The Truth about the Myths of Canada

Hello and welcome to Canada. We hope your stay will be enjoyable! Just thought I would try and dispel some myths about our land and the people of the ‘great white north’ that some of you Americans may have.

Go Canada

No, we are not all French. In fact, I do not have a French bone in my body. My roots are English and Hungarian gypsy (great combination, eh?) and to that end, No, we don’t all speak French either! Kids do learn French is the public school system however, starting in grade 4 and have the option of taking it in high school. Canada, not unlike the US is filled with immigrants that left their homeland to seek a better life. In fact, the city that I live in (approx 350,000 people) draws its largest population from Italian speaking people then Croates/Serbs followed by a large Chinese community. (Surprised?)

No, we do not have snow 365 (unless you go to the very top of the country). In fact, where I live it gets pretty stinking hot during July and August. We have mugliy days when the temps soar into the high 90’s. But yes, we do have cold and snow during the winter and sometimes even in the spring (as late as April and comes back during November).

Yes, we do celebrate holidays too. One poor naïve American that I know wondered out loud if we celebrated Thanksgiving (and if we celebrated Christmas on the same day as the US). Our Thanksgiving celebrations take place in October rather than November. And yes, we actually DO celebrate Christmas (though we are lucky because December 26 is also a stat holiday up here in these parts). We celebrate a dead queen’s birth day (Victoria Day is usually the third Monday in May. Named after Queen Victoria following her death in 1901, our Canadian government at the time decided to honour her birthday and in 1956 it was made an official holiday). We also get an extra long weekend in August due to the fact that the powers that be in Ottawa wanted an extra long weekend to spend at the cottage. But before you pack your things, you as Americans get far more holidays than we do. So its best to stay put.

Our government is somewhat different than yours, but more about that next time. Hope this gave you a bit of an insight to your neighbors to the north!