Activities

Canada is synonymous with rugged landscape and crisp clean air, and teems with activities that embrace both. Hiking through magnificent mountains, cycling through luscious greenery or paddling through placid streams, healthy outdoors-folk the world over lose their hearts to this adventure playground.

Points of interest

Basilique Nôtre Dame

Montréal's famous landmark, Notre-Dame Basilica, is a visually pleasing if slightly gaudy symphony of carved wood, paintings, gilded sculptures and stained glass windows. Built in 1829 on the site of an older and smaller church, it also sports a famous Casavant organ and the Gros Bourdon, said to be the biggest bell in North America.

The interior looks especially impressive during an otherwise overly melodramatic sound and light show staged from Tuesday to Saturday nights.

The basilica made headlines in 1994 when singer Céline Dion got married under its soaring midnight-blue ceiling, and again in 2000 when Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro shared pall-bearing honours at the state funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

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Niagara Falls

These thundering falls are one of Canada's top tourist destinations, drawing over 13 million people annually. Although hundreds of the world's waterfalls are actually taller than Niagara Falls, in terms of sheer volume, these are hard to beat: the equivalent of over a million bathtubs full of water goes over every minute.

The falls themselves are certainly impressive, particularly the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. They look good by day and by night, when colourful spotlights flicker across the misty foam. Even in winter, when the flow is partially hidden and the edges frozen solid - like a freeze-framed film - it's quite a spectacle.

Very occasionally the falls stop altogether. The first recorded instance of this occurred on the morning of Easter Sunday 1848, and it caused some to speculate that the end of the world was nigh. An ice jam had completely cut off the flow of water. Some residents even took the opportunity to scavenge the riverbed beneath the falls.

It is said that Napoléon's brother rode from New Orleans in a stagecoach with his new bride to view the falls and that it has been a honeymoon attraction ever since. In fact, the town is sometimes humorously but disparagingly called a spot 'for newlyweds and nearly deads'. Recently, it's been called Viagra Falls.

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Banff & Jasper National Parks

It all seems almost too surreal to be true, so picture perfect you'll think you're dreaming. Mountains scrape the sky - a jumble of colours and shapes. Cerulean blue meets snowcapped majesty. The sparkling lakes are emerald-green or milky-turquoise - you may have to blink a few times before your eyes can absorb their gloriously intense colours.

The glaciers cling to rugged precipices, intense ice blue merges with slate gray. Rivers rush by, fed on melted snow and spring rains. Lush forests and high alpine meadows explode in a kaleidoscope of colours when the wildflowers bloom. A grizzly bear ambles past, swinging his head from side to side, searching for food. A moose pauses at a fast flowing river for a drink.

Welcome to Banff and Jasper National Parks, heart of the Canadian Rockies, and home to some of the most spectacular scenery on the continent. Much of the Rocky Mountains area of Alberta, running along the British Columbia border, is contained and protected within these two huge, adjacent national parks: Banff to the south and Jasper to the north. The Icefields Parkway links the two, though there is no real boundary. Adjoining the southern boundary of Banff National Park is Kananaskis Country, a provincial recreation area.

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Biodôme

This mesmerising complex is a legacy of the 1967 Olympic summer games. The one time velodrome has morphed into the Biôdome, a natural history museum with a twist: below the giant cupola are four beautifully re-created ecosystems, including a tropical forest and a polar world inhabited by playful penguins.

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Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre Centre

A restored masterpiece, the Elgin & Winter Garden represents the last operating double-decker theatre in the world. In 1913 the breathtaking Winter Garden was built as the flagship for a vaudeville chain that never really took off, while the downstairs Elgin was converted into a movie house in the 1920s.

The Ontario Heritage Foundation saved both theatres from being demolished in 1981. During its multi-million restoration effort, bread dough was used to uncover original rose-garden frescoes, the Belgian company that made the original carpeting was contacted for fresh rolls, and the beautiful foliage hanging from the ceiling of the upstairs Winter Garden Theatre was replaced, leaf by painstaking leaf. Seats were bought from Chicago's infamous Biograph Theater.

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Attractions

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of Alberta, the most westerly of the prairie provinces. While Calgary milks the wild west image, Edmonton prefers to hit the headlines for housing the world's largest shopping and entertainment mall, but still enjoys an attractively wooded riverside setting.

The province's famed mineral legacy is explored in the Royal Alberta Museum, and there's also Canada's largest planetarium, unsurprisingly accompanied by an IMAX theatre. The gem south of the river is Old Strathcona, a residential area of gorgeous old buildings dating from 1891.

The 800 shops of the mega-mall are tacky and repetitive, the chains are too-well represented, and the 'entertainment' includes an artificial beach and skating rink - but the climate is controlled, and for the frost-bitten denizens of the Canadian Plains that's probably reason enough for the mall's success.

Vancouver

There aren't many cities in the world that offer Vancouver's combination of big-city lifestyle and outdoor fun in such cheek-by-jowl proximity. Ski in the morning, sail in the afternoon and still make it back to town in time for a cocktail or three.

Vancouver is still a city of new immigrants - wander the streets and you'll hear a dozen different languages. The city also attracts young professionals and artists from the eastern provinces who come here to enjoy its recreation and laid-back sophistication.

If there's a drawback to this place 'where everyone would want to live', it's the rain - particularly in winter, when it rarely stops. Even in summer, a soggy spell can last for weeks. But when the sun shines gloriously and the mountains reappear, all is forgiven.

Ottawa

Canada's capital bearhugs the southern bank of the Ottawa River, on Ontario's eastern tip. It's a government town, dominated physically and spiritually by the neo-Gothic Parliament Buildings. While not exactly excitement central, the air's clean, the streets are wide and the people are friendly.

The city has the usual plethora of impressive buildings common to capital cities: the Canadian War Museum, the Royal Canadian Mint, various grand old homes inhabited by ministers of state and a swag of museums to do justice to the country's icons: nature, aviation, science and technology, skiing and agriculture.

Ottawa is also home to Canada's premier art collection, the National Gallery, displaying an enormous array of North American and European works. In summer the city is dotted with the familiar red coats of the Royal Canadian Mounties.

Ottawa's downtown district is divided into eastern and western portions by the Rideau Canal. The eastern section has a very useful pocket of central guesthouses, most of them with heritage details of some sort. Motels are clustered along Rideau St in the east, and along Carling Ave on the western side of town. Byward Market, east of the canal, has a stack of cheap eateries, and western downtown is the place to go for more upmarket eating.

Events

The Québec City Winter Carnival, which takes place during the first two weeks of February, features parades, ice sculptures, a snow slide, dances and music. Ottawa's three-week Winterlude fetes all things snowy and starts in early February. The Montréal Jazz Festival in late June or early July and the Ottawa International Jazz Festival in late July both attract international and local players. Two major events in Toronto are Caribana, held in July, which is a Caribbean festival of music, dancing and wild costumes, and the Pride Week, whose events are held throughout the downtown area in late June, culminating in an outrageous Pride Parade. In September, there's the Toronto International Film Festival. Calgary hosts the popular Calgary Stampede in the second week of July; the highlights are the chuck wagon race and rodeo. In the west, Victoria celebrates the First Peoples' Festival in early August with traditional craftwork, dancing and war-canoe rides.

Some public holidays are only celebrated regionally. They are: 3rd Monday in February - Family Day (Alberta); Monday nearest March 17 - St Patrick's Day (Newfoundland); Monday nearest April 23 - St George's Day (Newfoundland); June 24 - National Day (or St-Jean-Baptiste Day, Québec); Monday nearest June 24 - Discovery Day (Newfoundland); Monday nearest July 12 - Orangemen's Day (Newfoundland), and 3rd Monday in August - Discovery Day (Yukon).

Books

A basic but useful primer on the country's history.

Provides a historical framework and raises contemporary issues regarding Canada's Native people.

Also published under the name O Canada: Travels in an Unknown Country), this is a collection of essays written after the author travelled across Canada from coast to coast.

A laugh-out-loud book that introduces the hilarious and maddening foibles of the Quebecois.

Describes the many national and provincial parks across Canada.

Recounts a grandmother's 7500km paddling expedition from Churchill, Manitoba, to Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort sea.

For a taste of Canadian literature, read this and her Booker-winning The Blind Assassin.

A short story collection from one of Canada's greats.

A beautiful, poetic work set in the Toronto of the 20s.

Humourist Will Ferguson hobnobs with polar bears in Churchill, searches for a lost kingdom in Quebec and gets mugged by moose in Newfoundland.