The previous night we'd had substantial rain, which always produces a nice sound in an RV, much pitter-pat on the roof. This caused us to pay attention to how (in)frequent big irrigation systems are up near Calgary - much of that green farmland appears to rely on rain.
As we got nearer Lethbridge (and the U.S. border) we saw a few more of the giant pivot irrigation systems in use. Those say "irrigation needed" and economically feasible. Flying over the U.S. you see thousands of these circular irrigated fields.
While we avoided greater Calgary, we have seen many large RV dealers in Canada. Also several huge "boneyards" which is RV slang for places people pay rental to stow their RV when not in use.
A quick hueristic for determining a place is a boneyard and not an RV park is if there are few cars or pickup trucks in evidence. At a boneyard the rigs are parked maybe 3-4 feet apart with no pop-outs deployed.
Our conclusion, Canadians like RVs maybe more than Americans do, and with reason. They have a huge, thinly populated country much of which is very scenic, meaning touring at home is great in summer. They also have brutal winters which are great to avoid for retirees, who can be gone during the cold.
A typical Canadian law regarding government-subsidized health care is that its citizens must live in Canada for over half the year to be eligible for coverage. RV parks in the U.S. get a surge of Canadians headed south in fall and 5.5 months later headed north in spring. As noted earlier, there are winter concentrations of Canadians in places like CA, NV, AZ, TX, MS, LA, and FL where winter is warm.
We've found the easiest way to get rid of small amounts of excess Canadian currency is to go to the supermarket and buy stuff you'll use anyway. We did this yesterday in Lethbridge, a couple of jars of raspberry jam and a loaf of good bread was all it took.
