Victoria. Call it "Wellington" (--or, thinking outside the box, "Roberton," after the one Victorian military hero I can think of who doesn't already have a city) to fit the naming conventions, and you're good to go. Again, if you want to ignore my suggestion, "West Rutland" is clustered around Kelowna Airport in the Okanagan Valley just north of that city. 

 

Alberta is flat and undifferentiated. The joke is that there is varying degrees of urban buildup all along the road between Calgary and Edmonton and they had to  make the middle a city, which is why Red Deer exists. I'd say, borrow a picturesque Alberta placename not already associated with a city, mention that it is close to Red Deer, and you're good to go. "Buffalo Jump, Alberta."

 

Saskatchewan is to small for another big city. 

 

Manitoba's "second city" is Brandon. I have no idea how it got its name, but let's go with Derocher and put it near Brandon, and I can't justify this further 'cuz I have to go to work in a few minutes.

 

Lots of cities in Ontario's Golden Horseshoe around the lakes, and "Berlin, Ontario" is just sitting there. 

 

Montreal, Quebec, Tadoussac, the three original colonies (in Quebec.) Tadoussac never amounted to a city because it is cold up there on the Saguenay, but if we can rewrite geography, we can rewrite meteorology. The name is already taken, but no-one's ever heard of Tadoussac. Good to go.

 

Nova Scotia used to be two provinces, and Louisbourg isn't doing anything. 

 

More succinct than I'd hoped, as I ran out of time, but that's my answer. 

[Lord Liaden]

8 hours ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

Lord Liaden's Northgate makes for a good "Millennium City" vibe, but maybe violates the DC "expat city" vibe, where Star City, Central City, Gotham and so on are supposed to be recognisably a real world city in a slightly unreal but familiar geographic setting. 

 

The problem here is spelled out in the crossover conversation where the DC heroes identify Marvel Earth as being slightly smaller, with a lower population, than DC Earth due to all those cities, their geographic catchments, and also made up foreign countries. I take Hermit as asking for generic million-or-so people cities for superhero settings, and since Canada only has 40 million people, you'll quickly create a new and different Canada if you go crazy here.

 

 

Well, if DC has some kind of analogous-city rule, it just applies to them. In the CU, for example, Vibora Bay and Hudson City are unique major cities in locations which don't have them in the real world, and with distinctive "vibes" all their own (since they were created to serve specific purposes in a campaign setting).

 

The issue with Canada is that 80% of the population lives within 100 miles of the American border, so nearly all of the optimal locations for a major city have already been taken. You kind of have to modify the history and maybe some of the geography, as I did for Northgate, to justify another big city's presence.

 

The city of Halifax, in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, is one example. It's a decent-sized city -- about 350,000 in the city proper, and over 100,000 more in the surrounding urban area -- largest in Atlantic Canada. It's the site of numerous regional government offices, particularly the Royal Canadian Navy which has a major base there, because Halifax Harbor is one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbors in the world. Before Canadian Confederation, numerous parties were pushing to make Halifax the chief shipping link with Europe across the Atlantic for the British colonies on the continent, by setting the terminus of the growing rail system in the region there. But for largely political reasons the key rail lines were moved further south and made use of American ports. If that decision had been different, Halifax could easily have grown to 1 million+ by now.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Clonus]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Well, if DC has some kind of analogous-city rule, it just applies to them. In the CU, for example, Vibora Bay and Hudson City are unique major cities in locations which don't have them in the real world, and with distinctive "vibes" all their own (since they were created to serve specific purposes in a campaign setting).

 

 

Hudson City was fairly obviously Gotham City inspired, and Gotham was New York inspired, which is why Hudson City is named after the Hudson River which flows into New York's harbour.  Vibora Bay, despite being in Florida is New Orleans inspired.  

[Lord Liaden]

I accept the original Gotham inspiration from New York, as with Metropolis, but Gotham City has mutated a great deal over the years from NYC. New Orleans often has mysticism attributed to it, but the Spanish heritage and flavor of Vibora Bay, and the environment surrounding it, is more rooted in Florida.

 

I mean, many fictional locations have recognizable elements of real places. The whole package is what makes them distinctive.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Hermit]

Sounds like two fictional cities in Canada of a half million would be easier to swallow for some than one of a full million... but I am still leaning towards Northgate

[Lord Liaden]

Yeah, IMHO 500-600 thousand would be easy enough for most Canadians to accept outside of the existing major centers, but 1 million+ would be pushing it. I mean, Quebec City is one of the oldest European-descended settlements north of Mexico, and its population is a little over 540,000, with 300,000 more in the surrounding urban area.

 

Canadian prairie cities are usually quite spread out, but have little in the way of suburbs compared to many modern North American cities. Because so much of the West is open flatland, populations usually cluster at the optimal sites for habitation. The larger cities tend to amalgamate smaller neighbors under one urban administration. Winnipeg, for example, with nearly 750,000 people, has less than 90,000 in surrounding communities. Manitoba also has a lot of lakes and rivers, an additional isolating factor.

 

  

3 hours ago, Hermit said:

Sounds like two fictional cities in Canada of a half million would be easier to swallow for some than one of a full million... but I am still leaning towards Northgate

 

Given the site we've been discussing for that city, I'd suggest that a maximum of 700,000 for the whole urban area would be within the bounds of credibility.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[steriaca]

It could be possible that a First Canadian Nation tribe's 'reservation' or 'tribal land' had a prison of an extra dimensional being on it, trapping a horrific being from escaping from it.

 

Another idea is a secret city which separated itself from Canada/Quebec (depending on where it is located) via a dimensional displacement device created by a Victorian mad scientist. This has turned the city into a version of Brigadoon, where the citizens live in a "Victorian Punk" life compared to everyone else, and that the city won't reappear for another 25 years in this dimension. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by steriaca

[Lord Liaden]

Pursuant to my earlier remark about Manitoba's lakes and rivers, because of their abundance nearly all of the province's energy needs are provided by hydro-electricity, with some other renewables such as wind and solar. Manitoba is also a significant exporter of electricity. In the early 1970s the provincial government studied development of nuclear power plants, but chose to focus on developing hydro plants first. Its only nuclear reactor is at Whiteshell Laboratories, established in 1963 for scientific research.

 

I previously suggested that in the CU the real-world Grand Rapids hydro-electric plant could be replaced with a nuclear plant in the vicinity of Northgate. I'd also suggest that it be substituted for the Whiteshell Labs facility in this alternate time-line.

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, steriaca said:

It could be possible that a First Canadian Nation tribe's 'reservation' or 'tribal land' had a prison of an extra dimensional being on it, trapping a horrific being from escaping from it.

 

 

Cree folkoric and mythological figures .  In the CU that scenario is just what had happened to the demon Tilingkoot, until Kigatilik freed him and recruited him as his ally.

 

3 hours ago, steriaca said:

 

Another idea is a secret city which separated itself from Canada/Quebec (depending on where it is located) via a dimensional displacement device created by a Victorian mad scientist. This has turned the city into a version of Brigadoon, where the citizens live in a "Victorian Punk" life compared to everyone else, and that the city won't reappear for another 25 years in this dimension. 

 

If you want to talk "separation" I'd advise steering clear of Quebec as the site for this little anachronism. That's a nationalist hornets' nest you might not want to poke. 

[steriaca]

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Cree folkoric and mythological figures .  In the CU that scenario is just what had happened to the demon Tilingkoot, until Kigatilik freed him and recruited him as his ally.

Whose to say that the demon if cold and darkness isn't looking for more recrutes for It's coming out party.

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

If you want to talk "separation" I'd advise steering clear of Quebec as the site for this little anachronism. That's a nationalist hornets' nest you might not want to poke. 

Sorry about poking the bear there. I suggested Quebec because I didn't want to leave them out of anything. 

 

As for the Brigadoon thing, it might just be a utopia...but to whom is it a perfect place? Even Pleasant Valley (from the Two Thousand Maniacs/2001 Maniacs series of films) is considered a utopia to some people.

Edited April 29, 2023 by steriaca

[Lord Liaden]

I've been researching the potential of Lake Winnipeg, and I've discovered a few interesting things.

 

Lake Winnipeg is 258 miles long, and 60 miles at its widest point. Its southern end is about 34 miles north of Winnipeg. Most of its eastern shore is protected wilderness, but there are small communities on the west shore, mostly to the south. There have been several ventures to establish waterborne cargo shipping or tourism on Lake Winnipeg since the early Twentieth Century, but all eventually shut down due to insufficient demand. But with the presence of a major city toward the north end of the lake, I would expect shipping to be much more robust.

 

One of the aforementioned communities is the town of Gimli, 35 miles from Winnipeg. It's set on the largest natural inland harbor in Western Canada. It's also adjacent to the smaller town of Winnipeg Beach, which during the first half of the Twentieth Century was a popular resort, even including an amusement park. With its location and harbor I see Gimli functioning as the optimal lake port serving Winnipeg, and with increased demand, expanding and absorbing nearby communities, becoming a port, fishing, and tourist site with a permanent population in the tens of thousands.

 

Now, here's what may be the most intriguing point. Gimli was originally settled by Icelanders, and maintains strong cultural ties to its roots. Gimli is the heart of what was called the "New Iceland Project," territory granted by Canada in 1875 to people from Iceland after volcanic activity displaced many thousands from their homeland. Canada is home to more people of Icelandic descent than any other country outside of Iceland, and a third of them, over 25,000, live in Manitoba. The University of Manitoba in Winnipeg has a department of Icelandic language and literature.

 

There would undoubtedly be thousands of these Icelandic-Canadians living in Northgate. Maybe they could form their own community in the city, "Little Reykjavik."    Besides the added cultural richness, this could open the path to new Norse-based supers, and a mystical/mythological plot or two.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[DShomshak]

11 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

There would undoubtedly be thousands of these Icelandic-Canadians living in Northgate. Maybe they could form their own community in the city, "Little Reykjavik."    Besides the added cultural richness, this could open the path to new Norse-based supers, and a mystical/mythological plot or two.

Such as... Icelanders who aren't human, such as alfar (both lios- and svart-), hrimthurssar whose icy homes were destroyed, land-vaetter whose land was getting buried under lava... (With a name like "Gimli," the dwarfs are a given.) And people searching Iceland for the dreadful grimoires called the Raudhskinni and Graskinni (see The Mystic World p. 173) might be looking in the wrong country.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

11 hours ago, DShomshak said:

And people searching Iceland for the dreadful grimoires called the Raudhskinni and Graskinni (see The Mystic World p. 173) might be looking in the wrong country.

 

The reference to those books is in The Ultimate Mystic, not The Mystic World. Just didn't want would-be researchers to get frustrated.

 

EDIT: I've confused those two myself a number of times. 😌

Edited April 30, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

One more note about Manitoba: The percentage of inhabitants who identify as "aboriginal" is 18%, the highest percentage of any province in the country. For census purposes "aboriginal" includes First Nations, Metis, and Inuit. Winnipeg is 12.4% aboriginal, and has the largest aboriginal population of any city in Canada (over 90,000). Thus their culture is more of a component of mainstream urban life in Manitoba than in most other urban areas in Canada or the United States.

[Lord Liaden]

17 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Such as... Icelanders who aren't human, such as alfar (both lios- and svart-), hrimthurssar whose icy homes were destroyed, land-vaetter whose land was getting buried under lava... (With a name like "Gimli," the dwarfs are a given.) And people searching Iceland for the dreadful grimoires called the Raudhskinni and Graskinni (see The Mystic World p. 173) might be looking in the wrong country.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

It occurs to me that those books, and/or other artifacts, could have been unearthed by the volcanoes that caused so many Icelanders to flee their country. Or, discovering them might have caused the volcanoes.

[Lord Liaden]

On 4/28/2023 at 1:52 PM, steriaca said:

Another idea is a secret city which separated itself from Canada/Quebec (depending on where it is located) via a dimensional displacement device created by a Victorian mad scientist. This has turned the city into a version of Brigadoon, where the citizens live in a "Victorian Punk" life compared to everyone else, and that the city won't reappear for another 25 years in this dimension. 

 

I remembered that the official CU has something a little along the lines of Brigadoon, the Haida village of Niikwan on Haida Gwaii, formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the west coast of British Columbia. When white men came to the region the god Raven offered Niikwan protection from them, and placed Niikwan "outside the world" save for when Raven decides an outsider is worthy to find it. Niikwan is where the Canadian mystic hero Ravenspeaker was born and raised. (See Champions Of The North.)

 

There could be another such place on the continent hidden by native spirits, particularly in the North.

 

 

 

EDIT:  I feel like I've been taking over this thread with my suggestions. 😔  I'm sure Hermit would like to hear others, as would I.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

All right, I have the germ of another idea for a new city, from looking at the history of Vancouver Island, off the Pacific coast of mainland British Columbia. The island is the largest and most populous on the west coast of the Americas, with almost 900,000 inhabitants, nearly half of whom live in Greater Victoria, the metropolitan area including the provincial capital, Victoria, on the southeastern end of the island. Most of the urban settlement on Vancouver Island today is on the east coast. However, in the late Eighteenth Century the Spanish attempted to assert sovereignty over the Pacific Northwest against inroads by Britain and Russia. Spain established a fort and settlement at Nootka Sound on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, a precipitant for the "Nootka Crisis" of 1790, and the threat of war between Britain and Spain. At the time Spain and France were allies, while Britain was receiving naval support from the Dutch. However, the French government decided against war, and without that support Spain negotiated territorial and trade concessions with Britain.

 

What I propose for an alternate Champions Universe timeline is that either France did choose to stand with Spain, or the Netherlands would not commit to backing Britain, so the two rivals were on more equal footing. War did occur, and while it did not end conclusively, Spain was in a much stronger bargaining position when peace was being negotiated. The Spanish retained control of northwest Vancouver Island, and the settlement at Nootka Sound was expanded, providing access to the fur trade routes, abundant lumber and coal on the island, and the later gold rushes on the mainland. The Nootka settlement became Spain's link between that region, and its Pacific colonies and Asian trading partners. Eventually during the Nineteenth Century Spain would lose that colony, as it did all its possessions north of Mexico; but by that time the economy of a city at Nootka Sound would have been well established.

 

The new city (no suggestion for a name yet) would likely be the first stop for air and water traffic from Asia headed for British Columbia's populous lower mainland, due to its location. It would be unique among major Canadian cities in having Spanish cultural and architectural roots.

 

Like I said, it's still just the germ of an idea, but I think there's room for expansion.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Hermit]

Actually I'm good with you and other Canadians taking over this thread, L.L. I'm the outsider there

 

My 'problem' would be a gift  of  abundance with all the excellent ideas and which to pick from, but that's a 'problem' I can live with