The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum (CWHM) in New Hope, Ontario, is unique because it is home to world’s largest collection of flying vintage aircraft.   The museum also houses an aviation art gallery, interactive displays, audio-visual presentations, and an assortment of aircraft photographs and memorabilia.

The Museum began as a labor of love for four friends, Dennis J. Bradley, Alan Ness, Peter Matthews, and John Weir.  The men did not just set out to restore just any planes, they specifically wanted to preserve and maintain a collection of the aircraft flown by Canadians and the Canadian military services from World War II to the present. Read more »

Toronto, capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario, is an art enthusiast’s dream.  The city, the fifth largest in North America, is home to several major galleries and museums.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is the largest in Canada with more than 40 galleries.  The museum displays both art works and natural history items and has the largest collection of avian and mammalian skeletons in the world.  The museum’s Far East Collection, the largest collection of far eastern artifacts outside of China, is anchored by the Ming Tomb, a complete seventeenth century warriors tomb and the only complete Chinese tomb in the West.

The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art was, at one time affiliated with the Royal Ontario Museum.  This specialized museum is home to more than 2,000 pieces of ceramic art.  Their collection features everything from pre-Columbian pottery to classic European porcelains of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Read more »

Very old school.

If you’re traveling in Ontario, Canada with your kids anytime between May 1st and September 8^th and find yourself anywhere near Greater Sudbury, make some time, a day would be best, to detour to Dinosaur Valley Mini Golf for a unique experience in family entertainment. Open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, this singular attraction offers service in both English and French.

The park began as a dream for owners Josee and Marcel Rainville, who, after five years of work, completed the first 9-hole course in 1998. Over the years five more courses were added as well as the amazing steel dinosaurs, all scaled to size. The park owners make all of the skeletal replicas. Read more »

The tides in the Bay of Fundy, the waterway between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, are the highest in the world, with an estimated 100 billion tons of water rolling in and out of the bay twice daily.

One of the best places to see this phenomenon in action is Hopewell Rocks Park.  These “flowerpot” rocks are tree-topped rocks only partially visible at high tide.  Low tide reveals their delicate, sculpted bases.  During low tide it is possible to actually walk on the revealed sea floor.  As the tide comes in, footprints left on the flats literally disappear before people’s eyes as the water rises six to eight feet per hour.  In some parts of the bay the difference between high and low tide can be as much as 46 feet (14 m).

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The Canadian Museum of Civilization is dedicated to the preservation and display of Canada’s history and to the culture and art of the First Peoples (a common Canadian term for the pre-European native population of Canada).

The Museum, in Hull, Quebec, is across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill, Ottawa.  Douglas Cardinal designed the two massive curvilinear buildings that make up the museum and the curatorial department.  The design was intended to be evocative of the formation of the North American continent and its subsequent reshaping by glaciers, wind, and water. 

The Grand Hall exhibit space is a little over 19,000 square feet (1,782 sq m) and contains six full-size reproduction facades of houses and totems.  Each facade represents a typical chieftain’s home in one of six Aboriginal communities from coastal British Columbia.  The Museum is working with the Native people of each region represented to create a cooperative exhibit for the houses’ interiors.

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The weather is a harsh mistress in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  The natives have fought back by establishing a modern wonder, Montreal’s Underground City.  The underground, as the locals call it, is a remarkable pedestrian network of train stations, shops, hotels, restaurants, museums, and more, under downtown Montreal.

The underground city got its start in 1962 with the building of the Place Ville-Marie office tower and underground shopping mall.  That first mall connected to Central Station (subway) and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel via tunnels.  Since then the underground has grown to more than twenty-two miles of pedestrian walkways.

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International sports enthusiasts can visit the history of the Olympic Games in Canada, and get a glimpse of the future.

Canada hosted its first Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec in 1976. 

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal features the world’s tallest inclined tower—it is 574 feet (175 m) high.  The vision of the architect who planned the stadium was nearly impossible to achieve, however.  The stadium’s retractable roof was not completed until 1987, more than 10 years after the event for which it was designed.

The velodrome built for the 1976 Games was re-purposed for education in 1992 and is now known as the Biodôme.  Visitors to the museum will experience four typical indigenous American environments: the polar region, a tropical forest, the St. Lawrence marine, and the Laurentian forest.

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The first Stampede was held in 1912 and attracted almost 40.000 visitors its first year, far more than anyone expected.  Attendance at the 2006 Stampede was a record-breaking 1.26 million people.  Stampede organizers recommend that anyone who wants to attend the event make reservations well in advance.

The Stampede is famous for its chuck-wagon race, reminiscent of the races cowhands would have in celebration at the end of long trail rides.  Other rodeo events include pro and novice bareback competitions, bull riding, saddle bronco riding, both pro and novice, barrel racing, wild pony racing, and several roping events.

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Bernard Callebaut grew up in Belgium next door to the factory where his family had been making chocolate for the previous four generations.  In 1980, when the family decided to sell the Belgian chocolate business to Swiss chocolate giant Suchard Toblerone (they still owned, among other things, a brewery), Bernard decided to emigrate.

We wanted to bring truly excellent, gourmet chocolate to the Americas.  After touring cities throughout America and Canada, he fell in love with the mountains and culture of Calgary.   There he began anew with Bernard Callebaut chocolates.

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What does Santa do all summer?  If you have been asked this question one too many times, this year travel to Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada and find the answer.

Bracebridge, just north of Toronto, sits on the 45th parallel, halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.  Since 1955, Bracebridge has been home to Santa’s Village Family Entertainment Park, Santa Claus’ preferred summer vacation spot.

Not sure what to do first?  After being greeted by Santa himself in Santa Square guests can catch a ride around the 50-acre park on the Candy Cane Express miniature train and use it to get your bearings.

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