Visit To Canada

 

International travelers visiting Canada sometimes expect French to be the primary language and that the sprawling country is usually snow covered. While there are some jurisdictional oddities regarding language, English is the primary language. There are 10 provinces and 3 territories. Nine of the 10 provinces are officially unilingual – 8 are English and 1 (Quebec) is French. New Brunswick is officially bilingual. Canada as a whole is bilingual. The Northwest Territories have eleven official languages. Yukon has two – English and French. Nunavut Territory has English, French, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. The reality is that in most places, English is spoken and in some places there is a much wider variety of cultures present. For instance, in the small fishing village of Souris, Prince Edward Island, there are Russian and Chinese communities.

 

As for the expectation of snow, the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, has the distinction of having the second widest range of temperatures in the world. The summer temperature can be 40 degrees Celsius (104 ºF) and the winter temperature can be minus 40 degrees Celsius (-40 ºF). The rest of the country varies between these ranges.

The country is divided into sections and if you plan to visit Canada, it is best to choose one section. More than one visitor has made plans to travel across the country in a couple of weeks. While this could be done by plan, or even by rail, it would be a rushed vacation with most of the time being spent in travel. One thing that we always recommend is to get good travelers health insurance when visiting Canada. On the east coast, there are the Atlantic Provinces. Newfoundland, the most recent addition to the country (1949) is a large rocky island and is a complete vacation in itself. It was an aboriginal country and the first European settlers were the Vikings. It has its own culture, language patterns, and lifestyle. The other Atlantic Provinces, also known as the Maritimes Provinces are Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and often considered as a unit. They offer rolling farmland, fishing villages, a strong musical talent, and many special treats such as the Gaelic College, lobster feasts, the Acadian Village, and ferry travel.