Our First Trip to the Canadian Maritimes: Tips and Observations about All Things Canada

When we were driving across New Brunswick on our way to Parrsboro, our first stop in Nova Scotia, I realized that the campground we were staying at was cash only. We didn’t have any Canadian cash yet, so we called the campground to explain the situation and ask if there’d be an ATM we could stop at on our way in. “There are two right on the main street,” the campground guy told us, “but if you can’t stop you can just come on and check in and pay me tomorrow.” This was a fitting introduction to Canada and in line with the friendliness and openness that we found all over Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick during the month we spent there last summer. I want to go back right now. Yes, even though it’s January.

I’ll get into details about all of our stops soon, but first here’s a kind of summing up our thoughts about Canada in general and Nova Scotia and the Maritimes specifically sort of post. Fair warning: it may get rambly.

Crossing the border

I fretted about this in advance, of course, but it was not a big deal at all. Just make sure you’re prepared with all your paperwork and familiar with all the requirements, and things should go smoothly. We went with birth certificates only for the under 16’s to save a bit (or, you know, more than a bit) of money on passports, and it was not an issue. Getting into Canada took maybe five minutes; they looked at our passports and birth certificates, asked about alcohol and weapons, and we were on our way.

Crossing back into the US was more of a PITA, but not by that much. At some point while we were in Canada I realized that I had no idea where our van registration was or if it was even IN the van, but I did a frantic search for it and found it (and the trailer registration), which saved me a lot of panic when they asked for it crossing back into the US. Phew! And the US border crossing guy kept all our documentation for a LONG time typing everything in and complained at one point about our kids having both of our last names. Deal with it, dude. He also, unlike his Canadian counterpart, walked all around the van and trailer and looked inside the trailer very briefly.

We had two of our dogs with us, so we had their vet records (with proof of rabies vaccines within three years) with us, but going into Canada they didn’t ask for them (or even if we were traveling with pets) and the US guy only asked because he heard the dogs barking (and I don’t think he even asked to see the records, just asked us if they’d had their shots).

It’s true: Canadians are SUPER friendly

At least the vast majority of the ones we encountered. Here’s a friendly Canadian helping the kids feed fish at a fish hatchery on the Cabot Trail:

I’m from the South, so I thought I knew friendly. But it wasn’t just that people were polite or that they smiled a lot; we were astounded by how open people were, and by how many people wanted to have long conversations with us as soon as they met us. People told us all about what to see in any area we visited, they wanted to chat very, very politely but seriously about politics and gun control and whatnot, and they wanted to hear all about us and where we were from. I’m normally not especially chatty with strangers, but the Nova Scotians made me want to be a friendlier person. It got to point where, on the rare occasions when we encountered someone who didn’t seem to want to be insta-friends with us, I was completely taken aback and felt all out of sorts. This experience has reinforced my desire to get to Newfoundland someday soon. I read a blog post recently that said the friendliness of the people in Newfoundland makes Nova Scotians look like axe murderers. That’s something I want to see, because it’s difficult to imagine.

Crowded doesn’t mean the same thing in Canada as in the US

I noted in a blog post about Yellowstone last year that I was skeptical before that trip of reports about how crowded Yellowstone was. I mean, Yellowstone’s in the middle of nowhere: how crowded could it possibly be? But it’s true what they say about Yellowstone; if you hit one of the big draws there any time during the summer, you’ll be fighting for space with crowds that rival Disney World.

But when something is “crowded” in the Maritimes, that’s more code for “you won’t have the whole place to yourselves.”

We were warned about the giant crowds we could expect at Peggy’s Cove. Here’s the mob staking out spots for the sunset on the evening we were there:

The biggest crowds we encountered were on Canada Day in Halifax….so if you go to Nova Scotia’s biggest city on the day when everyone’s off of work and all the museums offer free admission, you might have to wait in a short line for the free Canada Day cookies and cake everyone seems to give out.

Ack! So crowded! So much red!

Lots of things are the same as in the US, and lots of things are just a little bit different

Being in Canada is kind of like finding yourself in a parallel universe where things are mostly like what you’re used to, but random things here and there are different. Restrooms are called washrooms. Peanut butter cups are Reese instead of Reese’s. When you pay with a credit card at a restaurant, they bring the card machine to your table instead of taking your card away. Chicken is mysteriously as expensive as beef. People actually care about and know stuff about the War of 1812. We didn’t have any trouble finding milk in jugs or cartons instead of bags, though. Oh! and extra sharp cheddar is called extra old cheddar. heh.

Like look at this jaunty crosswalk guy in Halifax! He’s much more fun than a US crosswalk guy:

National Parks

We’ve been to a lot of National Parks in the US, and now we’ve been to quite a few in Canada as well. So the main observation about that that I have is that national parks are fabulous in both countries. But a few other things:

*Visitors centers at US National Parks are way more elaborate than at Canadian ones (again, at least based on the ones we saw). The visitors centers at the big National Parks in the US tend to be elaborate affairs with full sized museums and movie theaters and giant gift shops; they’re the first place you stop to gather information and get oriented. The ones we encountered in Canadian parks were much smaller, sometimes with a few exhibits and a tiny gift shop and an information desk. We had a hard time finding good magnets in some of the parks! Which is very sad for us.

*The above doesn’t apply so much to historical sites run by Parks Canada. Where the official National Parks often had lackluster visitor centers and museums, the opposite was true with most of the historical sites we saw. Many had extensive museums and lots of on-site programs. In some cases, like with the Fortress of Louisbourg, the scope was more like what you’d find in a privately run living history type site in the US.

*They’re really into dress-up in Canada. Seriously, I think every historic site we went to offered extensive dress up opportunities:

*Speaking of kid stuff…the Xplorers program is the Canadian equivalent of Junior Rangers, and Abe collected a lot of tags:

Like with the Junior Ranger program, kids complete a workbook and hand it in to get a prize (here, a dog tag instead of a badge). We found the books very well done, with a nice variety of activities–some workbook type pages, some scavenger hunt things, some creative activities, some things to do on the site. They were also a lot more consistent than the US Junior Ranger books; they were all clearly part of the same program and had pretty much the same level of difficulty, though the activities were all customized to the individual parks.

When you hand in your Junior Ranger book at a US National Park site, there’s a lot of ceremony involved. A ranger goes through your book with you and asks questions about it (often) and then you have to raise your right hand and get sworn in as a Junior Ranger. This part of the experience is decidedly lacking with the Xplorers program. You hand in your book and a park employee gives you your dog tag. The end. Ari compared it to finding the bear at Trader Joe’s and getting a piece of candy (at our Trader Joe’s it’s a bear. I know it’s a different animal at other Trader Joe’s). Which leads me to another point….

*Canadian National Parks don’t have the same mythic quality as American National parks. You know….Teddy Roosevelt, America’s Best Idea, iconic ranger hats. In Canada, park employees seemed to all be seasonal workers; we didn’t get the same sense as with US Rangers that this was a dream job and a career for anyone (although we definitely met plenty of great park employees). In fact, parks seemed less staffed overall than American parks. Which is fine–everything was very well-maintained and clean–but it’s just a different feeling than in American National Parks. When I was talking to Dave about it, he suggested that the parks seemed underfunded. But American National Parks are notoriously underfunded these days, so I don’t really think that’s it. I think it’s more a difference in priorities or in the sense about what National Parks are all about. At any rate, I can say definitively that the national parks in both countries are amazing places that are always worth your time:

And I’ll end with that, though this post is certainly far from definitive. Just some notes on our impressions from our first major foray into Canada (not our last, I’m sure!)