In pursuit of Canadian trivia

In the late 1880s, the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, AB was one of the largest hotels in the world and by 1928 was the first resort to open a million-dollar golf course.
Canada’s most beautiful beach isn’t on the west coast. Surprise! It’s Grand Beach in Manitoba, widely recognized as one of North America’s 10 best beaches.
Canada won its first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey during the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium.
Québec City, QC, known for its romantic architecture, cobblestone streets, beautiful parks (some former estates), formal gardens and rich history, turns 400 in 2008.
Ottawa, ON, photographer Yousuf Karsh gained worldwide fame with his portraits of such well-known figures as Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein.
Chefs in Newfoundland and Labrador are using salt fish, caribou and cod tongues in pursuit of an exciting and new regional haute cuisine.
Heard of a Calgary Redeye? It’s a drink made from beer and tomato juice that’s popular with Albertans.
Canada has a desert, and it’s in BC’s Okanagan Valley. The 25-km-long desert is part of a system that extends right through the US and into Mexico’s Sonoran Desert. It’s home to over 100 rare plants and 300 rare invertebrates.
In Nunavut, established as Canada’s newest and largest territory in 1999, you can hear “throat singing” and watch traditional drum dancing, a ritual that goes long into the night as women coax men to join in the dance with ayaya songs.
Canada is the second-largest country in the world (behind Russia). The total area, including land and freshwater, is nearly 10 million sq km.
Canada’s most westerly point is a long portion of the Yukon-Alaska boundary.
Little Manitou Lake, SK, is a saltwater lake with a density greater than that of the Dead Sea. It’s not only easy to float in, it’s also impossible to sink in.
The Bay of Fundy, between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, has the highest tides in the world. The distance from low tide to high tide is as high as a four-storey building.
The Silver Trail in the Yukon Territory is a new 120 km-drive that winds through rugged countryside, a century’s worth of mining history and alongside the Stewart River.
Although visitors can reach a city within two hours by car, Quebec has 35-plus natural parks and wildlife reserves. It is three times the size of France and sparsely populated.
Linda Evangelista, one of the original five “supermodels,” hails from St. Catharine’s, ON. One of the newest international supermodels is Jessica Stam from Kincardine, ON; she was discovered in a Tim Hortons.)
British Columbia’s film and TV industry is a $1 billion industry. It is the third-busiest film and television production centre in North America in terms of foreign productions.
David Cronenberg — nominated for two Oscars for “Dead Ringers” and “A History of Violence — is Canada's best-known film director, but Atom Egoyan (“Where the Truth Lies,” “Ararat”) and actor/director Sarah Polley (“Away From Her”) are close behind.
Montréal, QC hosted the Olympic Games in 1976; Calgary, AB, hosted in 1988; Vancouver, BC is next in 2010.
Brad Gushue is the first Newfoundlander ever to win an Olympic gold medal. He was a member of the 2006 gold-medal-winning Canadian curling team and, at 25, the youngest man to skip a Canadian rink since curling became a full-medal sport in 1998.
Speed skater Cindy Klassen is Canada’s most decorated Olympian of all time. She is from Winnipeg, MB. Klassen won five medals at the Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, where she was dubbed “Woman of the Games” by Jacques Rogge. She started as an ice hockey player and is a descendant of Mennonite immigrants.
Canada is the largest producer of ice wine — a refreshingly sweet dessert wine with high acidity — in the world. The ice wine industry is centred in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley and Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. Pillitteri Estates Winery and Inniskillin are the top producers.
Southern British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley was called the Napa of the North by the New York Times. This wine-growing region is one of the warmest in Canada (2,000 hours of sunshine per year), making it a primo spot for producing gewurztraminer, riesling, pinot gris and pinot noir.
Canada is the largest producer of ice wine in the world. And it is tricky to produce. The grapes are left on the vines until the first frost (a “hard freeze”), then picked within hours, with cellar workers operating in unheated spaces to keep the grapes frozen. If a freeze does not come soon enough or if it is too severe, the crop will be lost.
Canada has some 2,000 golf courses. There’s BC’s Okanagan Valley, known for its natural beauty, abundant sunshine, bountiful orchards and world-class vineyards, and the Kootenay Rockies, a rugged spot of vast forests filled with wildlife and mountain panoramas. Long summer days are best in Edmonton and Calgary, AB, two areas known for their old-fashioned hospitality and frontier spirit. Muskoka, ON, has the romance of a rustic getaway, plus cool, green forests and crystal-clear lakes. Ocean breezes add challenge to the courses on PEI, an Atlantic Canada spot featuring classic rolling greens, ample water holes and, on the north shore, sand dunes.
Whistler Blackcomb, BC, is home to the longest ski season in North America, from November to June (June 3rd is the last day of winter operations). The resort also boasts the largest skiable terrain in North America at 3,307 ha. In April, Whistler plays host to the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival.
Incredible train journeys run coast to coast on Canadian rail lines: the Royal Canadian Pacific, the Rocky Mountaineer and VIA Rail Canada. For passengers aboard the Montréal-Halifax line “the Ocean”, VIA offers classes about the history, geography and culture of Atlantic Canada.
Toronto, ON, is the third-largest live theatre centre in the English-speaking world after London, UK, and New York, NY
Spirit Island on Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, AB is the most photographed island in the world.
Nunavut became Canada's third territory April 1, 1999. Carved entirely out of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut covers 2 million sq km, or approximately one-fifth of Canada’s surface. Of the almost 30,000 residents, 85% are Inuit. “Nunavut” is an Inuktitut word meaning “Our Land.”
Saskatchewan’s official bird is the sharp-tailed grouse; its official grass is the needle-and-thread variety.
Flirty and fun-loving despite its age, Lunenburg, NS, was founded some 250 years ago, making it one of Canada's oldest cities. “Old Town Lunenburg” is an acclaimed UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a colourful history, eccentric architecture and lively atmosphere.
Canada is home to the two largest luxury hotel chains in the world, Fairmont and Four Seasons, both based in Toronto, ON.
Spaniards were the first Europeans to set eyes on the British Columbia coast (in 1774), venturing north from Spanish America. Many of the islands in the Strait of Georgia—Galiano, Valdes and Quadra—bear their names.
England’s Captain James Cook sailed along the coast in 1778 and was the first known Caucasian man to set foot in what is today British Columbia. It was Captain Vancouver, in 1792, who first charted the coast in detail.
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, was named for Queen Victoria of England. The city was first established in 1843 as Fort Victoria, an outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company.
British Columbia is four times the size of Great Britain. All of Japan would fit into BC two and a half times. All of France, Austria and Switzerland would fit nicely into BC. Of American states, you could fit California, Oregon and Washington into BC and have enough room left over for Tennessee.
When there is a wind-chill warning in Newfoundland and Labrador, how long does it take for exposed flesh to freeze? Five minutes or less.
On Dec. 29, 1794, Peter Fidler, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee and one of the first weather observers in Canada, recorded that Holland gin freezes solid at -17º F, English brandy at -25º F and rum at -31º F (that's -27º C,-32º C and -35º C, respectively). Brrrrr!
The only two times that Canda did not participate in the Olympic Games was in 1896 (the first Olympics) and 1980, when Canada boycotted the Moscow games.
Canada’s snowiest city is Gander, NL. The least snowiest city is Victoria, BC.
One of the main promulgators of the ski exploration boom in the 1930s was Cougar’s Milk, a Canadian original cocktail that combines hot water, rum and condensed milk. Here’s the recipe, courtesy of Rhondda Siebens:

1/4 c sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c hot water
2 oz dark rum
nutmeg to taste

In a mug, combine the sweetened condensed milk, hot water and rum. Sprinkle with nutmeg. (A 300 ml can of sweetened condensed milk makes approximately five servings.)
Canada protects the many unique species of wildlife, such as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, bears, bison, woodland caribou and a catalogue of natural wonders — 300 species of birds, 90 mammals, 18 types of reptiles and amphibians, 50 species of fish and 1,700 flowering plants in Alberta alone.
West Edmonton Mall, the world’s largest entertainment and shopping centre, is Alberta’s No. 1 tourist attraction.
Ottawa, ON’s Rideau Canal is the world’s largest skating rink. It’s a 202-km-long waterway that links Lake Ontario at Kingston with the Ottawa River. Today, the canal is a playground — for skaters in the winter and for boaters in the summer. But its beauty belies a fascinating history full of struggle and triumph. The oldest continuously operated canal in North America — it celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2007 — it is Canada’s entry to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology near Drumheller, AB is home to the world’s largest collection of dinosaur fossils. The museum is situated in a lonely, lunar landscape we call the Canadian Badlands. There’s a dinosaur bed where eggs were recently discovered.
Charlottetown, PEI, is the historic “Birthplace of Confederation.” Founders’ Hall is a new, 2,000-sq-m heritage attraction that houses the “Time Travel Tunnel,” which takes visitors from 1864 to Nunavut’s inception in 1999.
With more than 400,000 lakes and rivers, Ontario has the largest concentration of fresh water — as well as the most canoe routes — in the world.
Nearly 3,636,800 l of water pour over the 57-m drop of Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls every second.
Macintosh apples, North America’s most popular apple variety, were first grown on John Macintosh’s farm near Morrisburg, ON.
North America’s first- and second-largest theatre festivals are the Stratford Festival and Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Shaw Festival, respectively.
Heinz tomato ketchup was first produced in Leamington, ON. J.L. Kraft, founder of Kraft Foods and inventor of processed cheese, was born on a farm outside Ft Erie, ON, where he got his start in cheese vending.
If Highway 61 — made legendary by Bob Dylan’s song — ends in New Orleans, where does it start? Thunder Bay, ON.
How many painters were in the “Group of 7”? Ten, arguably 12 if you count Emily Carr and Tom Thomson. The original Group of 7 were: Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Frank Johnson, Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald, Frederick Varley and later A.J. Casson, Edwin Holgate and LeMoin Fitzgerald. Emily Carr showed with the Group, but never formally joined. Thomson drowned in Canoe Lake three years before the Group’s first collective show.
200 billion t of water flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy every day, equal to all the rivers on earth.
Where does the name “Nova Scotia Bluenosers” come from? Speculations vary from sailors’ mittens, which bled blue dye onto their noses, to Nova Scotians’ noses, which turned blue from cold, to the nickname of crewmen of schooners that carried blue-skinned Nova Scotia potatoes.

Canadian glitterati picks — best spots in Canada:

“My favourite is the Foothills of Southern Alberta. I’ve lived here all my life, and there's a reason for that.”
Jann Arden, musician

“…For sentimental reasons, I love Lake of Bays in Ontario's cottage country. A perfect day is walking the dogs in the woods, playing golf at Bigwin, watching the sunset on the dock and a skinny dip, after dark!” —
Valerie Pringle, Award-Winning TV Broadcaster

"My favourite hidden gem stretches from Georgian Bay through Muskoka and up into Algonquin Park, ON.”
Eric Lindros, NHL hockey star

“My inspiration comes from Canada's urban centres. In Toronto, my favourite hotspots tie in treatments and products from all over the world. But when the pressures of the city overwhelm me, I make a short trip to Edwards Gardens for a welcoming escape. Breathing in the air and practicing my yoga amid the wooden arch bridges, fountains and rock gardens makes me feel like I'm in a world far away from the hustle and bustle.”
Miriam Mandel, owner and founder Savasana Therapy

“It has been years since I’ve lived in North Bay, ON, so it definitely qualifies as my favourite Canadian hotspot. It has everything to do with the water. Nothing compares to starting and finishing every day with a refreshing swim. On a still autumn morning, the lake reflects the fall colours of the hill so perfectly that you aren’t sure which way is up.”
Mike O’Shea, Toronto Argonauts Linebacker