We’re so excited to head off to Canada in a few weeks. I’m sure my Minnesota accent will make a strong reappearance after our time there! Though I have to confess, though I lived right below the Great White North, I’ve never ventured over the border… until now that is!
We’ll be heading off to Quebec soon enough and I’m quite excited to get a doughnut and coffee at Tim Hortons, enjoy the beautiful architecture of Quebec City, and finally cross this country off my travel bucket list!
While my family will have a bigger hand in planning our travel itinerary, I don’t want to show up completely clueless so I’ve decided to do some research and came across these five fun facts about Canada.
Canada travel trivia
1. Canada shares a July birthday with the United States
Canada became a country on July 1, 1867. Though it did not get its independence from Britain until 1982, even though King Charles III is viewed as the symbolic head of state in Canada. Like other countries under the Monarchy, some citizens wish to be fully separated from the English Crown.
2. Its name is derived from “Kanata”
While there’s the joke about how Canada’s name was made: Some explorers decided to name the land and they had a bag of tiles with letters. They agreed to pull out different tiles until they had a name. The first, “It’s a C, eh?” The second “N, eh?” The next letter? D, eh?
A play on how Canadians allegedly say “eh,” all time time.
The name is actually said to come from an indigenous word used by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians: Kanata. Which means village.
3. Canada is so big it has six time zones
Canada is a pretty big plot o’ land. So big, it has six different time zones. From east to west: Newfoundland, Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Though it’s also fun to note that daylight savings time isn’t observed in Saskatchewan.
Another interesting fact related to Canada’s size is that the border between Canada and the US is over 5,000 miles long – and it’s a demilitarized border. Canada is 33 times bigger than Italy and 15 times bigger than France. In fact, Canada is so large that it’s bigger than the entire European Union.
4. Canada has two official languages
Canada is home to two official languages: English and French.
Though, Quebec is the only officially French-speaking province, and New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province! If you speak fluently in French you’ll easily get around Montreal as it’s considered the world’s second-largest French-speaking city after France’s capital city of Paris.
5. Canada produces most of the world’s supply of maple syrup
This should come as a shock to no one as the maple leaf is featured on the flag and the Toronto hockey team is named for the maple leaf, but Canada produces 80% of the world’s supply of the sweet stuff: maple syrup.
In fact, Quebec alone produces more than 77%!
Speaking of sweet stuff and food, Canada has more doughnut shops per capita than any other country and it’s said that 1 billion doughnuts are eaten every year by Canadians. And I for one cannot wait to get in on that action!
What other fun facts do you know about Canada? Tell us in the comments below!
