Articles tagged with "Canada"
Canadian weather is less about cold than about range. The same country delivers Pacific rain, prairie extremes, Atlantic storms and an Arctic north, and two of its hazards, smoke and ice, decide itineraries rather than outfits.
Entering Canada from the United States is straightforward and it is not automatic. The Canada Border Services Agency sets out one document standard for US citizens and a different one for everybody else, and the difference is the part most guides get wrong.
Canada is too large for one right season. What decides a trip is which part of the country you have chosen, how high it sits, and whether you want the version of Canada that is open or the version that is frozen.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981. It records nearly six thousand years of communal bison hunting by the peoples of the northern plains, and it is interpreted by their descendants.
L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, in the first group of properties UNESCO ever listed. It is the only authenticated Norse settlement in North America and it is a long way from anywhere.
Niagara Falls carries no World Heritage status of any kind, which surprises almost everyone. What it does carry is the best view of the falls from either country, and a town around it that needs navigating.
Banff is not inscribed on its own. It is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, a single World Heritage property listed in 1984 and extended in 1990, and understanding that is the key to planning a trip through it.
The Historic District of Old Quebec was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985. What the inscription recognizes is not a pretty old town but the most complete surviving fortified colonial settlement in North America.