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The Charm of Canadian
Cities
By Nancy & Eric Anderson Photography by Authors
Maybe they escape criticism because they've always had a well-scrubbed look and maybe visitors don't see much of the homeless because Canadian cities have better social services for their citizens. Who knows? It's certainly a fun experience to travel across Canada and check out its cities. Here are some Traveling Boy favorites you'll find if you head west from the Gay Parree of Canada, Montreal. Each city offers one attraction you really should take in when in town and a suggested hotel that won't let you down. Montreal, Quebec
Notre Dame Cathedral was always a favorite for visitors to Montreal but now the church hits them with admission charges even if tourists are not asking for 'indulgencies." It's still a gorgeous, impressive haven for its members; you can almost feel the silence. And an old world hotel down near the St. Lawrence to please any traveler: the Auberge du Vieux-Port. Ottawa, Ontario
The aviation museum will knock you over: airplanes from two world wars, airplanes flown by bush pilots, airplanes used by pioneer aviators and in our photograph a Sopwith Camel and bust of Major William George Barker, VC, DSO and bar, MC & 2 bars, Croix de Guerre and other awards that made him Canada's most decorated hero. The hotel? Our favorite the historic Lord Elgin. It has its history and its location: downtown, an easy walk to restaurants, museums, bus stop for the airport and tourist kiosk for the Gray Bus Line. And great service. Gananoque, Ontario
We snuck this one as it's such a favorite Canadian small town and it is the "Gateway to the 1000 Islands." This is where you get the boat line that gives you a choice of 1-5 hour cruises amongst those islands scattered along the St. Lawrence River. You'll want to visit Boldt Castle, the islands' top attraction and also the museum in town that tries to explain the War of 1812 to its visitors, many of whom have never heard of it though it did ravage Gananoque. Hotels? Contact the local tourism office which maintains a list of six or so all recommended. We stayed at the Colonial Inn for its convenient location to the river, the tourist office, the downtown area and the wildly popular coffee shop, the Socialist Pig whose young enthusiastic owners are rejuvenating this part of downtown. Toronto, Ontario
Canada's largest city still sparkles although it's a bit like Chicago, always in motion, the noise of construction part of the constant buzz this city gives you. One of our favorite museums is the Bata Shoe Museum. Yes, shoes! Shoes from the past through foreign civilizations, past cultures, primitive peoples, celebrities. In our image from top left clockwise: the wedding slippers of Queen Victoria, the Wimbledon tennis sneakers of Roger Federer, the booties of Elton John and Marilyn Monroe's scarlet high heels. As becomes a large city more hotels than you could ever sample. We stayed at the Strathcona across the street from the Royal York but less fancy and less expensive. You get what you pay for: it didn't offer a complimentary breakfast and it did charge for wifi but it's just across from the train station and at a bus stop for the airport bus. A great modest place for travel writers who think they are paid too little and often picture themselves as holding out to their editor an empty wooden bowl as if they were Oliver Twist or Buddhist monks. Winnipeg, Manitoba
"Winnipeg," says Nisha Tuli, manager of digital marketing at Tourism Winnipeg, "at this junction of three rivers, has been a meeting place for six thousand years. That's why one of our strengths is our multiculturalism. Another is that we are a breeding ground in our cold winters for arts and culture – if we can't get outside, being inside makes us creative!" Asked what the people here are like, she replies, "Hardy, independent – our license plates say it all: 'Friendly Manitoba.'" Most of the people here, she tells us, grew up here. They commonly move away then return when they have a family to be near family. This is one of the biggest cities in Canada yet it has a small town feel. It is bigger than visitors might realize; it's the seventh largest municipality in Canada and has grown 5 percent in the last five years. "The government has helped," Tuli says, "In the last ten years we have revitalized our downtown, our parks and our museums and now we have almost finished building the new Canadian Museum of Human Rights." The Winnipeg Art Gallery has the world's largest collection of Inuit art. Inuit see their art as story-telling and fortunately many of the carvings carry a card explaining the artist's thoughts. The stories include surviving on a melting ice floe, the kidnapping of a local woman and, ouch, the decapitation by the winds of the Northern Lights of a man who was whistling. We stayed downtown at the Delta Hotel – very comfortable especially after two nights in a VIA Rail sleeper from Toronto. We weren't familiar with the Delta group but there are more than 40 in Canada. Apparently the training for the staff is intense, a regular guest tells us over morning coffee. "They have a 10 to 5 Rule," he says and when we look bewildered he continues, "If a guest is approaching a staff member, when the guest is ten feet away, smile and at five feet ask, 'How can we help?'" Regina, Saskatchewan
We'd long wanted to visit the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Centre in Saskatchewan's capital but the VIA Rail stop is in Saskatoon, the province's largest city. Saskatoon is so spread out, however, that a car might be necessary anyway and the 160 miles between the two cities along an attractive quiet highway seems like a walk in the park. We have seen the 1936 movie Rose Marie where the opera singer fell in love with the Mountie and been greeted by equally handsome and attractive Mounties in uniform at Canadian press functions but we are not prepared for the details of the legends of the North West Mounted Police and the subsequent RCMP. We knew one of the Mounties' first revolvers was made by the Adams Small Arms Company in London who supplied handguns in the 1870s to the British military but not that the North West Mounted Police had to man the mountain passes at the border of the Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush with Maxim machine guns! Nor did we know that a RCMP ship St. Roch had made two epic transits of the Northwest Passage. We find lots of sepia photographs from NWMP history and a favorite one of Sam Benfield Steele, who pioneered the development of the police in the last decades of the 19th century. The third officer sworn into the NWMP, his influence was such he was chosen to mediate with Sitting Bull who had fled into Canada after his victory against Custer at Little Bighorn. He also more successfully led a small group of mounted police against Big Bear in the last battle fought on Canadian soil, the Battle of Loon Lake. This great museum is more than a tribute to the Mounties. It covers the very history of Canada. We were driving around Saskatoon so much we didn't need a fancy downtown hotel. We were well served by the simple Colonial Square Inn & Suites, next door to Peter D's Family Restaurant in an area that seemed more residential than business. Calgary, Alberta
We admit it. Alberta is our favorite province (although we've never managed to reach Newfoundland and Labrador). And our favorite city there is Calgary a city that always reminds of Texas. If you haven't come for the Stampede maybe you'll want to get up to the top of what has been labeled the "highest observation deck in the world," Calgary Tower and stand on its glass floor and freak out. Don't try and Google whether it really is the highest; the results are all over the place (no pun intended) .At 4029 feet it's more than twice as tall as Toronto's 1814 foot tall CN Tower whose glass floor equally frightens.
Hotels? Calgary has many, all so very reasonably priced even during the Stampede, but if you're making a once-in-a-lifetime visit to this part of the globe you might want to consider those hotels in our image, top to bottom: The Banff Springs Hotel, the Chateau Lake Louise or the Bugaboo Lodge if you want to try helicopter hiking. All three lodgings will live forever in your memories. Vancouver, British Columbia
For many people Vancouver is Canada's best city whether they are visitors or simply satisfied residents. It's like an upscale Californian coastal city! It has of course its famous aquarium and art gallery, it Punjabi Market in its Little India and its Public Market on Granville Island. It has its Chinatown and overlooking the city its Grouse Mountain but to us the charm is walking around Stanley Park or enjoying its harbor where there is always something going on near the Convention Center. Our favorite hotel is the glorious Pan Pacific Vancouver. It towers over the harbor and the Alaska cruise ship terminal. In our last stay there we left our luggage in our room and the next time we saw our suitcases they were in our cabin on a Holland America cruise ship! More recently we have stayed at the more modest Moda Hotel on Seymour Street. Victoria, British Columbia
Perhaps the only Canadian coastal city that could challenge Vancouver in charm stands Victoria, named after Britain's famous queen. We love its shops, parks, streets and so very British tearooms. The harbor bustles with places to interest tourists form its t-shirt booths and museums from Wax ones to the famed Royal British Columbia Museum with its big guy called "Woolly" its Woolly Mammoth. This relative of the Asian Elephant came into North America 65,000 years ago and died out 10,000 years ago although this one in the museum has had major overhauls in the last decade. The signature hotel of the city is, of course, the Empress. We discovered its sensational afternoon tea once on a cruise and stayed there on another occasion when its afternoon teas weren't so sensational: they began at 11:30am and continued through 4:45pm with reservation limits as to how much time patrons could take to indulge themselves. The next time we came back we avoided its charge of Canadian $59.99 to savor its more reasonably priced Empress 1908 Tea Cocktail of "infused vodka, lemon juice and frothy egg white at $13 a more reasonable beverage – and no one pressured us to finish like the afternoon tea drinkers in an hour. Related Articles: |
any people have tried to summarize the differences between Canada and
our country. The award-winning Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, for
example, once said "If the national mental illness of the United
States is megalomania that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
Maybe so, but we've read snarky comments about our cities but none about
Canada's. We remember Chicago was once called a pompous Milwaukee, 
Tell Eric what you think of his article. In the meantime, here are some of the feedback we have already received:
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Stay tuned.
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