Eastern Canada: Cities Spawned by the St Lawrence River

This was my first visit to eastern Canada and I approached it with many preconceptions most of which were either confirmed or contradicted after 10 days exploring the region.

Canada, which means village or settlement in Iroquois, is the second largest nation by land area in the world but has a small population less than 40 million, slightly less than California. My trip focused on four (4) major cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City and Montreal that formed and grew because of their strategic location between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, connected by the St Lawrence River.

Toronto and Ottawa lie within the Province of Ontario and Quebec City and Montreal within the Province of Quebec. Those provinces account for 60 percent of Canada’s population. The four cities we visited account for more than a quarter of Canada’s population, which is not too surprising as 85 percent of Canada's population lives within 100 miles of the USA, and those four cities are within a few hours drive of New York State, Vermont and Maine.

I never realized that major parts of eastern Canada extend further south than many of the northern borders of Midwestern states, most notably Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and other Mountain and Western States.

I always thought Canada was a sleepy, slow growing nation with a homogenous population but upon arriving in Toronto I discovered that was not the case as it was quickly revealed Canada is a melting pot with a diverse population base of indigenous people (which they call “First Nation”) but dominated by English and French speakers coming from Europe and many other areas including Asia and India.

English and French are both official languages of the entire nation and most provinces, but Quebec Province’s official language is French only and neighboring New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada.

There's a palpable tension between the English- and French-speaking populations that dates back hundreds of years, even to the point that the province of Quebec has attempted to secede from Canada twice in the past 40 years. French Canada is trying to maintain its place in the rich history of Canada, especially as having a key role in its founding; it is trying to keep the French language actively spoken in an increasingly English- speaking nation. Besides declaring the official language of Quebec to be French, Quebec has adopted strict laws to ascertain that public, traffic and business signs accentuate French over English. By the 1980s, French nationalism grew when it became apparent that Toronto would become Canada’s most dominant city, eclipsing Montreal which had held that place for hundreds of years. (I often wondered why Canada’s one Major League Baseball team was in Montreal during the early 1970s and was advised it was probably because Montreal was its most important city in those days. In 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays were founded around the same time Toronto took Montreal’s place as the nation’s most populous city.)

Along side the permanent struggle between the English and French for domain, Modern Canada has also undertaken an effort to recognize that “First Nation” people have played an important role in Canada’s history and development.

In addition to those cultural dynamics, Canada’s physical growth and development becomes apparent as one approaches Toronto and Montreal, evidenced by the many skyscrapers and new construction. Toronto boasts more high-rise condominiums, and more cranes, than just about any other city in the world.

Toronto’s metropolitan population of 6.4 million and robust growing skyline is a world class modern city made possible by Lake Ontario. Its size and stature and the prevalence of modern architecture makes for easy comparisons with some of our major modern cities, for example, Houston or Los Angeles. The word comes from the Mohawk language and means "where the trees are standing in water". We visited the CN Tower, one of the world’s tallest, and got a bird’s eye view of the entire city. Sports buffs will note that the National Hockey League Hall of Fame is in Toronto.

Ottawa is the nation's capital of 1.5 million and is a charming, quaint reminder of the rich history of Canada dating back hundreds of years. The name is Algonquin meaning “to trade”. In our tour of many Federal buildings, we passed the Prime Minister’s home at 24 Sussex Drive, Canada’s 10 Downing Street if you will.

Quebec City is more than 90 percent French, as is the entire province with the same name, and Old Quebec was one of the original European settlements, a small walled city that is still evident today. A major attraction there is the Château Frontenac, which is operated today as a Fairmont Hotel, overlooking the St Lawrence River. With fewer than one million persons, Quebec City was the smallest city we visited and the name comes from the Algonquin word for “narrow passage or strait,” as the St Lawrence appears to narrow at that point.

Montréal was named by Jacques Cartier, the first European explorer to map the St Lawrence gulf and river, and comes from French meaning “mount royal” which is attributed to its most obvious natural mountainous feature. On top of the mountain is St Joseph’s Oratory, a rather impressive structure that offers great views of the city below. Although today much smaller than Toronto with a metropolitan population of more than four million, it was the first European settlement dating back to 1642 and was up until recent decades the most important city in Canada. As such, the city has blend of new and old architecture that reminds me of New York City.

We visited the sites of the Expo 67, Canada’s World’s Fair from 1967, as well as the Olympic stadium built for the 1976 games, the former giving the Montreal Expos its name and the latter being the venue in which the first Expo games were played. Another ‘fun fact” about French Canada (Quebec Province) is that it produces 80 percent of the world's maple syrup.

In addition to these cities our tour included Niagara Falls, the old city of Kingston and a cruise among the thousand islands in the St Lawrence River (which actually number 1,863 and for which the salad dressing is named).

Ever since my first visit to Canada, which was to Vancouver and Calgary in 1997, I expected the food in Canada to be better than the US generally and because of the presence of French cuisine in this year’s tour, let’s say my expectations for outstanding food were very high. BUT THIS IS NOT FRANCE NOR IS THIS FRENCH CUSINE!! I will admit that the coffee, bread and pastry was better there than here in the USA, but it falls far short of the standard I became accustomed to in Paris, France.

As I recall in France, portions were small, recipes were delicate, execution was perfect and the taste was superb, but that's generally not true in Canada, even in Quebec and Montreal, where they take pride in offering “poutine” ( a dish of French fries, gravy and cheese curd) and “beaver tails” (deep fried dough smothered in sugar and other sweet toppings). Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of ordering dessert crepes in Old Quebec City, from a long standing highly recommended place only to be served crepes that were so heavy and tough that they were served with steak knives to eat them! Traditional French cooking is clearly a distant memory in modern day Quebec and Montreal.

In all it was a great trip, the sights were great, the group we traveled with was engaged and fun, the weather for the most part cooperated, and our tour director was absolutely superb in every respect. Travel is about new experiences and I’m happy to say there were many, including the opportunity to use an umbrella for the first time in ten years and getting drenched by Niagara Falls!

A word about our bus tour. This bus tour was directed by EF (Education First) Go Ahead Tours and was led by a terrific tour guide, very knowledgeable, attentive and eager to assist us in our specific needs and aspirations. We had a cooperative and like-minded group of 27 and generally found this to be the most efficient, time and cost effective way to explore unfamiliar territory easily. It would have taken us months of research and planning to accomplish what we did over our ten day tour. However, the obvious disadvantage of group tours is that individuals have less flexibility and time to fulfill their own needs. So, unless you have a specific set of sights and/or goals you want to accomplish, a group format may be right for you!

About vacation travel in a post Covid world: the golden age of leisure travel is officially dead and is probably another casualty of Covid. Slowly but surely there has been a ubiquitous decline in travel infrastructure. Airports are unkempt, facilities broken, airline delays and cancelations are rampant, hotels are in a state of neglect and disrepair, and most of the travel personnel you look to for service, assistance or counsel are either few and far between or incompetent.

It took us effectively two days to travel to Toronto from Las Vegas, first due to a 9 hour last minute “delay” (which was a cancelation in my judgment) and included a 5 hour layover in Philadelphia in order to take a one hour flight to Toronto. The return trip took nearly a day and included our pilot warning us that we might need to land in Ontario, California because of a non existent “weather” condition in Las Vegas. He later admitted that airports/airlines are running with skeleton crews, with not enough personnel to get the job done! Just about everyone I know that has traveled in the past few months has faced a similar fate, and this is peak season! My advice is to plan your recreational travel accordingly!