I’ve been in Canada for over a week now and I can confirm that Canadians do generally hold up to their reputation of kindness.

Specifically, in Vancouver a slower city where there aren’t a lot of crowds, there’s more opportunity for Canadian hospitality in this laid-back environment.

But I’ve been dying to know where this reputation came from. Did it start as a joke and became a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I did some investigating and found a scholarly article here, a general study on National Character Stereotypes.

However, Nelson Wiseman, director of Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto, has theories regarding the start of the cliché. It’s possible that Canadians have kind tendencies because history demanded it of them.

He says. “That’s in part because we’ve had a strong tradition of centralized regimes, with the French, and then as a British nation.”

Further, Wiseman notes that “fragment theory” may be a factor in Canadians’ niceness. The theory suggests that colonial nations are made up “fragments” of the societies that colonized them. In Canada, the characteristics and values of early European settlers infiltrated the culture and persisted, particularly those of the conservative British Tories. “Although Canada is no longer a British nation,” says Wiseman, “these tendencies replicate and perpetuate themselves like a gene.”

Underneath the stereotype of Canadian hospitality their flows a historical line of truth.