Canada Guide

Forget the staid old moose, mountains and Mounties cliché. Canada is like a giant adventure playground set in some of the most rugged scenery imaginable with modern, multi-cultural cities thrown in for good measure.

There's more than a hint of London in Ottawa's grandiose Parliament buildings. Discover 400 years of history in North America's only walled city, Quebec City, and the maritime heritage of Halifax. Savour the joie de vivre of Montreal and multi-ethnic neighbourhoods of Toronto. Jog with the beautiful people of elegant Vancouver.

Get a Rocky Mountains high aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train. Heli-hike or ski British Columbia's Coastal Range. Fly in by floatplane to Yukon's Tincup Wilderness Lodge or Northwest Territories' remote Nahanni National Park. Walk the Bay of Fundy ocean floor at Hopewell Rocks after the world's highest tides recede. Hunt dinosaur fossils in Alberta's Badlands.

Buy maple syrup from a Quebec sugar-shack. Bag bargains from West Edmonton Mall and designer labels from Canada's first outlet mall, Canada One. Get First Nations crafts in Duncan or Saskatoon, mammoth tusk jewellery in Yukon and whale baleen carvings in Nunavut. Grab cowboy boots in Calgary and wine from the Okanagan and Niagara.

Go inland for succulent Alberta beef and Quebecois poutine (chips, cheese curds and gravy). Try Nova Scotia lobster, New Brunswick oysters, Prince Edward Island scallops and British Columbia Pacific salmon. Wash them down with an Okanagan Pinot Gris, Niagara Icewine, Bloody Caesar (vodka and clamato – clam and tomato juice) or pear cider.

Visit trendy restaurants and chic boutiques in Vancouver's Yaletown warehouse district or Toronto's gentrified Leslieville – which doubled as 1920s' New York in movie Cinderella Man. See the magical sparkling new Michael Lee-Chin Crystal building at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.