r/AskACanadian

So if you have seen the Canadian classic Just For Laughs (either gags or stand up) chances are you have seen the ending that shows a time lapse of the audience leaving followed by Victor the little green dude sadly exclaiming "mommy, its over." Its an iconic tv moment. However one thing I noticed was fans saying it scared them, even one girl going as far as making her parents shut it off or leave the room. Heck, even the AVID logo group says that the line might scare younger viewers, what is so scary? he is just sad his show finished

I'm Curious, especially for people from the five provinces that don't have a NHL team, or people from areas that are from from NHL teams (like the eastern/Kootenays part of B.C., Northern Ontario, rural Quebec far from Montreal or Quebec City)

Schitts Creek is one of my all time favourite shows. I liked Kim’s Convenience too. I’ve never seen Corner Gas but my dad loves it, and my husband loves Letterkenney though it overstimulates me lol.

What are some of your favourite Canadian shows?

I watched the Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine and there's a scene where he goes and open people's outer doors in Canada. It got me wondering if that has changed since or if that's still the same. Or if it wasn't accurate at all since we don't actually see *that* many doors being opened.

So, for example. Perhaps in the BC section you might find some Okanagan wine. Or, in the Newfoundland section, you could see some bakeapple or patridgeberry jams, or maybe some Newfoundland chocolate.

What would your province want everyone to try?

Fellow Canadians, if you had to choose between the dd/mm/yy and the mm/dd/yy formats which would you choose? I know a lot of the times formats like YYYY/mm/dd or just spelling out the month are used quite frequently to avoid confusion, but if you had to pick just between the first two, which would you?

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on Reddit, and I’m really hoping to get some good tips, tricks and advice from people who have experience travelling in Canada. I’m posting this in both English and Danish, and I’ve also posted it on a few other relevant Reddit communities in order to reach as many people as possible, so I hope you’ll bear with me and my many questions.

My partner and I are planning a trip to Canada in 2027. We are planning to leave from Copenhagen Airport (CPH) sometime between June 21 and June 27, 2027, and return sometime between August 19 and August 24, meaning that we will be staying for approximately two months.

Our arrival destination will be Vancouver, British Columbia. For the return journey, we are currently considering one of four cities in Eastern Canada: Toronto, Ottawa, Québec City or Montréal. The choice of departure airport will depend entirely on which option gives us the best overall airfare back to Copenhagen.

I have asked ChatGPT to monitor flights to Vancouver (and, of course, flights back to Denmark), but there is one important complication: I am 2 metres tall (about 6'7"), so I absolutely need extra legroom. Unfortunately, that comes at an additional cost. I believe an exit-row seat could bring the total cost to around DKK 8,000 for the flight to Vancouver alone, but if anyone has any good tips on how I could bring this rather substantial expense down, I would be extremely grateful!

Our plan is to travel eastwards from Vancouver by road, covering at least 7,000 km. We are considering renting a motorhome, even though it is incredibly expensive, particularly because of the mandatory one-way fee for returning the vehicle somewhere other than where we picked it up.

The cheapest motorhomes I have found so far cost around DKK 70,000 (!!) for a two-month rental – and that is for the absolute smallest model I can find. Since I am already considerably taller than average, however, comfort and interior space are not exactly irrelevant to me, especially since I will be doing a LOT of driving.

So if anyone here has useful contacts, recommendations or tips for renting a suitable motorhome at a reasonable price, I would be VERY interested in hearing from you!

Alternatively, we could rent a regular car, which would probably cost less than half as much. However, then we would have the daily costs of accommodation, food and the approximately 20% tip that is generally expected when eating out, which can add up very quickly.

With a motorhome, we would be much more self-sufficient and could both sleep and cook our own food in the vehicle. On the other hand, we would obviously have to factor in the cost of campsites and fuel as well.

So, at first glance, a motorhome actually seems more attractive to us than renting a “regular” car, even though the rental price is eye-wateringly expensive.

And this brings me to my next question:

Do I have to stay at designated campgrounds when travelling in a motorhome, or is it legal to park/camp somewhere out in nature? What are the rules?

Are there maps showing these kinds of free camping or overnight parking locations? And, perhaps most importantly, is it actually safe to spend the night somewhere out in the Canadian wilderness?

As I am a trained biologist, I would love to experience as much of Canada’s nature and wildlife as possible – including bears, moose, wolves and perhaps even being lucky enough to fish for salmon in some of the Canadian rivers. I have absolutely no idea whether the latter is realistically possible, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

And of course, any recommendations for must-see locations along an eastbound route from Vancouver would be very welcome!

I’m sure I have many more questions, but I’ll leave it at these for now.

Thanks in advance for any advice, recommendations, warnings or personal experiences!

Best regards,

Anders, Copenhagen Denmark

My friend and her family just moved to Canada from Asia. I want to gift them something but since they do not have a place of their own yet, gift cards are perfect. Now I myself have moved from Asia to the US, so I'm not very familiar with other North American grocery / shopping chains, especially ones outside the US.

I'm thinking of getting them an Amazon gift card, maybe Walmart (?) too. What are other popular grocery chains are there in Canada? I'm also thinking of Uber Eats but not sure about delivery fees over there and I don't want to put them in the position where they need to pay extra to use the gift cards.

They are in the Victoria area if that helps. Thanks!

Hello Canadian friends,

Me and my family from The Netherlands are going on a road trip to Canada soon, which we are very looking forward to. We already have a guide with things to see, but what I also would love to do is visit a sports game. Now, in terms of the big leagues (NHL, CBL, Toronto Raptors) I already saw that those are stopped right now (great timing lol).

But is there maybe anything else to enjoy in the places we visit? Perhaps in lower leagues or other sports (we already saw that there is a horse racing track in Kitchener, which looks fun)? But I would also love to hear about other events or activities in the area, or any other tips.

I included our schedule for reference. Love to hear from you, thanks in advance!

EDIT: was looking at a wrong quotation, sorry. We are in Quebec City from 13-9 though 15-9 and not in Matane (which didn´t make sense at all).

4-9 though 6-9	Toronto
6-9 through 7-9	Niagara Falls
7-9 through 8-9	Kitchener
8-9 through 9-9	Midland
9-9 through 10-9	Pembroke
10-9 through 11-9	Ottawa
11-9 through 13-9	Mont Tremblant
13-9 through 15-9	Quebec City
15-9 through 16-9	Montreal
16-9 through 17-9	Gananoque
17-9 through 18-9	Toronto

Hey there,
Coming to you from Michigan looking for opinions on Canadian 'outdoors' culture.
In the States, the culture of outdoor recreation is almost singularly focused on mountains, particularly those in the western part of the country. So much so, that all other natural areas and forms of outdoor recreation are widely seen as second-class.

With the large, wilderness areas in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, and the cultural/historical importance of canoeing - I'm wondering if things aren't different over the border?

General opinions are welcome, but if you want to respond to something more specific: i.e. the folks in Thunder Bay live a lifestyle similar to a lot of us on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes - canoeing rivers and lakes, ice fishing, snowmobiling, seasonal cabins, sailing, etc. Would someone from B.C. look at Thunder Bay and say it's "less outdoorsy" because there are no mountains?

Edit: thanks for the thousands of comments. I seem to have hit some controversial spot here. Would not have expected so many replies!

I understood: 1. Go with the flow 2. Don't exceed 15-20 too much on highways 3. Respect construction and most important school zones.

German (*1) here. I am on a US/Canada Roadtrip and yesterday I entered the second half of the trip passing the border from Montana to BC. As I don't want to get any tickets I am more or less strictly adhering to the speed limits by setting the cruise control to lets say 90 km/H on the Trans Canada Highway. Every few kilometers a new "90 KM/H MAXIMUM" sign. Sometimes I set it to 93km/h so that my satnav shows 90km/h instead of 87/88.

But now after day two of driving in Canada obeying the sign posted speed limit, literally the only vehicle I was passing today was a heavy truck going uphill slowly. Even travel coaches and trucks pass me with 95-100. Passenger vehicles usually with 100+.

Not a big problem for me on a two lane road. But on a single lane road I often feel like I am annoying (and justify my slow driving with the speed limit signs that are visible and valid for everyone?!) and it feels annoying being pushed / tailgated by other drivers.
Driving a week through Washington, Idaho and Montana going exactly the speed limit felt a lot more comfortable to be honest! (*2)

What is it? Are the "90 KMH" sign posts just a form of decoration everyone ignores?

My short research showed there seems to be a socially accepted "10km/h to fast is okay"-rule.

Is that true? Do you "live" this rule? Would you expect me (a guest in your country) to break your rules to not slow you down on single lane roads?

Is the risk of getting caught so close to 0 that you don't care?

Why not just increase the speed limit, if it is "socially accepted"?

TL;DR: why do you Canadians(*3) have 90 KM/H speed limits that no one cares about? What do you expect from Tourists? Are you annoyed when they follow the local rules?

(*1) I am used to drive 120-180km/h on our Autobahns at home (and I am used to be passed by other drivers going 200+ Km/h on some roads as well). I know where it is safe to do so and I can judge the behaviour of other European drivers as well as the risk of getting a ticket when I am exceeding an official limit. But I respect other people doing exactly the speed limit and won't push them.)

(*2) sorry for the US comparison

(*3) sorry to generalize here, when all I've seen so far were Alberta and BC number plates. People from other provinces, I am happy to hear your position as well ;)

hi everyone!

i'll be in toronto for four months (september till december) and am looking for places to travel to

i just wanted to ask what are some places you'd recommend people to go if canada is like a once in a lifetime trip for them

currently banff is on my itinerary, and im deciding between old quebec city or vancouver (due to limited budget)

edit: hi everyone! extremely grateful for all the suggestions and recommendations (sorry i cant reply to everyone)

by limited budget i mean in the sense that i can't just go wherever i want whenever i want and have to budget carefully

ideally i am hoping to visit one more place on top of banff, and i am comfortable spending ≈2k for a very short trip, but i just wanted to expand my options!

it was probably in the late 90s, maybe 97/98, there was a improv show i used to watch as a kid that involved 2 teams and a referee. they were giving prompts and each team took turns coming up a scene and then the audience scored them on who they thought was the funnier team for that scene.

it wasn’t whose line since it was a Canadian show that was either from Ottawa or Toronto and one of the team members was on the show Radio Active and the referee was the comedian, Scott Falconbridge.

i’ve tried looking on IMBD, but couldn’t find anything. it’s even bothering me for years to see if anyone else watched it or if i’m crazy.

Hi everyone!

I'm from Asia and have always dreamed about seeing snow and the Northern lights. I'm visiting friends in Canada for 2 months this year from October 3rd- December 3rd.

My main goals are to see and touch snow (sounds childish, I know, but I'm in Asia lol), see the northern lights, and see fall in full bliss.

Any recommendations and which time I should go? (eg: go to place X in October, go to place Y end of November)

So far I know for Northern lights - Yellowknife, Edmonton, Yukon

Fall - Vancouver, Quebec Ontario, Alberta, Yukon

Snow in October/November?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: thank you everyone for all the replies and suggestions!! Truly means a lot :) done planning for now!

I love that we have free universal healthcare in Canada. Until, I find out the procedure is not covered by my provincial plan.
Yes, I know it’s expensive and including more services only adds to the cost.
But, what would you like to see included that currently isn’t covered?

American girl here. My boyfriend is from Canada. His name is Sebastian but he goes by Seb. He works in the US and he gets very confused because nobody here really gets his name on the first try. He’s the first Seb I’ve met, personally. All of my family and friends (American) have never heard of a Seb before my boyfriend. My boyfriend says that there was another Seb in his grade and that Seb is a common name. Is Seb a common name in Canada???

To clarify:

- Obviously Seb is a name. My boyfriend could go by Gooblygob and I’d respect that. If he said it was common in his province I’d believe it too. We were both wondering if Seb is only common in his province or generally in Canada.

- In the US: Sebastian is a common name. Introducing yourself or going solely by Seb is not common. People SEE Seb and understand it’s a nickname for Sebastian. People do not HEAR the name Seb often. American baristas write “Sep” and “Sam” more than they write “Seb”. When meeting new people, most Americans ask him to repeat his name so they can get it right

I live close to the border in the states and I have always been fond of Canada. I just recently found out that my great grandfather on my grandfathers side of the family and my great grandmother on my grandmothers side of the family were both born in Canada and because of the C-3 bill that was passed last December, my kids and I could be considered Canadian and apply to become a dual citizen. This has given me a bit of Canadian pride and I would love to rep the flag, even subtly.

My question is, I drive an American truck and I have an American plate. How would the average Canadian feel about this guy who appears to be MAGA (I am VERY not) repping the Canadian flag in Canada?

Edit: I meant like a small bumper sticker or something, not a cringey “clownvoy” (new word learned) flag. Also I learned that a maple leaf or something similar but not the flag would be better. (We call them Y’all-Qaeda in the states ).