Canada’s quirky side: fun facts for the nation’s birthday
Fairmont Hotels showcasing some unique information
Canada is known for Tim Hortons, poutine and beauty galore — but it’s also home to the world’s first UFO landing pad, exports enough maple syrup to equal the weight of 274 blue whales and has an ongoing “whisky war” with Denmark over Hans Island.
And those are just three of the 10 quirky facts Fairmont Hotels is showcasing as part of its Canada 150 initiative.
“Canadians have a great sense of humour, so we thought let’s try and showcase something that’s a little bit quirky about some of the fun facts people may not know about Canada and Canadians,” said Mansi Vagt, executive director of digital marketing at AccorHotels, the company that acquired Fairmont Hotels last year.
“I think we are such an incredible country when it comes to the variety and vastness of different landscapes, activities, cultures, culinary cuisines and so forth,” said Vagt.
“The intention of this was to show Canada’s lighter side.”
One of the animated GIFs explains the nation’s craze with Kraft mac and cheese.
Canadians grub on almost two million boxes of the cheesy noodles each week. Yes, each week.
We also live up to the stereotype of being friendly.
In fact, Ontario has created an Apology Act, which means people can apologize without the fear of it later being used as an admission of guilt.
We even have our own Loch Ness monster, named Ogopogo, and the majority of the world’s polar bears.
In celebrating Canada’s heritage, the animations are inspired by Canadian Pacific’s vintage ad posters. They were created by British graphic digital agency Builtvisible.
The old-schools ads shaped the image of Canada to the international world, with romanticized images showing the country’s natural beauty and growing industry.
The Fairmont animations stay true to the vintage look and feel while offering a glimpse at Canada’s lesser-known characteristics — a concept that’s attracted a huge audience for Fairmont.
In just a month, there have been more than 38,000 page views on the published GIFs, making it the fastest-growing infographic they’ve ever done.
“There’s 10 facts in there, but there is always one or two that everyone finds absolutely hilarious or surprises them,” said Vagt.
She also hopes the animations make Canada more visible on the global scale.
“Frankly, I think Canada is underrated on the world scale sometimes,” said Vagt.
“This really helps show some interesting and cool facts about this wonderful country to the rest of the world.”