Civ III to teach kids all about beavers, loonies, and Scott Thompson

2:20 AM on 06.02.2007   |   Nex

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As a proud American, my knowledge of Canadian history is rather rudimentary. The classes I attended in high school informed me that it was a gift from Odin to the ancient Vikings, and that in 1952 it was purchased by the French to satiate their lust for the delicious pelts of the Inuit people. Everything beyond that is kinda hazy.

Thanks to Sid Meier's magnum opus, Civilization III, however, Canada's children need not wallow in the darkness of ignorance, like so many of their southern brethren!

Gamasutra has word that 2K Games, the publishers behind Civ III, have completed work on an edutainment game entitled HistoriCanada: The New World. The game, which will be donated to 100,000 Canadian high schools, is an immense mod for Civ III that seeks to provide the same kind of interactive learning experience for the children of The Great White North that The Oregon Trail provided for the children of Oregon, and possibly Independence, Missouri.

In typical Civ fashion, the game allows players to control a realistic facsimile of one of Canada's archaic cultures (the early European settlers, the native peoples, or John Candy circa 1972) and in forging a successful society, children would learn of the hardships of living in a land populated almost entirely by moose, bears, and Frost Trolls.