Canada
Distances
The first thing we Europeans have to get our heads round is just how BIG
Canada really is. If we fly from London UK to St. John's in
Newfoundland we travel 2345 miles (3774 km) to get across the Atlantic, but if a
Newfoundlander wants to visit Vancouver on the other side of Canada s/he will travel 3135 miles
(5046 km)!
Caveats
The sections on 'Getting There' will sound like a rant against Air Canada.
Our friends and relatives from across the Pond have always told us they are less
than impressed with their national airline, and our recent experiences, which
they tell us are not unusual, have convinced us they are right! We have
included a few examples of their routing and pricing practices, so you can form
your own opinion.
And also a caveat about beers. The opinions in these pages are our own,
and we don't expect everyone to agree with them, although a lot of people whose
knowledge and experience we respect have similar feelings. The problem is
that the North American Continent is awash with tasteless, slightly alcoholic
fizz, served at freezing temperatures, and masquerading as beer! While we
can understand that someone coming in from mowing their 20 acre lawn on a
blazing hot day would welcome a cold drink, it doesn't have to be chilled to the
point where your taste buds are numbed and you can't tell what you're drinking.
If that's what you really want, try water! And in places where they suffer
long and bitter winters, does it make any sense to bump up the central heating
to 22˚-23˚C and then drink freezing beer??? Here's a suggestion - set the thermostat to around 20˚-21˚, and drink your beers at 10˚-13˚.
You'll be helping to save the planet's energy resources - and you might even get
to taste something!
But it's not all bad news on the beer front. While the boards of huge
conglomerates concentrate on buying each other out, and their accountants and
marketeers conspire to maintain bulk sales of tasteless fluids, there are a
growing number of heroic microbrewers out there struggling to stem the tide.
These people know what good beer should be and are working to revive the
continent's taste buds. In these pages we hope to bring to your attention
some of the impressive microbreweries we've encountered.
Getting there
If you live in the US you will have the additional options of rail, road and sea
routes but for us in the UK and most other parts of the world we have to go by
air. The most obvious choice would seem to be the national airline,
Air
Canada, but they are concentrating on a limited number of hubs within Canada,
which favour central Canada to the detriment of those living in the far east or
west. And this discrimination is reflected in their pricing.
For example, they charge nearly as much for a flight from London Heathrow to
Newfoundland (£704 - 2345 miles - nearly 33 pence per mile) as they do for a
flight from London to Vancouver (£882 - 4708 miles - just under 19 pence per mile) even
though the latter is more than twice the distance (Air Canada Tourist class
return prices, August 2008). For those whose destination
is central Canada, where there is more competition on the routes, you will be
pleased to learn that Heathrow to Toronto by Air Canada costs £564 - a mere 16
pence per mile!
Another example of the discrimination against those living 'on the edge' can be
found in the routing. There used to be a direct flight from
London Heathrow to St. John's, Newfoundland but Air Canada have stopped that.
Now you have to fly PAST St John's to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then take a
plane BACK to St. John's, adding over 1,000 miles to the journey - and they fly
this wasteful route every day. What does THAT do for the environment!
To add insult to injury, the Air Canada website refers you to pious advice on
how to offset your carbon footprint. The biggest reduction in carbon
emissions would be achieved by Air Canada sorting out their routes and
schedules!!!
So our advice would be to check very carefully all the alternatives for reaching
your Canadian destination. We used
Thomas Cook to fly to Halifax. That flight leaves from Gatwick,
which was much more convenient for us than Heathrow. Thomas Cook fly to other
Canadian airports, so check out their website or try
Canadian Affair. Also try
Air Transat and don't forget to explore the possibility of
flying to a US destination from Europe using US or other airlines and then hopping across the border. It's well worth checking out all possible combinations
of routes from the point of price and convenience.
Where to go
As we said, it's a BIG place and you can choose a bustling metropolis or a quiet
country village, set among plains, mountains, lakes or on rocky shores. If
you already know Canada, you will have your own favourites, but even if you do,
it's still worth consulting
the
official Canada tourism website to find yet more options.
Although we have briefly visited
Toronto we haven't spent enough time there to be able to write
about the beer scene - we'd be pleased to hear from anyone who knows it well and
can contribute something to this website. However even from our short trip
we can recommend it as a tourist destination. Nearby Niagara Falls is a
must, but we were particularly impressed with the CN Tower and its spectacular
views. You can make yourself dizzy standing on the glass floor with a view
straight down, but our favourite was seeing the small lakeside airport from
above - it was fascinating to look down on planes taking off!
We hope someday to get to
British Columbia to see Vancouver and the
Rockies. As the Winter Olympics will be held there in 2010 you have to
decide whether that will be an added attraction or a turn-off! We would
also like to see
Calgary - but these are just a few of the
possibilities Canada offers.
Our own preference is for
Atlantic Canada. It may not look very
big on your world map, but it comprises the provinces of Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island (PEI), each of which
is a major destination in its own right. We have been several times to
Newfoundland, and recently visited New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and have been
able to check out some of the beers, so there are pages for each of these on
this website - they will gradually be expanded so bookmark them and come back to
check.
When to go
No simple answer to this one! There are vast differences in the
climate across Canada, so our advice is to use the tourism websites to decide on
your destination(s) and what you want to see or do there, then use the same
websites to check the weather throughout the year to see when you'll be getting
spring greenery, autumn colours or winter sports at your chosen location(s).
What to drink
Beer of course! And you may - for the sake of experience - want to try
a few of the many bland golden chilly beverages served up by the likes of
Molson,
and
Coors (who, in the best traditions of monster conglomerates,
first combined and then recently (2008) tied up with SAB Miller to become
Miller Coors) Then there's
Labatt
- now owned by
InBev who have just (2008) combined with
Anheuser-Busch, perpetrators of B*dw**s*r - nuff said!
However our advice is to leave these people to do what they specialise in
(trying to buy up the whole world) and don't encourage them by buying the
liquids they market.
Instead look for the people who are aware that the first priority of a brewer is
making decent beer. And there are still plenty of them around in Canada.
In some cases international companies have adopted a 'hands-off' approach when
they bought a local brewery. One example is
Unibroue of Quebec, now owned by Sapporo, who still produce some
excellent beers in Belgian styles (which have been very well received in our
beer tastings). But most are microbreweries, started and still owned by
people who are passionate about their beer and proud of its quality. You
will find details of them listed under the provinces we have visited - use the
links below to get information about each province and the delights you can find
there in terms of both beer and tourism.
Canadian Provinces