Oh, Canada!
Planen Sie eine Reise nach Kanada? Spotlight stellt Ihnen eine breit gefächerte Palette von faszinierenden Sehenswürdigkeiten, Veranstaltungen und kulinarischen Highlights vor.
Time to plan your next vacation: Why not visit Canada? Spotlight has 10 travel tips to inspire you, such as an adventure holiday to see the North-west Passage, a cultural tour of a very French city, top-class skiing out West and much more.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once famously said that, for Canada, “diversity is a great source of strength”. His comment about the people of his nation can be applied to its places as well. Ask anyone who has ever visited the country, and you will be told about its spectacular cultural and natural highlights, from the French flair of the east to the Rocky Mountain wilds in the west. There are so many things to see and do that getting your long list down to the essentials may seem impossible.
Spotlight is here to help. We offer the following selection of 10 events, sights and cultural tips to help you with your travel plans. Many thanks to Canadian editor Margaret Davis and long-time Canadian resident Lorraine Mallinder, whose experiences shaped this selection, and whose writing graces these pages.
Best event: Winterlude
Think Canada, and what comes to mind? It goes without saying that the country’s best event would have to feature snow and ice. Winterlude takes place in the Capital Region — that’s the capital city of Ottawa plus Gatineau, the city just across the river. Held during the first half of February, Winterlude is a celebration of extreme cold with the warmest of hearts. Get the snowball rolling with the opening concert at the Crystal Garden, where you will also find the ice-carving competition and nightly DJ dance parties. Glide down the Rideau Canal, the world’s largest naturally frozen ice rink. Make sure to take the kids to the Snowflake Kingdom in Gatineau, too, with its ice slides and snow sculptures. To warm up, try a Beavertail, a deep-fried local delicacy, often covered in chocolate or maple syrup and guaranteed to go down well in the extreme cold. www. ottawatourism.ca/events/winterlude
Best city for kids: Vancouver
Vancouver, Canada’s coastal metropolis in the west, is an adventure playground for children and adults alike with many natural attractions. Close to the glassy skyscrapers of downtown is Stanley Park, a 1,000-acre oasis within a 22-kilometre sea wall. Kids will love the miniature train ride through the rainforest and the aquarium, home to 70,000 creatures, including acrobatic dolphins, sea lions and walruses.
Cross the Burrard Inlet to North Vancouver and visit the Capilano Suspension Bridge, where you can bounce your way over the tops of evergreen trees and (gulp!) a gigantic gorge. Save some pocket money for Granville Island, an arts and crafts paradise that includes a children’s market in an old factory.
Take a day trip to the provincial capital, Victoria, a short ferry ride over the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Island. There, you can treat your little princes and princesses to afternoon tea with elegant cucumber sandwiches and small cakes at the Empress Hotel on the waterfront. Or order yourself a brinner — “breakfast for dinner”, the hot new food trend — at the Blue Fox Cafe. www.tourismvancouver.com
Best skiing: Revelstoke
It has been around for little more than 10 years, but Revelstoke Mountain Resort is already being called the “global capital of heli-skiing”. The small community of Revelstoke in the western province of British Columbia has attracted adventure-ski types for much longer, but its remote location and expert-level terrain have meant that it remained a bit of an insider tip.
With an expanding new resort community at the bottom of Mount Mackenzie, travellers now have a more secure foothold — one that comes with world-class hotels, dining and children’s programmes. A small airport welcomes private and chartered flights, mainly from Vancouver and Calgary. Serious skiers can expect perfect powder here: Revelstoke receives a reliable 50 feet (15 metres) of snow each year. www.revelstokemountainresort.com
Best comfort food: butter tart
No one knows the exact origin of the butter tart. It could be that this Canadian treat first appeared in the 1600s, when French colonists settled Quebec. Or the recipe could have arrived a century later from Scotland, where a sweet pastry called the Ecclefechan border tart was popular. It could even (horrors!) have infiltrated Canadian kitchens from the US, home of the pecan pie.
One thing everyone agrees on is that butter tarts are delicious. The basic recipe involves baking small pastry shells containing a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar (or maple syrup) and a dash of vinegar. Individual variations abound and can lead to heated debates. Should the filling be firm or runny? Ought one to add raisins, or how about walnuts?
You can buy butter tarts in supermarkets, but locals say the best come from Betty’s Pies & Tarts in Cobourg on Lake Ontario, little more than an hour’s drive from Toronto. Still hungry? The Ontario town of Midland on Georgian Bay holds a butter-tart festival every year in June. buttertartfestival.ca
Best island: Campobello
The most famous moment in the history of Campobello Island in the east was a tragic one. Here, in 1921, 39-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio at his summer house. The disease confined him mostly to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It did not prevent him being elected US president in 1933, however, nor from serving three terms in office before his death in 1945. Nor did it hinder him from leading the country to victory in the Second World War.
Since 1962, in his memory, the island has been home to Roosevelt Campobello International Park. A bridge in Maine, on the US side, provides access to the island. The visitors’ center is on the international border, and the park itself is located in Canada’s southern New Brunswick province. Visitors can tour the historic red house where the family spent happy summers sailing and enjoying each other’s company. Hiking trails provide inroads to the 2,800-acre park, as well as picnic spots and ocean views. www.visitcampobello.com
Best for culture: Quebec City
This architectural jewel offers a view of Canada’s colonial past. High on the cliffs is the historic Upper Town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, set within fortress walls with stone streets that offer chic boutiques and bistros. The neo-gothic Chateau Frontenac, with its fairy-tale towers, should not be missed. Explore city history and culture at the ultra-modern Musée de la civilisation, and fine art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. In summer, don’t miss the Festival d’été de Québec, Canada’s biggest music-fest, with big names like Lorde and Neil Young. Eat at L’affaire est Ketchup, where chefs in baseball caps create haute cuisine on old electric cookers. Book early
on Facebook: its popularity skyrocketed after a visit by the late, great TV foodie Anthony Bourdain. www.quebecregion.com
Best building: Fogo Island Inn
The word fogo, meaning “fire” in Portugal, serves as a reminder that explorers from that small seafaring nation probably gave this island its name in the 1500s. Part of Newfoundland and Labrador, this little fleck of land sits out in the North Atlantic as if it were inviting the world to visit.
The Fogo Island Inn is a high-design place to stay. Newfoundland-born architect Todd Saunders reinterpreted the local building tradition: fishermen from the British Isles could not build permanent structures here, only wooden sheds on stilts as shelters for their short stays. In 2013, Saunders’s modern take on this resulted in a white hotel tract, built largely of wood, that looks as if it were floating above the windswept landscape. www. fogoislandinn.ca
Best fast food: Timmy’s
What could be more Canadian than an eatery named after an ice-hockey player? Former Toronto Maple Leafs’ defenceman Tim Horton founded the Tim Hortons (sorry, language purists, there’s no apostrophe) coffee shop in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1964. Horton died in 1974, but the business lives on as an international fast-food chain with nearly 5,000 outlets. From 2006 to 2011, one of these was at the Canadian Armed Forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Fans love “Timmy’s” as much for its easy-going atmosphere as for its huge selection of doughnuts. Then there’s the coffee: the term “double-double” is Canadian English for a cup of coffee served with two sugars and two creams — at Timmy’s, of course.
Not all is positive, however. Some Tim Horton franchisees have been in the news for taking away worker benefits and for reducing their sponsorship of charitable organizations. Critics say that, after being bought by Burger King for US$ 11.4 billion in 2014, Timmy’s needs to go back to its small-town, working-class roots if it wants to stay relevant. www.timhortons.com
Best landscapes: Rocky Mountain Parks
Canada’s west is a place of incredible beauty. The Rocky Mountains run through part of it, contributing to many of the most prized protected areas in North America. In fact, seven of these places form a contiguous UNESCO World Heritage Site — the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks. Unforgettable locations, such as Peyto Lake in Banff National Park, Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park and Mount Robson in its eponymous provincial park, show the ongoing geological processes along the Continental Divide, a reminder that nature is mother to us all. whc.unesco.org/en/list/304
Best faraway place: Northwest Passage
“The sea route to the Orient / For which so many died, / Seeking gold and glory...” This Canadian folk song evokes the ageold search for the Northwest Passage, a waterway in the Arctic Ocean that connects Atlantic and Pacific, providing a fast trade route between Europe and China. Outfits such as Adventure Canada will take you to Nunavut Territory to see the easterly reaches of the passage: the fjords of the Davis Strait and Inuit villages like Qikiqtarjuaq, the “iceberg capital” of the area, just north of the Arctic Circle.
From the 15th century, many explorers searched among the icebergs in vain. John Franklin’s attempt to chart it in the 1840s ended in tragedy, when his ships and men were lost in the ice. In 1851, adventurer Robert Mcclure was the first to travel the passage, partly by water and partly over the ice in a sledge. Then, in the early 20th century, Roald Amundsen of Norway was the first to sail the route; and since 2007, other ships have made their way through. Climate change has freed up many of the waterways. www.adventurecanada.com