The Provinces and Territories of Canada

Newfoundland

Log cabin in the Canadian wildernessNewfoundland is the most eastern part of Canada, a large island just off the mainland of Labrador. It only became part of Canada after the Second World war in 1949.

Fishing was crucial to the industry of the island, but over-fishing has resulted in a big unemployment problem. Hillside St. John’s Harbour is the centre of Newfoundland life. George Street offers more bars than any street in North America. Appropriate for a port older than any other in North America. The founding of St. John’s in 1497 is thought to mark the start of the British Empire.

Some of the greatest coastal sites are to be seen in Twillingate Island with stunning ocean vistas and Notre Dame Bay where you can catch a glimpse of a drifting, giant iceberg. Of the islands off Newfoundland, Fogo Island is most famed – according to the now defunct Flat Earth Society this place is at the edge of the world, forming one of the four corners of the earth.
In Gros Morne National Park, a World Heritage site, you can indulge your outdoor instincts with one of the great hikes amongst the fjords and lakes. A thousand year old Viking settlement can be found on the north of the island in L’Anse aux Meadows. Towards the south are remote fishing villages known as outports. On the outskirts of the island, it’s likely you’ll run into a mooseor two. They like to stroll along the highway, so watch out for the antlers when you’re driving.

The mainland of Labrador is separated from Newfoundland Island by the Strait of Belle Isle. It’s a vast area which has been virtually untouched by development making this one of the cleanest places in Canada. Its rock formations have hardly changed shape since the earth was first formed. It is here that the caribou come to give birth and until recent times only a few Inuit called Labrador home. Its population numbers a mere 30,000, all of whom are distinctly Labradors, with their own flag, and an identity that distinguishes them from their Newfoundland neighbours. The remote region of Labrador epitomizes the isolation of Northern Canada, therefore planning beforehand is essential to get anywhere.

Labrador

The mainland of Labrador is separated from Newfoundland Island by the Strait of Belle Isle. It’s a vast area which has been virtually untouched by development making this one of the cleanest places in Canada. Its rock formations have hardly changed shape since the earth was first formed. It is here that the caribou come to give birth and until recent times only a few Inuit called Labrador home. Its population numbers a mere 30,000, all of whom are distinctly Labradors, with their own flag, and an identity that distinguishes them from their Newfoundland neighbours. The remote region of Labrador epitomizes the isolation of Northern Canada, therefore planning beforehand is essential to get anywhere.

 

Nova Scotia

The highlight of this province is Cape Breton Island, whose landscape is reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands, which lie in parallel across the Atlantic. Many Scots can be found here and Gaelic is spoken by some communities. Natural feats can be found in the Cape Breton National Park highlighted by the stunning coastal Cabot Trail, the best road trip in Canada. The Louisbourg National Historic Site, with its French fort, is an essential visit for history lovers. The region’s capital, Halifax, is also rich in history with an 18th century British Citadel dominating the city. In 1917 a freak accident destroyed half of the city. A ship stocked with TNT ran in to a cargo vessel producing the biggest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima.
Digby, in the Bay of Fundy is the place to go whale watching and eat ‘Digby Chicks’ (smoked herrings) and scallops. The south shore of Nova Scotia is rural and very picturesque, particularly the fishing village of Peggy’s Cove. Many towns are named after their geographically similar cousins in England, like Bridgewater and Liverpool.
The Annapolis Valley was home to early European settlers like the Acadians, French 18th century farmers evicted by the Brits. Spring is a great season to visit when the apple orchards are in full bloom.

 

Prince Edward Island

The inspiration for L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables is this island, and it’s easy to see how the pastoral landscapes and understated but adorable beaches influenced the novelist. Getting to Prince Edward Island can be accomplished by bridge or ferry. The Confederation Bridge is the longest bridge over ice-covered water in the world, and is worth the forty dollar toll. For visitors on their way to Nova Scotia, the ferry is your best bet. While on the island be sure to try a Lobster Supper. Prince Edward Island is popular with families and life ends before midnight. It’s also very popular with the Japanese, who are fascinated by little Anne from Avonlea.

Charlottetown is the birthplace of Canada, where the Confederation was first proposed and British colonials worked out the formation of modern day Canada. Costume re-enactments are popular for locals and visitors alike. The stage performance of Anne anchors the Charlottetown Festival, which runs from early May until mid-September.

 

New Brunswick

Bilingual New Brunswick is dominated by the massive Mt Carlton with its wild and beautiful park. Saint John River Valley was the home of British loyalists who fled America after the Revolution. The river ends at the Bay of Fundy, site of the world’s highest tides. The FundyIslands themselves are a peaceful place to visit and the eastern shores have great sandy beaches and salmon fishing rivers. Fundy National Park provides some of the best camping in all of Canada. The best city to visit is Fredericton, once home to the Mi’kmaq Indians and much later Lord Beaverbrook. Although small, it’s pretty and genteel with strong historic roots.

 

Montreal

Montreal is the cultural capital of the country, with cuisine, theatre, and nightlife worthy of the title. The Canadians, a professional hockey team, dominate the sports landscape. You can cheer on “Les Habitants” at the Bell Centre. Winters can be harsh – the city has more snowfall than any other major city in the world with temperatures dipping as low as -30C. In the 1980’s an underground city was built as a major metro system with shops, like an underground mall. Everything you would expect from a major city can be found in Montreal. There’s a Chinatown quarter, art museum, urban parks and endless boutiques, malls and bistros. It’s also an ethnically varied city so you can enjoy meeting all kinds of people and tasting different foods.

Matapedia Valley is a good outdoor region to visit. Skiing is king in the Eastern Township, south of Montreal.

 

Quebec

Canadian MountieJust 3 hours drive away is Quebec City, a historic centre which is the only walled city in North America. The province is the heart of French Canada. The French influence is not only in language but also in food, music, religion and architecture, although the influx of tourists means English is still widely spoken. A highlight is the Quebec Winter Carnival held in February. It has a unique auld world feel not seen elsewhere in North America. Top sites in and around the city include the 18th Century French Citadel, the historic Battlefields Park where the English defeated the French, the Place Royale square, the Old Port and the Gross Ile, offshore from Montmagny which acted as a quarantine station for European immigrants until the 19th Century.

With the year round resort of Laurentian Mountains, Gaspe coastline and the L’Estrie farmlands, extending from the US Appalachian, the best Quebec sights lie outside of the city metropolis.

The St. Lawrence River leads from Quebec to Tadoussac, a great region for hiking and whale watching where the St Lawrence and Saguenay rivers meet. The Gaspe Peninsula in south east Quebec has a great coastal mountainous landscape and is the home of Perce Rock.

Off the mainland there is a group of twelve tiny islands, linked by long sand spits, known as the MagdalenIslands. They are remote but popular to visit with red and grey cliffs and great beaches. In the spring, the locals will take you to photograph the new baby seals.

 

Ontario

Zay Harding – canoeing in CanadaThe capital of Canada is Ottawa in the Ontario region, a city which is home to many great museums, art galleries and the national Parliament and Courts. Other important towns are Kingston with its military history and university, and Toronto, the largest city in Canada.
Toronto is the most heavily populated of Canadian cities, but with only 2.6 million people, it remains small by international standards.

Toronto is the most heavily populated of Canadian cities, but with only 2.6 million people, it remains small by international standards. The CN Tower juts out of the Toronto skyline, the tallest free-standing structure in the world. Travel to the top and you can see for miles. Next to the Tower is the Rogers Centre, home to MLB’s Blue Jays, a stunning piece of architecture with a retractable roof. Grab a ticket in the nosebleeds for only nine dollars, or wait until the game gets started and find good seats for a great price from one of the desperate scalpers outside.

Toronto is safe, clean and devoid of ghettos. A modern city less than 2 centuries old, Toronto still shines in its infancy. Casa Lome, a mock medieval style castle built during WWI is a novel if not eccentric attraction. The nearby Toronto Islands offer a little tranquility to view the impressive skylines.

Two hours south of Toronto is Canada’s top tourist attraction, Niagara Falls, made up of three of the most powerful falls in the world. The Niagara district is famous for its wines, and nearby Kitchener is home of the Mennonites, a staunch Dutch religious sect. Stratford has its English Bard influences, and Elora is something of a centre for tourism. Huron Indian sites are found in Midland, while Georgian Bay and the AlgonquinProvincial Park are great for hiking, canoeing, camping and wildlife.

 

Manitoba

Winnipeg, the province’s capital, is known by the native Cree Indians as ‘Winnipee’ meaning ‘muddy water’. The riverside park, known as The Forks, is a pleasant historical re-development within the city, home to the Museum of Man. A large folk festival is held here in the summer, and the Royal Canadian Mint is also within the city limits. South of the city are fields of giant sunflowers which make an unforgettable golden view. Churchill in the north is a great place to see the Northern Lights, seals, whales and even polar bears.

 

Saskatchewan

The open space of the prairie dominates this province, where Native Americans settled in what is now the Wanuskewin Heritage Park. The Prince AlbertNational Park is also interesting to visit. It was the home of Grey Owl, a great adventurer and one of the first international conservationists. In the late 1800’s Batochewas home to a Métis uprising, led by Louis Riel.

Today there is an interpretive centre which gives a glimpse of life in the frontier, and details this culturally significant rebellion. The main cities in Saskatchewan are Regina and Saskatoon; they offer all necessary amenities to a traveller, but not much else.
Moose Jawwas originally founded as a fur traders’ camp. A narrow crossing of the river, with plenty of water and game for food, made this an ideal place for settlement. The first homestead was built in 1882, but the town was not established until 1903, when it became an important business and cultural centre.

Over the next ten years, there was a population explosion. Bootlegging, gambling and prostitution were thriving, yet literally underground during the period, emanating from a network of tunnels linking many of the city’s hotels and restaurants. The roaring twenties brought a measure of notoriety to the city, with celebrities like Al Capone rumoured to have stayed in downtown hotels. It was from here that he controlled the distribution of contraband liquor, which made their way across the border to Chicago.

 

Alberta

Shooting the rapidsAlberta borders the Rocky Mountains to the west. The parks of Banff and Jasper are crown jewels in Canada’s exceptional series of National Parks. The picturesque outdoors provide an opportunity to kayak, hike, ski, and you can even take a dip in a hot spring. Other natural beauties include Lake Louise and Peyto Lake. The Icefields Parkway is one of the greatest alpine drives in the world.

Dinosaurs once roamed in the south-central badlands of Drumheller and this prehistoric life can be uncovered in the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology.

Calgary is one of the most modern cities in Canada. It has exploded from being a cow town to a booming metropolis on the swift fortunes of oil. The Calgary Stampede is the biggest rodeo in the world and runs for ten days in the middle of July. The Glenbow Museum is a place to discover the varied history of the people of Canada.

Alberta’s major city is Edmonton, known as the gateway to the North. It boomed during the oil trade in the 1970’s, and is again booming in the first decade of the new millennia, attracting people from across Canada with available work and high wages. There’s plenty to do here if you’re just passing through, with museums, parks, a zoo and the intriguing Muttart Conservatory. The Conservatory is made up of four glass pyramids each with a different recreated climate, providing a unique horticultural display.

 

British Columbia

Mountain sceneryBritish Columbia is a truly beautiful province, with a laidback lifestyle and attitude. Vancouver, the business epicentre, is a booming city that is the third largest in Canada. Found on the Pacific, it is known as the gateway to the Far East. The first oriental visitors arrived in the 1800s, brought over as cheap labor to build the railways. More than 100,000 British Columbians are their descendants, and today Vancouver has North America’s second-largest Chinese community. Vancouver has one of the world’s most vibrant Chinese Quarters, established in 1886 on Shanghai Alley, at the corner of Pender Street and Carrall Street. It has become a vital part of the city and is representative of Vancouver’s cultural diversity.

With the ocean to the west and mountains close at hand, there is much to be explored here. Sandy beaches and towering mountains on the edge of the city are great for sports, especially given the mild temperatures and in spite of Vancouver’s constant rain. Vancouver Island off the west coast is a rugged wilderness with mountain ranges, snowcapped peaks and lakes. On the island is the provincial capital of Victoria a perfect base to explore Vancouver Island, including the ancient rainforests made up of trees you can drive a car through. Victoria was once described by Rudyard Kipling as “Brighton Pavilion with the Himalayas for a backdrop”, which neatly sums up this English resort in the mountains. The west is dominated by the Columbia and Rocky Mountains and associated national parks. Hot springs abound here, plus thousands of great hiking trails and ski destinations. The most popular of which is Whistler, which, along with Vancouver, has begun preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games. Halfway between these two destinations is the town of Squamish. Known as the outdoor recreation capital of Canada, Squamish is a must for anyone in search of adventure activities.

 

Yukon

The Yukon is a triangle which lies between the Northwest Territories and Alaska, a sub-arctic region covered in mountains interspersed with hills, lakes and streams. The Yukon is the place to hike among some of Canada’s mountain giants in the Kluane National Park or go gold digging on the Chilkoot Trail, once used to haul gold, now made use of for hiking. Dawson City has many buildings from the days of the gold rush.

In Dawson City, there had been small excavations of gold for twenty years before a significant yield occurred in 1896 and began the gold rush in Dawson City and the surrounding Klondike Valley. George Carmack and his brother-in-law, Skookum Jim were fishing at the mouth of the Klondike River when they happened upon a large gold nugget. Word quickly spread, and just a year later prospectors from all over the world were heading straight for Dawson City in search of fame and fortune. The town still retains the charm and quirkiness of this era and many of the buildings have survived. Be sure to go and see Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall – a recreation of an 1898 saloon – as well as the SS Keno, one of the area’s last riverboats.

 

Northwest Territories

Covering a third of Canada with a population of just 50,000, this northern territory is an absolute wilderness land. Its highlights are the Nahanni National Park and the wildlife sanctuary of the Mackenzie Delta. Take a boat to the Arctic City to go whale watching, or get a glimpse of the bright sparks of the Northern Lights. Mackenzie is the most accessible district, given that it’s the only one with any roads.

Yellowknife is the capital of the Territories, situated on the Great Slave Lake. It was built only fifty years ago by pioneers looking for gold and is the only city in the Northwest Territories. Head to Ragged Ass Roadfor cheap accommodation or house sit for people who’ve gone to stay somewhere less remote. The Ragged Ass is the original road that started Yellowknife, and is named after the holes in the pioneers’ trousers. The Caribou Carnival, held in March, includes whacking the ugly dog and truck hauling. Be sure not to miss it.

 

Nunavut

Baffin Island, which lies in the Arctic Ocean, is in the Arctic Circle territory of Nunavut. The Eskimo or Inuit people call it ‘our land’, and it was peacefully handed over to them in 1999. Its capital is Iqaluit, a place to rest before heading out into the tundra. It’s a four-day trek from Iqaluit to Kimmirut across the plateau known as Meta Incognita – ‘the dreaded unknown’. In an average day, you can actually travel about thirty miles by dog sled, but it can be tricky. Here, on the edge of the world, life is simple and survival is paramount.

Kimmirut is a small community of 350 people. Most of them still make a living from hunting, fishing and soapstone carving. There is a seal-cutting contest which happens every year at toonik tyme, a spring event to welcome the coming back of the sun.

The magnetic North Pole actually lies in Canada, north of Bathurst Island although it’s constantly shifting.

 

Destination – Canada