Our neighbor to the north
Canada has never felt like just another place on the map to me. It has always been part travel destination, part family history, part wilderness dream, and part second home. My mom’s family was from Ontario, and while I was growing up we spent many summers north of the border, camping on the big lakes, fishing, visiting family, and slowly absorbing the idea that Canada was this enormous, friendly, wild country that seemed to keep going forever.
Over the years I’ve spent many weeks and months there, and I’ve been to and camped in about ten of the provinces. I still hope to get up to the Yukon and Northwest Territories someday. This old page began as a simple collection of Canada links and memories, but it really belongs with the rest of my travel pages: part road-trip story, part backpacking memory, part family story, and part love letter to big wild country.
Family summers in Ontario
Ontario is where the Canada story really begins for me. My mom’s family was from there, so Canada was not some distant foreign place I discovered later in life. It was woven into childhood summers, family visits, camping trips, lakes, fishing, and long drives north. Those summers gave me a kind of comfort with Canada that stayed with me long after I started traveling there on my own.
I remember those trips as a mix of big freshwater, campgrounds, family stories, and the feeling of being slightly farther away from the usual world. I was probably too young then to understand how much those summers were shaping me, but looking back now it seems obvious. Before the Rockies, before hostels, before long road trips, before all the backpacking and climbing, there was already Canada — lakes, woods, relatives, and the quiet pull of going north.
Lake O’Hara and the Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies are, in my opinion, the ultimate mountain area in all of North America. Twice I headed west thinking I was on my way to Alaska, and twice the Rockies stopped me cold. They were everything I was looking for, so I never made it any farther north.
Those trips were also where hostels started to change the way I traveled. Around 1990, I discovered Mosquito Creek and the chain of simple Canadian Rockies hostels between Banff and Jasper. I had been camping nearby, then realized the hostel was only a little more expensive and came with wood heat, shared kitchens, saunas, and — most importantly — people from all over the world. That changed everything. Travel stopped being just about scenery and became about shared meals, trail stories, and friendships that could form in a single evening.
I now realize that the only way I will ever get to Alaska is to stay far away from the Canadian Rockies and take the ferry up the Inside Passage.
West, east, and everywhere in between
British Columbia
British Columbia is full of variety. Vancouver Island is awesome, the West Coast Trail is a backpacker’s paradise, there are hot springs everywhere, and Vancouver is one of the best cities in North America. The eastern part of the province, near Alberta, is loaded with mountains, glaciers, and enough wild country to stop almost any road trip in its tracks.
Alberta
Alberta is a land of contrasts: farms and grain to the east, then big, big mountains to the west. I’ve been lucky enough to get out there three times.
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of the special places on this continent, with little fishing villages, picturesque harbors, friendly people, Cape Breton, and two great national parks.
Prince Edward Island
PEI is a funky, beautiful place, not to be missed if you are already visiting Nova Scotia. Brad and I spent three weeks there when we were about twenty, traveling from beach to beach, sitting in the red-sand dunes while he played guitar. Life was good.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland is strangely beautiful. The ferry ride alone feels like part of the adventure, and the time zone is two and a half hours before Eastern Time. I spent a couple weeks there, drove all over the island, saw icebergs in August, and still think Gros Morne is one of those places I need to return to. The Labrador/Newfoundland trip with Marty belongs in that same category of remote northern travel that feels a long way from ordinary life.
Ontario
I’ve been there many times because my mom’s family is from Ontario. I camped on the big lakes there several summers while growing up, fished with Uncle Bert, ran around with cousin Laurie, and collected a lot of those early family memories that made Canada feel familiar long before it became one of my favorite travel countries.
Quebec
Old Quebec City feels like another world, almost like an old European city. I was there once at Christmastime. Burrrrr!
New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
New Brunswick is a sportsman’s paradise, while Manitoba and Saskatchewan were mostly long, peaceful Trans-Canada drives toward the Rockies — farms, silos, big sky, and lots of quiet miles.
Prince Edward Island with Brad
Some of my Canada memories go back to those early road-trip years, when just getting enough money together and heading out felt like a major life decision. One of those trips was with Brad, when we drove up through Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island after I had worked three jobs to help make the trip happen. We were still young, but that trip already had the feeling of a lesson I would keep relearning for the rest of my life: when the chance comes to go somewhere beautiful, say yes and figure out the details as you go.
Prince Edward Island still stands out in my memory as a gentle, beautiful, slightly funky place of beaches, red sand, open sky, and time that seemed to move more slowly. Brad had his guitar, and we would sit in the dunes of red sand and play tunes all afternoon. We spent weeks traveling around the island and visiting different beaches, with no great agenda beyond being there. Ah, life was good.
Newfoundland and Labrador with Marty
The Newfoundland and Labrador trip with Marty deserves its own place on this page because it was one of those trips that stretched the map farther north and east. Newfoundland is strangely beautiful — cold ocean, ferries, small towns, big empty landscapes, and a feeling that you have really crossed into another world. The ferry ride takes about ten hours each way, and even the time zone is odd: two and a half hours ahead of Eastern Time.
I spent a couple weeks there and drove all over the island. Seeing icebergs in August is one of those details that still sounds almost impossible, but that is part of what makes Newfoundland so unforgettable. Gros Morne National Park is one of those places that I know I will get back to someday. If you have been there, you know there is nowhere else on this continent that really compares.
I do not have every Marty-and-Labrador detail written into this version yet, but the spirit of that trip belongs here: remote roads, ferries, northern water, and the kind of adventure that makes Canada feel almost endless.
Hostels, ferries, and the West Coast Trail
Canada also became one of the places where I learned how much I loved shared travel spaces. In the Canadian Rockies, the hostel network gave me exactly what I did not even know I was looking for: cheap places to stay, wood stoves, kitchens, conversations, and other travelers heading out to the same mountains and glaciers. That style of travel later became a huge part of my life.
Vancouver Island had the same kind of pull. The West Coast Trail, Hot Springs Cove, ferries, coastal rain, and chance meetings with other travelers all fit into the same larger Canada story. I loved the combination of ocean, rainforest, backpacking, and remote coastline. It was different from the Rockies, but just as powerful in its own way.
The Bugaboos
The Bugaboos were one of the coolest places I ever visited in Canada: huge icefields, massive granite monoliths, and classic alpine climbing. Ricky and I hooked up with Jan from New Mexico and climbed Bugaboo Spire during that 1992 road trip. It was exactly the kind of place that made Canada feel larger than life — wild, glaciated, serious, beautiful, and just a little intimidating in the best possible way.
Border stories and the “Canada, eh?” identity
I had some minor problems with Customs in Canada a couple of times. On my 1987 road trip, I didn’t have enough cash in hand at the border, so they wouldn’t let me in. They said $300 wasn’t enough for two weeks vacation, so I said frig ’em and spent my time and money in the good ol’ USA.
On our 1992 road trip, Ricky and I had some fun with the customs folks. For the story about “roaches in the ashtray,” go check out that page.
A couple years later, I was on holiday in Colombia for several weeks. Whenever anyone asked, “De donde?” — where are you from? — I always replied, “Ca-na-da, eh!”
Canada is a great place to visit, eh!