How cold does it get in Canada? That all depends on which part of the country you’re in. Canada has a reputation for being a cold country, and that reputation is well-deserved in many cases. Much of Canada is very cold for much of the year. In the far north, temperatures may stay close to freezing year round and a layer of ice under the ground, known as permafrost, never melts. In Iqaluit, Canada’s most northerly territorial capital, the average daily high is less than 12 degrees Celsius. That is around 53.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Most Canadians, however, live in the southern parts of the country, near to the U.S. border. Virtually all of Canada’s major urban centers lie within about 400 miles, or 640 km, of the U.S. border. The colder, regions to the north, which cover the majority of the country, are very sparsely populated. It is not just the cold that has prevented large numbers of people from settling in most of Canada. Most of northern Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Labrador are covered by the Canadian Shield. The shield is a vast area of rock covered in a thin layer of soil. The thin soil and hard underlying rock makes farming impossible in these regions and this is why few people live here.
The Canadian Shield is can become quite cold during the winter. In the town of Sudbury in north-central Ontario, for example, temperatures dip to an average low of -18.6 degrees Celsius (-1.5 Fahrenheit) in January. But during the summer temperatures in this region can rise into the high teens or low twenties degrees Celsius (about 62.5 to 73.5 degrees Fahrenheit).
The more populated regions of southern Canada have a temperate climate similar to Chicago, Boston or New York City. The winters are generally cold, but it can become quite warm during the summer. This is true of major Canadian cities like Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg.
The warmest part of the country is the southern part of the west coast province of British Columbia. In Vancouver, for example, the average low temperature in January hovers around freezing (0 degrees Celsius or 32 degrees Fahrenheit). The average low January temperature in Churchill, in northern Manitoba, by contrast, is a frigid – 33 degrees Celsius, or – 27.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
In general temperatures drop as you go further north. Parts of the country that are further from the ocean also tend to be colder. Warm currents in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans tend to have a moderating influence on the temperature of coastal regions. This is why Vancouver and some other parts of British Columbia are not as cold as other parts of the country. There is a similar effect in some parts of the east coast.
The ocean does not have the same warming effect everywhere, however. Some areas near to the coast do not benefit from warmer ocean currents. This is true of some parts of Newfoundland and of some coastal areas of Labrador and northern Quebec. It is also true of Hudson’s Bay, James Bay, and regions near to the Arctic Ocean.
The warmest part of the Canada in the summer is the lower Okanagan Valley in the British Columbia interior. Here average daily temperatures reach the high 20s Celsius in the summer (roughly 80 to 83 degrees Fahrenheit). This summer warmth has made the Okanagan Valley Canada’s main fruit-growing region. In the winter, however, temperatures dip below freezing.
The coldest place during the summer is probably Alert, Nunavut. This small military and radio base on Ellesmere Island is only about 800 km (roughly 500 miles) from the north pole. Alert is the most northerly permanently occupied settlement in the world. In the summer average daily highs hover just below 6 degrees Celsius, or 42.8 degrees Fahrenheit. In February temperatures in Alert dip to an average low of – 37 degrees Celsius or -34.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few kilometers south of Alert, on Ellesmere Island, is the settlement of Eureka. The average daily lows during the winter in Eureka are even colder than Alert. In Eureka the temperatures in February are – 41.9 degrees Celsius (- 43.4 degrees Fahrenheit), making this possibly the coldest settlement of Canada.
The coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada was – 63 degrees Celsius (- 81 degrees Fahrenheit) in Snag, Yukon on February 3, 1947. In the community of Resolute, on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, a temperature of – 72 degrees Celsius with the wind chill.
Summary:
The regions where most Canadians live tend to be fairly cold during the winter, with average daily temperatures at or near freezing. In the summer, temperatures in southern Canada tend to be fairly warm, reaching the low to mid-20s degrees Celsius. Some coastal areas, especially the Pacific coast of British Columbia, have relatively mild winters.
The colder regions of Canada are the sparsely populated areas of northern Canada, especially the three northern territories- Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The absolute coldest parts of Canada are probably the Arctic Ocean islands, such as Ellesmere and Cornwallis island, which are near to the north pole.
