Curious

I have a couple of weeks and would like to fly to an area of Canada and travel around. What is the nicest province or area? Any suggestions from Canadians?

xxx

What do you like to do?

Curious

I am interested in seeing new things and expirencing life in Canada. Which cities really represent what Canada is about?

Steve

Curious:
Not to be offensive or brash but I would suggest you first go to your local library or bookstore and browse through guides about Canada. There really is no 'true' representation of canada as each city is unique:

Montreal: Cosmopolitan French culture, very artsy and vibrany, fashionable
St. John's Nfld: Small, charming city located in a very unique location, fisheries ruled at one time, very friendly, unique music
Toronto: Huge, sprawling, fast paced, business oriented city and the center of Canadian media, multicultural, somewhat American, lot to do
Ottawa: The capital of Canada, beautiful buildings, not overly vibrant (a civil servant city), good museums
Winnepeg: Prairie city, once a trading empire with a lot of rail lines, friendly, today a little on the downside but still a good place and good people
Calgary: Very American in it's philosophy, urban sprawl galore, fairly vibrant, excellent location for the rocky mountains, friendly
Edmonton (my city): Smaller than Calgary, very working class attitude, very friendly, somewhat isolatd, vibrant arts scene, great summer festivals, too many stripmalls
Vancouver: beautiful setting, great for outdoors oriented people, Asian feel, laid back (except the traffic), lush and can be rainy
Victoria: beautiful setting, quaint, a lot of retirees, not overly vibrant, very laid back

I don't know much about the far north cities but Canada is a huge place, not a large population. As you can see there is no real 'typical' Canadian city. I would pick either the east (older, the original settlements of Canada), or the west (newer cities, British Columbia is beautiful) and come back for the other half in the future.
Good luck!

gary

I fully endorse Steve's opening remarks about doing some research before deciding but I think in a nutshell if you want to experiance Canada's core 'culture' and basic history then you would be best to concentrate on Central Canada and in particular the Quebec cities of Montreal and Quebec; Ottawa our national capital with great not just 'good' museums; and Southern Ontario especially Toronto for the big city feel and areas around London, Niagara Peninsula and Kitchenor/.Waterloo for the early 19th century history.

On the other hand Western Canada provides the greatest scenic, outdoors type of vacation and still gives you the vibrant and beautiful cities of Vancouver and Victoria along with the not so beautiful but still interesting cities and towns of Alberta. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are not exactly loaded with tourist attractions.

Atlantic Canada is also worth a trip by itself with wonderful scenery and a long history but I would place it after the first two choices if you have only a few weeks.

Canada is 'about' people. Originally and until about 1950 that meant the Anglos on top and then the French and other Northern Europeans basically defining what Canada was about. Since then Canada has become one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Unlike the USA and Austailia we don't see ourselves as a 'melting pot' but rather as a 'mosaic' and in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and to a lesser extent, Montreal this becomes apparant within minutes of arrival. But as Steve said - noplace in Canada can truly be called 'typically' Canadian. Maybe that was possible in 1950 but not now.

kate

If I had all the time and money that I needed, after reading Steve's summation of these cities, I would like to visit each one,then decide which one I would like to live in