Jolly good map, by Jove

A special treat for the many provincial civil servants who took Monday to relax, and get completely blotto, in honour of their English heritage.

This map shows the proportion of "English" as a response, among multiple responses, to the ethnicity question on the 2006 census long-form questionnaire. The darkest reds represent the highest proportion of respondents claiming English as one or more of their self-described ethnicities, while yellows, greens, and blue indicate progressively smaller proportions claiming English as an ethnicity.


A colour key is located in the bottom left-hand corner; click the map to massively embiggen.

Nunatsiavut communities (other than Nain) are aggregated in order to be able to map them at this resolution; the Nunatsiavut portion of the Labrador map is given their collective colour. Three of the four were in the 20% "English" range, while Hopedale was just under 17%.

This map, as with previous ones in this series, is mapped at a Census Division level of detail. A comparison to the Irishness map in particular is instructive: the parts of Newfoundland that are self-identifiedly Irish are very, very Irish, but even within them there are English undertones. While there are large swathes of the province with very little self-identified Irish ethnicity, there are only a few pockets, even on the Irish Loop, which are devoid of self-identified English ethnicity.

On the other hand, while most areas are mostly or at least moderately English, there are very few areas that are as very-very-English as the very-very-Irish are Irish

Talamh an Eisc go braugh

This map shows the proportion of Irish as a response, among multiple responses, to the ethnicity question on the 2006 census long-form questionnaire. The darkest greens represent the highest proportion of respondents claiming Irish as one or more of their self-described ethnicities, while orange indicates that no respondent to the question cited Irish as an ethnicity.

A colour key is located in the bottom left-hand corner; click the map to massively embiggen.

This map, as with the previous one, is mapped at a Census Sub-Division level of detail.

The wearing of the green

According to the 2006 census of population, the single biggest ethnic origin in Newfoundland and Labrador, as self-identified by respondents in the 20% census sample, was... English.

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, this map shows the predominant ethnic origin — again as self-identified by those respondents who got the long census questionnaire — mapped for the entire province at the Census Division level. Census Divisions include cities, towns, incorporated communities, Labrador Inuit communities, and Indian Reserves, as well as geographically larger "unorganized" census divisions.

(Unfortunately, Statistics Canada's base map for the province does the Labrador-as-inset annoyance, but bear with.) Click on the map to massively embiggen.

Green is Irish; red is English; blue is an aggregate of all "French" origins, including French, Acadian, etc.; brown is an aggregate of all Aboriginal origins, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis; and yellow is where two or more ethnic origins were tied for predominance within that Census Division. Grey indicates either an unpopulated Census Division, or one where data was suppressed in the census report to ensure the personal privacy of respondents where the population is very small.

Saturated colours indicate that the ethnic origin is shared by a majority of respondents, while pale colours indicate that it is the single largest origin, but not a majority.

Each Census Division is coloured according to the statistics for that division, even though large portions, especially of unorganized divisions, may be unpopulated. (Exceptionally, certain unpopulated islands are not coloured, mostly due to laziness.) A division may also have individual populated places which would have ethnic profiles different from the overall division, if data were available at that level of detail. (It isn't.)

Since respondents to the ethnicity question can select multiple responses to describe themselves, it is entirely possible that a Census Division where the majority of people consider themselves to have English or Irish ethnic origin, may also have a majority of people considering themselves to have French or Aboriginal ethnic origin. In fact, we will see that this not only possible, but inevitible.

You still have a month to do your St. George's Day shopping and plan your St. George's Day drink-up.

You're welcome.

[Data source]

Celtocentrism

A fascinating post from the ever-fascinating Strange Maps:

These pictures are the front and back of a t-shirt for the 2008 Pogues US tour, and together they form a world map according to the Pogues. The quotes are all taken from Pogues lyrics, and reflect the world as seen through Irish eyes, with an emphasis on lands important to the Irish diaspora.

Where's Lisa Moore?

Russell Wangersky — he's not even one of the Newfoundland Wangerskies — makes a good case for a Lisa Moore sequel.

What's Icelandic for "Manitoba"?

How times change, and how quickly:

Premier says great lessons to be learned from Iceland and Norway

The successes in jurisdictions like Iceland and Norway in the fishery and energy industries should be achievable in Newfoundland and Labrador, said Premier Danny Williams today. The Premier visited the two countries last week and was accompanied to Iceland by the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Tom Rideout.

...

“I recall commenting on several occasions, that if these northern countries can turn opportunity into success, then we can certainly do it in Newfoundland and Labrador,” added the Premier. “This is especially the case with Iceland, where you see a geographically isolated region with a very small population base. And yet they have a strong economy partially based on a prosperous fishery. Both Norway and Iceland have certainly encountered challenges in the fishery, yet they continue to be models for success that we can learn from.”

Iceland, Iceland, Iceland.

And now, with the economic picture having turned on a dime, some Icelanders are looking to a Canadian province as a place of hope for the future.

Maybe it's time for Lisa Moore to pay a return visit. Somewhere, in a basement in Kópavogur, a nationalist Icelandic blogger is typing a lament: if only we were more like Canada...

Airgead agus na vótaí eitneach

« C'est vrai qu'on a été battu, au fond, par quoi? Par l'argent puis des votes ethniques. »

— Jacques Parizeau, October 30, 1995

"Newfoundlanders should have voted no too, in 1948. If it had been left to the Irish here — I mean descendants of the Irish — we wouldn’t be in Canada today. In “Irish” districts like Ferryland, Placentia-St. Mary’s, St. John’s East and West, and Harbour Main-Bell Island, the vote went strongly against Confederation. It was mainly the Protestants who voted yes to join Canada."

— Patrick O'Flaherty, doing his part to broaden the demographic appeal of the Newfoundland crypto-separatist sentiment, June 28, 2008