The best places to visit in Canada (and how to see them)

Times

2 days ago

Moving to London from my native Toronto made me into a country girl. I hadn't realised how deeply canoe trekking, woodland walks and wild camping weekends under the big sky had sunk into my skin. I love the cities, too, many inhabitants descended from people from across the globe including Scotland, Germany, China and Africa. I return to Canada's restaurants with Proustian relish — even our beloved doughnut shops. I always breathe easier touching down for a visit, from the sense of space and the feeling everyone's got my back (Canadians really are as friendly as they say). Consider a week to start: however long you stay, it's a life-changer.
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One week Vancouver Island and the Rockies
Two weeks Vancouver Island, the Rockies, Prince Edward County, Montreal
Three weeks Vancouver Island, the Rockies, Cottage Country, Montreal, Newfoundland and Fogo Island
Is it fjords paddled by grizzlies you're after, or black bears on the beach and humpback whales at sea? Maybe it's a forest of giant red cedars wider than most houses. Either way, you'll see it all of a morning on Vancouver Island. A hulking natural preserve supporting rainforest and snow-capped mountains, nine-metre waves and sacred indigenous sites, the island is like California in miniature, three hours by ferry from Vancouver airport. Drive off the east coast and wind your way to the west through Pacific Rim National Park. Based in the loose, surf-friendly community of Ucluelet, you can join a whale-watching tour or simply luxuriate on 10-mile Long Beach.
You'll feel the spray of the wild Pacific from the terrace of your suite at the Black Rock Oceanfront Resort in Ucluelet. The property is bookended by a secluded beach and the Ancient Cedars Trail, so you can park your car for the duration.
Frontier Canada's seven-night Vancouver Island fly-drive loops from Vancouver to Tofino and back, via the charming small-town capital city Victoria.
frontier-canada.co.uk
In 1896, about 100,000 chancers stampeded up the Yukon River to the Klondike region hoping to pan for gold. They developed the mountainous frontier around Dawson City, then abandoned the colourful saloons and guesthouses (leaving a few nuggets left for dogged panners) for new generations more interested in whitewater rafting, char-fishing, moose-watching and air tours over the Tombstone mountains. The northern lights are frequent visitors, especially during the new moon. If they're a no-show, drown your sorrows at the legendary Sourdough Saloon.
The Midnight Sun Hotel takes you back to the prospecting era with a tin-ceilinged parlour and big, comfy beds.
Do the 17-night Yukon Klondike Kluane Loop, driving a motorhome around the territory and over the Alaskan border with Canadian Affair.
canadianaffair.com
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Sumptuous Rocky Mountain views are remarkably easy to access in Canada. An hour outside Calgary, Kananaskis gets a fraction of the tourists of Alberta's grande dame destination Banff — and yet the extremes of life on the Continental Divide are all here. Will it be sulphur-rich thermal springs at 1,585m followed by maple-infused cocktails by the fire, or bracing mountain climbs followed by Olympic-calibre skiing? Never mind: you can do it all in a day. An hour up the Trans-Canada Highway, the gem-green waters of Lake Louise are the lure to Yoho National Park, an off-radar idyll for glacier treks among sawtooth peaks.
Emerald Lake Lodge overlooks Yoho's lesser-known glacial lake and not much more from 24 private cabins. Secluded and low tech (the only wi-fi is at the main lodge), the property makes the most of its incredible position, with a hot tub facing Hamilton Falls and lunch round the fire pit.
On Exodus's nine-night Discover the Canadian Rockies tour, you'll hike, bike and canoe between ice fields, canyons and waterfalls, exploring National Park country outside Calgary. Saskatchewan's prehistoric plateaus and mesmerising First Nation rituals belie its reputation for stunning, wheat-whistling flatness. At Wanuskewin Heritage Park, just outside the provincial metropolis of Saskatoon, you can watch a herd of plains bison migrate across the prairie, dine on bison burgers with heirloom Lakota produce, then meet with dancing, drumming, fiddling members of the Great Plains nations, who have congregated on this land going back more than six millennia. Their long history is laid out across miles of trails, where archaeologists comb for arrowheads, tipi rings and pottery shards. Views over the lake-dotted grasslands go on for days.
Wanuskewin visitors can stay over in an authentic 5.5m tipi, styled after traditional Plains Cree tents. The one-night B&B visits include a night of immersive cultural programming (but no shower).
wanuskewin.com
You can visit Wanuskewin as part of a 14-night loop of Saskatchewan's grasslands, plateaus and (lake) beaches, beginning and ending in Calgary. The package, from Canadian Affair, includes flights from the UK plus overnights in Wanuskewin and a century-old working ranch.
canadianaffair.com
Think of it as Canada's Hudson Valley — a waterfront pastoral (on Lake Ontario, smallest of the Great Lakes) where tasteful types escape the city. In 20 years the rural backwater has metamorphosed with small-batch vineyards, revitalised motor inns and speakeasies that host live music. In summer it explodes, but you should get long, sunny days from May through Halloween. Pack a picnic at Fawn Over Market, near Twelve O'Clock Point, and find a quiet patch of beach at Presqu'ile Provincial Park.
Stay at the Drake Devonshire and Motor Inn, sister hotels with lively painted rooms that form the social centre of beachy Wellington.
A Victorian warehouse in small-town Picton, Ontario, has been given a wood-panelled, fashionably lit, urbane overhaul and puts you within 20 minutes of long sandy beaches, gourmet markets and brew-pubs.
theroyalhotel.ca
Weekends on the lakes north of Toronto are a rite of passage for millions of Canadians, and you'll understand why on the shores of Precambrian rock around Georgian Bay. Rippling out from the Great Lake Huron, its denim-blue waters are vast as an ocean yet still as a pond, surrounded by thick forests of white pine and quaint cabins for fishing and partying round the campfire with a two-four (case of 24 beers). Take the highway north from the city and bend around the north shore for canoeing quietly between umpteen islands and hiking to waterfalls along rivers of sturgeon.
Killarney Mountain Lodge maintains a low-fi mid-century vibe, though the log cabins and bay-view rooms have been tailored and wired like a five-star hotel. Learn to canoe or book into a microbrew tasting.
killarney.com
In the world's polar bear capital, most residents live to support, protect and watch the apex predators as they migrate between the prairie and frozen Hudson Bay (named after Henry Hudson, who commercialised the ancient trading port). Local laws allow visitors to get within 100m of the bears — closer than in other regions — whether trekking on foot or in a kayak or Rib boat during the thaw. Visiting in summer turns a stay into a veritable safari, with thousands of beluga whales adding to the thrill as they drift in to calve. Via Rail's sleeper from Winnipeg gets you here in two nights.
The log-cabin stay Lazy Bear Lodge doubles as an outfitter, leading wildlife expeditions by day, aurora excursions by night. This playground on the St Lawrence River is what you get when you cross-pollinate pleasant Canadian deportment with Parisian chic and New Orleans' lust for life. The late 20th-century decline of this once grand French-speaking metropolis was everyone's gain. Designers colonised the stone townhouses of the Plateau; chefs from France, Haiti and Vietnam launched quirky brasseries by the old rail tracks in Little Burgundy; and creative students from the cluster of universities stayed on to party. Now weekends are spent day-drinking through brunch in Mile End or queueing for still-steaming bagels with smoked meat before hiking up Mount Royal for views to the Laurentian range.
Stay at Hotel Le Germain for access to the old city and plateau — it's surrounded by museums, with Mount Royal steps away.
Spend four days exploring Montreal's old city, lively markets and art galleries on Canadian Affair's Montreal City Escape break.
canadianaffair.com
Newfoundland remains one of Canada's least explored provinces. However, a Westjet route from Gatwick to its capital, St John's, makes it easier to reach the iceberg-dotted coast (in six hours, no less). But serious voyagers leave quickly for the west country. The desolate Trans Canada Highway takes you to the Tablelands desert and the Unesco national park Gros Morne, an extension of the Appalachians with a glacier-carved landlocked fjord.
You'll follow the coast east to west on Intrepid's seven-night Newfoundland Adventure, following local guides on wildlife walks and outback trails.
The Gros Morne Inn is a light-wood Nordic-style retreat on an arm of the Gulf of St Lawrence, between the Tablelands and Gros Morne.
grosmorneinn.com
The fairytale wilds of this north-shore Newfoundland island got their happily-ever-after when Zita Cobb, a cod-fisherman's daughter with a Silicon Valley fortune, returned to help the community cope with the dwindling industry. She lured artists, chefs and entrepreneurs to work sustainably with local resources and commissioned a striking creative colony by the sea, which mimics traditional fisherman's cottages with spectacular modernity. Visitors enjoy the fruits of their labour: dramatic views, North Atlantic seafood, fireside jam sessions, and whale-watching with seasoned sea captains.
The Fogo Island Inn is the heart of the development, where wide-windowed guest rooms cantilever over the shore with saunas and hot tubs perched overhead.
Combine a stay at the Inn with wildlife adventures and boat trips around the icebergs. Wexas tailors a seven-night itinerary.
wexas.com
The Rockies is Alberta at its most memorable and things are at their most interesting on the Icefields Parkway — but only outside the bumper-to-bumper summer season. The road unspools north of Banff and Lake Louise, delivering a succession of flint-crested peaks, razor gullies, sacred lakes and deep woods, where peekaboo wildlife sightings become a badge of honour. En route, diamond-blue Peyto Lake will be instantly recognisable from your social feeds, then there's the Athabasca Glacier where you can play at being Shackleton and Hillary — Canada doesn't get more classic.
Fairmont Banff Springs is a Scottish-style baronial heap, fitted with towers, tartan carpets and romantic turret rooms — in short, it's the ultimate heritage hotel.
G Adventures has an 11-day Vancouver Island & Northern Rockies trip, including a full north-to-south trip on the Icefields Parkway and stopping at the Columbia Icefield en route.Spirals of green and red shoot through the dark, growing in real time. Thin clouds are blowing overhead and spangled ribbons streak to the horizons. You imagine this is what the aurora borealis may look like — ephemeral, elemental, auspicious. Yellowknife is the place to find out with your own eyes and the Northwestern Territories bills itself as the world northern lights capital, recording more calendar sightings per year than anywhere else. The most memorable part of your journey though may not be the spectacle of the lights, but the indigenous First Nations stories you learn along the way.
The Explorer Hotel, located just outside Downtown, is ground zero for an abundance of aurora tours.
Get Your Guide offers multiple aurora viewing tours and packages, from sledding tours to backcountry snowmobile rides to nights spent in cosy cabins.The world's highest tides is the pitch of this broad inlet sandwiched between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but the destination offers much more than moshing waves and maple sand beaches. You can sea kayak among its signature flowerpot-shaped rock stacks. Or say hello to a dozen species of cetacean on a lifetime's-best whale watching safari. Perhaps, a stand-up paddleboard tour of Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park is a must. What you don't need to decide on is how awe-inspiring the sight of 100 billion tonnes of tidal brine flowing in and out of the bay really is.
The Algonquin Resort St Andrews by-the-Sea delivers Atlantic Canada charm by the bucketload.
Riviera Travel has an 11-day Maritime Canada: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island trip that takes in the best bits of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Additional reporting by Mike MacEacheran