My experiences with North America wouldn’t be complete without a very unique place that I believe is extremely underrated. From my perspective, the province of Canada housing the most beautiful city in North America - Vancouver.
When most people think of North America, they imagine the USA. When people think of Canada, they imagine cold weather, polar bears, igloos, famous Canadian mammals and ice hockey.
In reality, however, a trip through Canada in one of the most enriching experiences you might take and one of the best opportunities to get very close with thousands of kilometers of pure nature.
The definition of perfect natural landscapes for me is British Columbia. The province’s capital city - Vancouver is a very eco-friendly city with plenty of nature, a place where you can go skiing and scuba diving in the ocean on the same day. From downtown Vancouver you can get to high mountains within 30 minutes, waterfront in 5 minutes on foot and pristine natural forests and lakes within a 10 minute drive, or even less if you count Stanley Park - which is best defined as a forest in the middle of the city.
The general feeling when walking through Vancouver is that the place is surrounded by hundreds of miles of nature, filled with polite people and occasionally bears.
One of the main stereotypes about Canadians is that they are very kind and polite - this seems to be factually true. The hospitality that can be felt there is unmatched. But what can you expect from people living in a country with the strongest middle class, great social help system, free, great health care and a mountain and ocean view at the same time?
Well, Canadians complain about weather. Weather in British Columbia is.. similar to Polish weather, but a little warmer. Surprisingly it’s true for almost all Canadians, since they live close to the USA border - that’s where all big Canadian cities are located. Vancouver is more rainy, however. That is not a problem for Canadians, who seem to not care much about bad weather. It’s not a rare view to see people wearing shorts and t-shirts during a rainy winter day.
Canadians love their hockey. In fact they are so passionate about it, that when their team once lost the cup, Vancouver suffered from very serious, large scale riots. This was especially shocking considering how calm and nice Canadians are known to be.
Canada is a beautiful country full of variety, and I believe British Columbia is its most beautiful province, due to its pristine nature, some of the most amazing mountains and lakes and hundreds of miles of forests. From Vancouver you can take a plane and landing in the harbor of Victoria, which is a city of beautiful gardens and European-style architecture.
If you wish to go to the US, you can take a bus, car or.. ferry and just within 2 or 3 hours you’ll be in Seattle.
Personally, I think Canada is a very underrated place. It should be on top of bucket lists especially for people who appreciate nature, nice mountains or just relaxing by one of thousands of lakes (most of world’s lakes are located in Canada).
Of course just as with any other place on earth, there are also some drawbacks. With British Columbia, the biggest one is the weather. The temperatures are pretty much comparable to our Polish temperatures, but the main difference comes from the amount of rainfall. Most days are rather gloomy and rainy - basically that’s the definition of fall and spring on Canadian west coast.
However, there are beautiful summer days when it’s easy to feel that being amongst the magnificent mountain ranges, the pacific ocean and almost unlimited amounts of nature surrounding you, that’s the place to be.
Due to popular opinions that Canada seems to be “like the US, just colder and more boring”, have you also shared that opinion? Or maybe you always wanted to visit? Does it sound like a place for you? If yes (or no), why?
I think pictures are not great enough at showing the true feeling of that place. Here's a nice video showing various places of that city, if you're interested I really recommend you to watch it:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIAYPopVBXM
Sources: Own photos and experiences, 2 youtube videos sourced in the article.
Comments
Adrian - yes, a huge part of Vancouver's population are Chinese - there's also a huge Chinese district. The reason is, Vancouver is one of the main North American harbor for Asian goods. Also, in the past people from China used to build the inter-Canadian railroad and their whole families moved to West Canada because it's the closest place from Asia and very convenient to get to by ships as well.
Finishing there is really cool because of abundance of lakes, rivers and.. fish. Just watch out for bears ;-) One day my friend and I decided to travel about 200km from Vancouver - absolutely pure regions with no bigger civilization nearby. It was already getting dark and it was raining and the closest city was extremely far from us and we went there by bus, there were no buses back. We went to sleep by a river. It was also September, so it's the time of the year where fish try to swim upstream and most of them die laying around the shore - really a LOT of them.
It didn't bother us at night, but we woke up next to a family of bears "fishing" just about 2-3 meters from us, and they totally didn't care about our presence. We just slooowly got up and proceeded to walk away trying not to gain their attention. It was a really nice experience, also proving that bears are usually peaceful, but anyway it's something to be aware of that things like that happen there frequently and bears might not always be in great mood occupied by their fishing.
I heard so many great things about that country, but here I even see it :) I'll definitely visit it, maybe even work there for a while. I would just love to learn about their culture, live everyday live like them. But that's a dream I have about almost every single country, so.... maybe this one will actually work :)
Thank you for a beautiful presentation! I am jelous about all your travelling experience!
Canada have it's own style and look. I dont think that Canada is boring in first place. I have a friend from Ontario and she always says that Canada is a great place to live. The climate is different from United State but there are pros and cons to it. Different does not mean wors.
Or maybe you always wanted to visit?
Yes I always wanted to visit Canada. I even got an invitation from two mates in different location (Ontario and Vancouver), but i never found spare time to do it.
Does it sound like a place for you?
Canada have many faces. It can be a nice and quiet place or it can be very crowded place like Ontario or Vancouver. Everyone can find something for themself. However if you like to live in Ontario or Quebec it might be useful to speak in some sort of French language (Broken French). This is how my friend spoke anyway.
As already mentioned Canada is not popular country for people from Europe. Although your pictures are very encouraging. I know that Canada is the most successful country in men's hockey. They have won eight times Olimpiade and once the World Cup and in other tournaments have always been at the forefront.
Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada.
Dalvia - thank you for your nice comment. Yes, I would also like to live there longer and try working there. It's indeed a perfect place for me, minus the amounts of rain ;-)
Wikor - I haven't shared that opinion. It's something I heard a lot after listening to peoples' opinions when I told them I went there. Ontario is pretty much crowded with Toronto being like "The NYC of Canada", but Vancouver is not that crowded. To me it has a perfect balance between being a city and still having that feel of nature all around. Also, they mainly speak English there ;-)
Czarnolecki - Canada is much more than the popular stereotypes though ;-) It's a really great place to visit and the feel of that place is something that should be experienced, I believe. Personally, British Columbia was my favorite place in North America.
Sergio - I believe that for so many Canadians the stereotypes are correct - especially about their politeness. It's a great place to go, I believe you won't be disappointed.