Celebrating Canada Day with these 10 fun facts about Canada!
- In Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, there is a cave that is billed as the home of Sasquatch! The natural tunnel system begins with a main cave, and continues for about 200 feet. If you delve into this aboveground wonder, you can call yourself a spelunker- a cave explorer!
2. Toronto, Ontario’s CN Tower has been declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and has the world’s first glass floor. This floor is made of 24 square meters of 2 1⁄2-inch thick glass, and is 342 meters above the ground!
3. The Empress of Ireland is considered to be Canada’s Titanic. The ship was hit by a Norwegian cargo ship in 1914 on the St. Lawrence River, and sank in about 15 minutes. 1,014 passengers did not survive, making it the worst Canadian maritime accident that didn’t happen in wartime.
4. The Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia is home to over 100 victims of the RMS Titanic. More than 1,500 passengers perished when it sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, and this cemetery is the final resting place for the largest group of recovered victims, most of whom are unidentified.
5. The West Edmonton Mall, located in Edmonton, Alberta, is North America’s largest shopping mall. It houses a rollercoaster, an indoor waterpark, sea lions in its indoor lagoon, and an indoor skate park, to name just a few of the attractions that help make this mall unique!
6. The Hotel de Glace near Quebec City, Quebec, is the only ice hotel in North America. Since 2001, this hotel has been rebuilt annually with 30,000 tons of snow because the hotel melts every spring. It has an art gallery, a chapel, and an ice slide.
7. To celebrate winter’s end, people in Yellowknife, NWT hold an annual festival on the ice atop Great Slave Lake. Guests are encouraged to celebrate their perseverance through the province’s harsh winters, and participate in events like ice carving contests and snow volleyball. This year will be the festival’s sixth anniversary.
8. Every year on New Year’s Day, people in Vancouver, B.C. run into English Bay to kick off the new year. Even though the waters are freezing, this has been a tradition since 1920, and now attracts over 2,500 participants dressing up in costumes and participating in swim races.
9. There is a stockpile of maple syrup worth more than 100 million dollars in Laurierville, Quebec! It is part of the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve is protected by as much security as a bank.
In 2012, $18 million dollars’ worth of syrup was stolen, making it one of Canada’s largest robberies.
10. In 2005, a new dinosaur species was discovered in Alberta! Found in the province’s Oldman River, the almost completely intact skull of this dino was uncovered by geologist Peter Hews, and named the Regaliceratops peterhewsi. This herbivore, alive during the Cretaceous period, is much like the Triceratops.