This page covers Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America in 2065. The Z-Virus reached every big city here in 2035 by plane and ship. Almost all of them fell within a year. Survivors held on in cold places, high places and on islands. Most travel between them is by sea, with Salt Fleet ships.
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are dead cities. Ottawa is the strongest stronghold in the country. Survivors walled the old town between the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal in 2041 and named it Fort Rideau. It is a Gate Compact member with about 45,000 people and power from the Chaudiere Falls dam. Long winters freeze the dead solid for months, so winter is the season for clearing towns and moving goods. Prairie farms trade grain south with the Grange. The far north was barely touched, and Arctic towns like Iqaluit still stand. The Pickering nuclear plant east of Toronto melted down in 2036 and is a hot zone.
Greenland is mostly ice. Its small harbor towns survived because the cold froze the few infected who arrived. Nuuk, the capital, has about 4,000 people who fish, hunt seals and trade with Northern Commonwealth boats from Iceland. The old Thule Air Base in the far north is empty and full of salvage.
Mexico City is the largest dead city in the Americas, with hordes of thousands. Pickers hold Chapultepec Castle and sell guided runs into the ruins. Guadalajara, Monterrey and most other big cities are dead too. The northern deserts dried the dead into Husk Zombies. Ranches and farm villages hold on in the Sierra Madre and the Yucatan. The Laguna Verde nuclear plant on the Gulf coast melted down in 2037 and is a hot zone.
Every capital here is a dead city except Belmopan in Belize, a small walled farm town. Survivors live in hill villages, on volcano coffee farms and on lake islands. Lake Nicaragua and the Bay Islands of Honduras stayed clean because the dead cannot swim. Zombies drift along the Pan-American Highway. El Salvador was so crowded that the dead are thick even in the countryside.
The Salt Fleet took the Panama Canal back in 2051. Its crews run the locks with power from the Gatun Dam and charge every ship a toll in Credits. The canal is the shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the only safe way from Nassau to Honolulu without going around South America. Zombies that fell in during the Fall still walk along the canal bottom and are sometimes caught in a drained lock.
The big islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico, have dead cities on their coasts and farm villages in their mountains. The walled old town of San Juan is a settlement of about 5,000 people. Many small islands were cleared one by one and are now fishing settlements. Nassau in the Bahamas is the main Salt Fleet harbor in the Caribbean and has its biggest market. Army deserters hold the old Guantanamo Bay Base in Cuba. Hurricanes hit the islands most autumns.
Bogotá, Caracas, Medellín and the other big cities of Colombia and Venezuela are dead. Coffee farms and cattle ranches still feed small walled villages. The old walled town of Cartagena is a settlement and a Salt Fleet stop. The Guri Dam in Venezuela still turns one turbine. Along the coast of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, Georgetown and Cayenne are small walled settlements, and Paramaribo is dead. The old rocket base at Kourou holds tools and leaking fuel tanks.
High altitude keeps the dead slow. Frost on most nights stiffens them, and the steep valleys have few ways in. Quito, in a high valley in Ecuador, and La Paz with El Alto, high in Bolivia, are Gate Compact strongholds. La Paz holds the Llojeta Quarantine Camp, where the Marked help Mutated who sell blood for Booster Shots. Lima and Santiago are dead cities. Farm villages survive on stone terraces in the high valleys. The Uros Reed Islands on Lake Titicaca never saw a zombie. Raiders live in the Uyuni Train Cemetery in Bolivia. The main road between Chile and Argentina crosses the Andes at Portillo Pass Town.
Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are dead megacities with some of the largest hordes on Earth. The worst is on Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo. Brasília is dead too. Inland farm towns survived behind walls. The Amazon Rainforest had few people, so it has few zombies. There are almost no roads, and people travel by river. Manaus is dead, but floating villages on the rivers are safe.
Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Asunción are dead cities. The pampas and the hills of Uruguay are full of feral cattle and horses, and ranchers on horseback round them up. Patagonia is cold, windy and nearly empty, with sheep ranches and cougars. Ushuaia, at the southern tip, is a cold fishing town. The Falkland Islands never had an outbreak. Their only town, Puerto Argentino, is the main Salt Fleet port in the South Atlantic.
Ships are the safest way to travel. Salt Fleet routes join Nassau, the Panama Canal Zone, Cartagena, Cayenne, Puerto Argentino and Callao.
Roads are dangerous. Raiders hold stretches of the Pan-American Highway, and hordes drift along it.
Winter in the far north and the high Andes freezes the dead. That is the time to travel there.