Journal: News & Comment

Flyover world

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In the U.S., "flyover country" is a pejorative term for much of that nation, over which the hip jet set flies when shuttling between New York and Los Angeles. But the real flyover country consists of most of my country, the 40% of Canada that lies above the Arctic Circle.

In a recent podcast from UBC, Michael Byers notes that, in jets moving between the various souths of the world, more people fly over that incomprehensibly huge expanse of land and sea and islands every day than live there. He also says that may change, as climate change opens the Northwest Passage and permits a transit of commercial ships between Asia and Europe that is 7000 km shorter than the Panama Canal route.

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