The Hill And Its Inhabitants (10/10)

When I’ll take the oath of cit­i­zen­ship, I’ll have to swear that “I will be faith­ful and bear true alle­giance to Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth the Sec­ond”. Yes… even though Canada is a sov­er­eign coun­try, it is a con­sti­tu­tional monar­chy with Eliz­a­beth II, Queen of Canada, as head of state, and a par­lia­men­tary democ­racy with a fed­eral sys­tem. Sounds com­pli­cated, doesn’t it?

Aboriginal Perspectives (9/10)

Canada has now adopted some of the Inuit cul­ture as a national iden­tity: sym­bols are used (such as the inuk­shuk for the 2010 Van­cou­ver Olympic Games), Inuit and First Nations’ art is dis­played in the best gal­leries through­out the coun­try and orga­ni­za­tions pro­mote and defend Abo­rig­i­nals’ rights. The cul­ture is still alive… and vib

A Canadian Mindset (8/10)

Don’t ever mis­take a Cana­dian for an Amer­i­can. I mean, seri­ously! It’s the best way to get a snow­ball thrown at you. The truth is, despite being influ­enced by Amer­i­can cul­ture, Canada has a true dis­tinct society.

His­tor­i­cally speak­ing, Canada has been influ­enced by Euro­pean cul­ture, espe­cially British and French. Later on, it also incor­po­rated Abo­rig­i­nal cul­ture into main­stream Cana­dian soci­ety. Var­i­ous immi­gra­tion waves shaped the coun­try as well.

Multiculturalism (7/10)

Granted, these pic­tures mostly depict Chi­na­town… well, we all have our favorite neigh­bor­hood, right? But the coun­try is truly diverse: tra­di­tional Chi­na­towns and Lit­tle Italy area can be found close by Ukrain­ian, Russ­ian, South-East Asian, Latino and Indian neigh­bor­hoods, and I bet you could find a com­mu­nity news­pa­per in almost every lan­guage on earth in Canada.

The Animals Kingdom (6/10)

Granted, when it comes to dan­ger­ous and weird ani­mals, Aus­tralia is prob­a­bly num­ber one (I will never for­get dri­ving at dusk in Alice Spring… bloody kan­ga­roos!). But Canada, with its huge land mass and small pop­u­la­tion den­sity, also has a great wildlife.

Sweet Tooth (5/10)

Yes, Cana­dian treats. Good. Sweet stuffs to help us sur­vive harsh win­ter. Just have a look at that!
Beaver tails that are also a typ­i­cal piece of Canadian-ism, although pop­u­lar every­where in North Amer­ica : it’s a piece of fried dough, usu­ally with some sweet spread on top (yes, maple syrup is of course a favorite!). Mostly eaten at fes­ti­vals and dur­ing out­door activ­i­ties, it’s a win­ter favorite.

The Hugeness (4/10)

Unless you’re from Rus­sia or China, you will prob­a­bly feel that Canada is a pretty big place. And if you’re from Rus­sia, please let’s not argue about the North­west Pas­sage — it’s not like we can nav­i­gate it yet, okay?

French And English (3/10)

The province of Quebec’s offi­cial lan­guage is French, and the province of New-Brunswick is offi­cially bilin­gual. For the other provinces and ter­ri­to­ries, it’s a bit of a grey area… Eng­lish is most widely spo­ken but there are French com­mu­ni­ties almost every­where: in Ontario (the Franco-Ontariens), in Man­i­toba, in Alberta…

Hockey (2/10)

One of the rea­son we can stand the cold weather and long win­ters is… hockey, Canada’s national sport. Think soc­cer for Brazil, NFL foot­ball for the US or cricket for India. That pop­u­lar.
Hockey is a really fun sport to watch. The game usu­ally lasts 60 min­utes (plus over­time if needed) and it’s a speedy game. A famous rivalry in Canada opposes Toronto’s Maple Leaf to basi­cally the rest of the coun­try. But Canada also love play­ing Rus­sia, Swe­den, Fin­land, and of course the USA.

The Weather (1/10)

Obvi­ous Canada #1 icon: the weather. When you think of Canada, you have the men­tal pic­ture of a frozen tun­dra. Can’t blame you, because it’s pretty accu­rate! Weather changes are often dras­tic and we can go from +40C in the sum­mer to –40C in the winter.