7 replies to this topic

[Takn4aFool]

i know you guys are on the metric system up there but does that also apply to land measurements? the reason i ask is because whenever i go across Canada i see land for sale by the acre, is that advertised in
U.S. acres or is that hectacres? which if i'm not mistaken is equal to 2.5 U.S.acres. (actually it's 2.47)

[Takn4aFool]

i dont know what happened to my title in other post, should be a question for the Canadians

[jschotsm]

Still sold in acres, surveying done in acres and ha. and the 2.5 acres/ha is a pretty easy conversion for ball park figures for farmin.

[IH Steve]

We have a complete hodgepodge of measurement here. Litres per acre or gallons per acre that might be US gallons (3.78 litres I think) or Canadian gallons (4.54 litres), sometimes labels are in pure metric, sometimes a mixture. Machine shop measurement sometimes in thousands of inches, sometimes in tenths of a millimetre, you name it we have it, a real potential for screw ups. Add in tons (2000lbs) and tonnes (1000kg or 2205 lbs, pronounced tones to keep it straight) and you have all kinds of issues that can make a real mess. You have to be so careful doing conversions. But yes land seems to always be sold in acres. By the price you just wish it was a hectare!

[George 2]

While Canada is officially metric, much of commerce is still in the Imperial system. Land is still acres, corn, wheat, and soybeans are still sold by the bushel. Go to any hardware store and metric fasteners are not common. Most bolts are in inch size and if you want metric, you pay a lot extra for them. The thermostat in my new house is in Farhenheit degrees. The instrumentation in my car is digital and can be set to whatever measurement you want. I have the HVAC set in Fahrenheit, speedometer in both English and metric. My gut feel is Canada is less metric today than it was 15 years ago. And I am happy with that. Actually anything that repudiates what that scumbag Trudeau did is good with me.

[Loadstar]

While Canada is officially metric, much of commerce is still in the Imperial system. Land is still acres, corn, wheat, and soybeans are still sold by the bushel. Go to any hardware store and metric fasteners are not common. Most bolts are in inch size and if you want metric, you pay a lot extra for them. The thermostat in my new house is in Farhenheit degrees. The instrumentation in my car is digital and can be set to whatever measurement you want. I have the HVAC set in Fahrenheit, speedometer in both English and metric. My gut feel is Canada is less metric today than it was 15 years ago. And I am happy with that. Actually anything that repudiates what that scumbag Trudeau did is good with me.

I hope you are right George. I have been resisting this foreign system of measures that was imposed on us over 40 years ago. I've had to become partially bi-lingual to function though.
Our saving grace on land measurement is that the country was all surveyed using the imperial system many years ago. A section (640 acres) is a mile square, not 1. something kilometres. Crossroads are a mile apart east and west, 2 miles apart North and South. I don't think the govt. is going to re-measure and cut up the land into nice round numbered metric blocks, plus re-locate all the roads just to make us fully metrified.
Eventually us old "imperial system dinosaurs" will die off and the younger generations that have been brain washed from birth in the metric system will make the change over complete.

[Tripp]

I think between Steve IH and George2 you pretty much have your answer!

40 years ago the government of the day wanted to do more business with Europe, etc so in came the metric system. About 20 years ago the government of the day saw that closer ties to the US was the way to go, so NAFTA was born.........and the real mixed bag we have today!

[Owen Aaland]

The USA was going to be completely converted to the metric system by 1975. The Federal government may have made the change but it didn't get too far in the rest of the country.