# Odd Questions About Canada



## Rob Broad (Jul 18, 2004)

Subject: Vancouver Olympic Questions..... 
Now that Vancouver has won the chance to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, these are questions people over the world have been asking posted on an international tourism website. (frightening, isn't it?) 

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?(UK) 
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die. 

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA) 
A: Depends how much you've been drinking. 

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden) 
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water. 

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? (Sweden) 
A: So its true what they say about Swedes. 

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Canada? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax? (UK) 
A: What did your last slave die of? 

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada?(USA) 
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to your North . . . oh forget it. Sure,the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary. Come naked. 

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA) 
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we ll send the rest of the directions. 

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK) 
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do. 

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA) 
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is. oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary, straight after the hippo races. Come naked. 

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (Germany) 
A: No, WE don't stink. 

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Canada? (USA) 
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather. 

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy) 
A: Yes, gay nightclubs. 

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? (USA) 
A: Only at Thanksgiving. 

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? 
Germany) 
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal. 

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget it's name  It's a kind of big horse with horns.(USA) 
A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking. 

Q: I was in Canada in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the Girl I dated while I was staying in Surrey, BC. Can you help? (USA) 
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour. 

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA) 
  A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.


----------



## MasterWright (Nov 9, 2008)

I was in Vancouver last December and there was no snow, just lots of rain. The locals tell me that it's a rainforest type climate. Rains during the winter and really hot in the summer, lots of beaches. There is only one freeway because most people use public transportation, busses come by every ten minutes. The city is backed up to the rocky mountains which gives a nice view.

 It's really strange to me, being from near Toronto which I know south of Vancouver. We get the usual snowfalls from Dec to March. 

 Another odd thing was that it gets dark around 4:30 pm in Vancouver around Dec. because it's closer to the north pole. I suppose that time of year it's getting close to the shortest day of the year. 

When in Vancouver !


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 9, 2008)

Is it true about the strippers? Every year thousands of British squaddies go to Canada on exercise and come back raving about the fantastic strippers who do any amount of amazing things, with snakes, coins, ping pong balls etc. :whip1:


----------



## exile (Nov 9, 2008)

MasterWright said:


> I was in Vancouver last December and there was no snow, just lots of rain. The locals tell me that it's a rainforest type climate. Rains during the winter and really hot in the summer, lots of beaches. There is only one freeway because most people use public transportation, busses come by every ten minutes. The city is backed up to the rocky mountains which gives a nice view.
> 
> It's really strange to me, being from near Toronto which I know south of Vancouver. We get the usual snowfalls from Dec to March.



I lived in Victoria and Vancouver for 17 years, and the climate there is basically the same as what you find on the Pacific coast from the mouth of the Columbia River up to the Alaskan Panhandle: mild and damp. The main mitigating factor is the Japan Current, which performs the same favor for Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver and points north on the coast that the Gulf Stream does for the UK (palm trees grow in parts of Scotland, for example). 'Really hot' is a bit of a stretch, thoughif you want really hot, spend a summer in Columbus, or in Champaign-Urbana in Illinois. Vancouver can't begin to compete there, and Victoria even less so. Anything around 80º F. is considered a heat wave there, whereas in Columbus it counts as a relief, a chance to turn your AC down from where you set it to offset a week of 92º, 90% humidity days. 

As for natural beauty... the BC coast defies description. You really have to _be_ there. There aren't adjectives in the language that do justice to the landscape.





Tez3 said:


> Is it true about the strippers? Every year thousands of British squaddies go to Canada on exercise and come back raving about the fantastic strippers who do any amount of amazing things, with snakes, coins, ping pong balls etc. :whip1:



Now that, Tez, I have no information about... :angel:


----------



## crushing (Nov 9, 2008)

Tez3 said:


> Is it true about the strippers? Every year thousands of British squaddies go to Canada on exercise and come back raving about the fantastic strippers who do any amount of amazing things, with snakes, coins, ping pong balls etc. :whip1:


 
The only strip club I've ever been to is in Canada.  Don't recall the woman at Lips doing anything with snakes.  The place must have been good luck because I won $500 the next day at the State of Michigan bowling tournament.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 9, 2008)

Nearly all my adult martial arts students have been to Canada training at BATUS and they have all been to watch the strippers. Everyone says these girls are stunning, very talented dancers and it's not at all sleazy. the girls command high saleries because they are the best not because they do anything else!! It's talked about alot by soldiers as you can imagine, after all when the lead wasps are flying in Afghanistan etc they have to have something to think about!!!


----------



## Bob Hubbard (Nov 9, 2008)

I've been to 1 club in Canada (8 yrs ago). It was ok, but I wasn't impressed. (by comparison, I haven't been to any others).  The girls were beautiful, and overall friendly.  I've talked to a few since then and they do make a good buck there.


----------



## Frostbite (Nov 10, 2008)

MasterWright said:


> I was in Vancouver last December and there was no snow, just lots of rain. The locals tell me that it's a rainforest type climate. Rains during the winter and really hot in the summer, lots of beaches. There is only one freeway because most people use public transportation, busses come by every ten minutes. The city is backed up to the rocky mountains which gives a nice view.
> 
> It's really strange to me, being from near Toronto which I know south of Vancouver. We get the usual snowfalls from Dec to March.
> 
> ...



Vancouver is like a second home to me.  I used to live in Seattle and would drive up there every chance I got.  I actually lived there for 4 months in between moving from San Francisco to the LA area.

It's true about the lack of snow in the city but it doesn't take much of a drive outside Vancouver to find it.  The weather is roughly the same as Seattle although it tends to get a bit colder in Vancouver, being further north and all.

They really do have a great transportation system there, like you mentioned.  There's an elevated train called the SkyTrain that cuts through the city.  Bus routes tend to intersect with the train's route, so you can easily catch a bus near your home, hop on the SkyTrain, and be on the other side of the city in minutes.  They even have their own mini-police force, so I never felt unsafe riding it.  There are also ferries called SeaBusses that cross the Burrard Inlet between the downtown area and North Vancouver.

You're definitely right about it getting dark early there but the flip side of the coin is it stays light longer in the summer.  I went camping over the summer about an 8 hour drive north of Vancouver in a town called Prince George and it was light until almost 10:00PM there.

One small correction though.  The mountains bordering Vancouver are the Cascades, not the Rockies.


----------



## Tez3 (Nov 10, 2008)

I know someone thinks I need to grow up and not mention things like strippers lol but I work and train with men, these men go out and serve their country, some make the ultimate sacrifice, some return maimed in body and mind so if they want to talk about a perfectly normal thing to them, strippers I for one ain't goin to argue. 
Nearly all the guys who go out to Canada have enjoyed it ( not the training lol) and would like to go back for a better look at the country We've had Canadian exchange officers too who've said how cold it is, one said there's a huge underground shopping mall? he also said people look at each others faces for frostbite too. the clothes though are made for the weather unlike ours lol!


----------



## CoryKS (Nov 10, 2008)

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...


----------



## exile (Nov 10, 2008)

Frostbite said:


> One small correction though.  The mountains bordering Vancouver are the Cascades, not the Rockies.



It's actually the Coast Range.  They're geologically distinct from the Washington Cascades, I believe. 

They begin above the Fraser Canyon and go north up the coast to Glacier Bay&#8212;I got to see a huge swathe of them on the two occasions when I travelled by freighter up from Vancouver to Prince Rupert and over to the Charlottes.



Tez3 said:


> I know someone thinks I need to grow up and not mention things like strippers lol but I work and train with men, these men go out and serve their country, some make the ultimate sacrifice, some return maimed in body and mind so if they want to talk about a perfectly normal thing to them, strippers I for one ain't goin to argue.
> Nearly all the guys who go out to Canada have enjoyed it ( not the training lol) and would like to go back for a better look at the country We've had Canadian exchange officers too who've said how cold it is, one said there's a huge underground shopping mall? he also said people look at each others faces for frostbite too. the clothes though are made for the weather unlike ours lol!



You get that in northern Alberta, in the Yukon, what used to be the NWT, and the interior of BC, in the Prince George and Peace River country&#8212;in all those places, it gets down to &#8211;40º for weeks at at time in the winter (and a good deal colder when you get north of 60), but the air is so dry, and the sun shines so frequently, that often people's skin freezes without them actually realizing it (very similar to Wyoming in the winter, but at a much lower altitude). So people just routinely keep watch over each other. That's the way Canadian society is as a whole, come to think of it, in a lot of ways.


----------



## Frostbite (Nov 10, 2008)

exile said:


> It's actually the Coast Range.  They're geologically distinct from the Washington Cascades, I believe.



Wikipedia says YOU ARE A LIAR! :wink1:

Seriously though, this map is what I always thought was the extent of the Cascade range:

http://www.peakbagger.com/map/premade/r125.gif

At least we can agree it's not the Rockies though.


----------



## exile (Nov 10, 2008)

Frostbite said:


> Wikipedia says YOU ARE A LIAR! :wink1:
> 
> Seriously though, this map is what I always thought was the extent of the Cascade range:
> 
> ...



Well, if you're going to get all Wikipedia on me, take a gander at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Mountains! 



> The Coast Mountains are a mountain range of the Pacific Cordillera, running along the north western shore of the North American continent, extending south from the Alaska Panhandle *and covering most of coastal British Columbia. *They are part of a larger grouping, the Pacific Coast Ranges, which includes the Alaska Range, the Chugach Mountains, the Saint Elias Mountains, the Cascade Range, the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico.



In truth, when I lived in Vancouver, we always just called 'em the Coast Range. The Cascades were _you_ guys in Washington. It occurs to me that they may have the same relation to the Cascades that the Tetons have other parts of the Wyoming/Idaho Rockies... both part of the same cordillera, but looking different geologically because of local difference in the tectonic bases of the two areas. 

I mean, they've all got to be the result of shoving the Pacific Plate against the North American Plate... something has to give, eh?


----------



## Frostbite (Nov 10, 2008)

exile said:


> I mean, they've all got to be the result of shoving the Pacific Plate against the North American Plate... something has to give, eh?



I nominate the city of Everett. :lol:

At any rate, I'll concede I was wrong if you'll concede that The Sticky Wicket in Victoria is among the most awesome pubs in the world.


----------



## exile (Nov 10, 2008)

Frostbite said:


> I nominate the city of Everett. :lol:
> 
> At any rate, I'll concede I was wrong if you'll concede that The Sticky Wicket in Victoria is among the most awesome pubs in the world.



I'll concede! That's the one in the Strathcona, right? And yes, plate tectonics would be exactly the right instrument to deal with Everett&#8212;which you can smell a dozen miles before you ever _see_ it.

Once upon a time, when John Mitchell was the guvn'or there, Spinnakers pub in Esquimalt, just over the Johnson St. Bridge, produced the best beer in Canada. It was the first true brewpub, and John, a fanatical beer perfectionist from Kent in the UK, was responsible pretty much singlehandedly for bringing highly hopped, top-fermented ales to western Canada, and I mean, _massively_ hopped. Many's the Friday I used to help the bar crew bring up the firkin from the cellar, and the hop fragrance from the first pint was practically hallucinogenic, it was so powerful. There were no taps&#8212;the beer was pulled on English handpumps that John had imported (nowhere local to get them from!), except for the Friday night firkins, which were strictly gravity dispense. Out on the bar at around 4:30, and by 10pm not a drop was left... people lined up at the door to get in for that beer.

John eventually left Victoria, and Spinnakers is now nothing but a faint ghostly shadow of its former glory... sigh... fortunately, one of the very rare handpump brewpubs in the US is located in Columbus, and the beer is right up the John M's standards. But it was something else sitting outside in the cool Victoria summer with a pint of his Extra Special Bitter in front of you, watching the white sails on the Inner Harbor and the mountains in the distance... those were the days, my friend! :drinkbeer


----------



## Frostbite (Nov 11, 2008)

exile said:


> I'll concede! That's the one in the Strathcona, right?



The very same!  I love that place.  Beach volleyball on the roof in the summer, if memory serves.  And some great meat pies on the menu in the fine dining portion.



			
				exile said:
			
		

> Once upon a time, when John Mitchell was the guvn'or there, Spinnakers pub in Esquimalt, just over the Johnson St. Bridge, produced the best beer in Canada. It was the first true brewpub, and John, a fanatical beer perfectionist from Kent in the UK, was responsible pretty much singlehandedly for bringing highly hopped, top-fermented ales to western Canada, and I mean, _massively_ hopped. Many's the Friday I used to help the bar crew bring up the firkin from the cellar, and the hop fragrance from the first pint was practically hallucinogenic, it was so powerful. There were no tapsthe beer was pulled on English handpumps that John had imported (nowhere local to get them from!), except for the Friday night firkins, which were strictly gravity dispense. Out on the bar at around 4:30, and by 10pm not a drop was left... people lined up at the door to get in for that beer.
> 
> John eventually left Victoria, and Spinnakers is now nothing but a faint ghostly shadow of its former glory... sigh... fortunately, one of the very rare handpump brewpubs in the US is located in Columbus, and the beer is right up the John M's standards. But it was something else sitting outside in the cool Victoria summer with a pint of his Extra Special Bitter in front of you, watching the white sails on the Inner Harbor and the mountains in the distance... those were the days, my friend!



That sounds amazing!  Probably a bit before my time and I never ventured outside of Victoria proper much.  I started taking the Clipper up every other weekend back in about '98 because I was dating someone at UVic.  My only real distinct memories are the Wicket and Hog in the Pound.  Oh, and the first time I set foot in a Elephant and Castle was in Victoria too but I don't suppose that counts since they have them in Seattle as well.

I really need to pay another visit to Victoria.  I just didn't have an excuse to go there anymore after we broke up.


----------



## exile (Nov 11, 2008)

Frostbite said:


> That sounds amazing!  Probably a bit before my time and I never ventured outside of Victoria proper much.  I started taking the Clipper up every other weekend back in about '98 because I was dating someone at UVic.  My only real distinct memories are the Wicket and Hog in the Pound.  Oh, and the first time I set foot in a Elephant and Castle was in Victoria too but I don't suppose that counts since they have them in Seattle as well.
> 
> I really need to pay another visit to Victoria.  I just didn't have an excuse to go there anymore after we broke up.



The whole area around there is beautiful&#8212;Metchosin, way out on the Saanich Peninsula, is a little world of its own, with sandy beaches and small rocky islands covered in mussels more than half a foot long, and small lakes with thick primary forest around them. Friends of mine and I used to go out to the area around Sooke... just before the west coast of the Island proper begins to start (much further north than Sooke and you're on the wild, _wild_ west coast, practically impassible in many places. Anyone who does the complete West Coast Trail from Bamfield in the north to the southern terminus is a lot hardier than I am...) 

The most striking thing, if you do go back, FB, is how much bigger Victoria has gotten. The old downtown landmarks&#8212;the Empress, the Provincial Museum and that whole area haven't changed much, but the place is much bigger, and bigger-_feeling_, than it was when I hung out there in the relatively sleepy seventies and eighties. The housing boom in Vancouver in the wake of the Hong Kong handover simultaneously pumped up  Victoria housing prices and brought a lot of not-quite-rich-enough yuppies to Vancouver Island in search of affordable upscale places to live. So there are a lot more people and the place now has much more of the patina of Vancouver than it used to, when it was just the newlyweds and nearly-deads, as we used to say...


----------

