Experience Canada

As I sit here on my coffee break, eating a sausage and egg McMuffin*, a fairly random thought has come to me: I want to visit every corner of this country of mine.

I have decided, albeit on a whim, that I want to visit every province and territory in Canada.

I’ve already got a few crossed off the list, but there are still great swaths of the country in whose borders I have never touched foot. I’ve only ever visited one of our three coasts (the west). I have only visited one of our three northern territories (which, admittedly, is more than most people can claim).

I want to travel across my country. Ideally, I’d like to make it a road trip, but that would probably take a good three weeks, not including the territories.

I mean, sure, you can drive across Canada in less than a week if you don’t stop to actually experience the country. But that’s not what I want to do. I don’t just want to say, “I’ve driven across Manitoba.” I want to be able to say that I spent some time in Manitoba, even if all I did was spend 24 hours in Winnipeg.

Realistically, travelling across this country and visiting all 10 provinces and 3 territories would not be a single trip. At least not for me, in my current financial and employment situation. And that’s OK.

But, I want to set a goal. I want to say that I’ll visit all of these places in the next, say, 5 years. But I don’t know if that’s a realistic timeline. 10 years? That seems too long, but is probably more likely.

I’ll work on figuring out a timeline for myself.

In the meantime, here’s a list of the provinces and territories of Canada. The ones that are struck out are the ones that I have visited.

• British Columbia
• Alberta
• Saskatchewan
• Manitoba
• Ontario**
• Quebec***
• New Brunswick
• Nova Scotia
• Prince Edward Island
• Newfoundland and Labrador
• Yukon
• Northwest Territories
• Nunavut

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* Not an actual McMuffin; McDonald’s has sure managed to make their name synonymous with the English muffin breakfast sandwich though, hey?

** Technically, I have been to Ontario. I’ve even spent a few days in Ottawa. But I was so young that I don’t remember. The only time spent in Ontario that I do remember are brief trips from the Ottawa airport and into Quebec to visit my grandparents in Wakefield, QC. As a result, I consider Ontario to be a province that I haven’t experienced in the sense that I hope to experience those parts of Canada that I have not yet visited.

*** Similarly, my time in Quebec has been spent almost exclusively in the small town of Wakefield, just outside of Ottawa-Hull. And, technically, I don’t think I was even in Wakefield. My grandfather’s home is in a cottage community a few minutes outside of town. It’s also an anglophone community, so it’s not necessarily representative of Quebec as a whole.