This 'Meanwhile in Canada' meme does not show a road in Canada

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 14, 2019 at 22:40
2 min read
By AFP Canada

One version of the popular “Meanwhile in Canada” meme features a photo of a road carved between high snow walls. While Canada can receive record snowfall, this particular scene was photographed by a Romanian blogger in Japan in 2007.

A popular meme depicting a road carved into an impressively deep snow canyon crops up each winter. Depending on the online user sharing it, the photo has been said to be in Canada, or the in US states of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania.

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken on February 14, 2019

“Meanwhile in Canada” is a variation of a broader category of memes that feature the caption “Meanwhile in…” followed by a particular geographical location. The visual content in those memes, meant to be humorous, attempts to confirm a certain preconceived idea of the place that the meme is portraying. Unsurprisingly, the subcategory “Meanwhile in Canada” often highlights themes related to the winter, cold, and heavy snowfalls.

However, the photo in the meme was taken in 2007 by Mihai Apostu, a Romanian man living in Japan, who posted it on his blog at the time.

Screenshot of Mihai Apostu's blog taken on February 14, 2019

The road pictured in the photo above is the so-called Hakkoda Gold Line, in the Aomori prefecture in Northern Japan, featured in the video below.

The road is famous for the snow walls that border it, which sometimes reach 9 meters (30 feet), giving travellers the impression of advancing through a winding snow canyon.

Parts of Canada do receive considerable amounts of snow during the winter, and a simple Google search for snow walls in Canada brings up images and links to British Columbia’s Whistler Mountain, where the snow remains long into summer.

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