Canada’s most famous destinations — Banff’s turquoise lakes, Niagara Falls, the streets of Old Quebec, the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest — attract millions of visitors each year and deserve every bit of that attention. But a country the size of Canada contains multitudes, and the well-known tourist trail covers only the thinnest sliver of what’s actually there. The places described here require a bit more effort — a longer drive, a ferry ride, a willingness to go further — but they reward that effort with landscapes, cultures, and experiences that most visitors never encounter. This is Canada beyond the postcard.
Haida Gwaii, British Columbia
Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) is an archipelago off the northern coast of British Columbia — remote, wild, ecologically extraordinary, and one of the most culturally significant places in Canada. It’s the ancestral homeland of the Haida Nation, whose art tradition — monumental totem poles, ocean-going canoes, longhouses, and the copper shield art of the master carvers — is one of the great artistic achievements of the pre-Columbian world. The abandoned Haida village of Ninstints (SGang Gwaay) on Anthony Island, accessible only by boat, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site: its totem poles slowly returning to the forest floor after more than a century of abandonment, in a deliberate act of cultural philosophy (the Haida believe the poles should return to the earth). The wildlife on the islands is extraordinary — the Haida Gwaii black bear is a subspecies found nowhere else on earth; the old-growth forests (Sitka spruce up to 1,000 years old) on Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve are among the largest old-growth temperate rainforest stands remaining in the world. Getting there: flights from Vancouver to Masset or Sandspit, or BC Ferries from Prince Rupert.
Newfoundland and Labrador: The Edge of the World
Newfoundland — “the Rock” to its inhabitants — has a culture so distinct from the rest of Canada that it sometimes seems like a different country. The island only joined Confederation in 1949, and the Newfoundland accent, dialect, and sense of humor remain entirely its own. St. John’s, the provincial capital, is a city of brightly painted Victorian rowhouses on a harbor that has been a major port since the 1500s — the oldest English-founded city in North America. Signal Hill, above the harbor, is where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901. The East Coast Trail (336km along the Avalon Peninsula coast) is one of the finest coastal walks in North America, with sea stacks, puffin colonies, and iceberg sightings from shore. Gros Morne National Park (UNESCO World Heritage) in western Newfoundland has a landscape that exposes the earth’s geological history in its most dramatic form: the Tablelands fjord (where ancient mantle rocks have been pushed to the surface) and Western Brook Pond (a landlocked fjord 16km long with vertical walls up to 600m high) are both extraordinary. Get there by ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Port aux Basques (7 hours).
Tofino, British Columbia: Storm-Watching Paradise
Tofino sits at the western tip of Vancouver Island, where the Pacific Ocean delivers its full force against a coastline of old-growth rainforest and long sandy beaches. It has become more well-known in recent years — deservedly so — but still feels like the edge of something wild. In summer, Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve provides the best surfing in Canada; the whale-watching season (March–October) brings grey whales and, occasionally, humpbacks close to shore. But the real Tofino revelation is winter: from October to March, the Pacific storm season generates waves of 8–12 meters that crash against the headlands with an intensity visible (and audible) from hotel rooms. Storm-watching packages at Tofino’s excellent resort lodges (Wickaninnish Inn being the finest) are a genuine Canadian luxury experience — watching an Atlantic-sized storm from a heated room with a fireplace. The food scene has become exceptional: Shelter Restaurant, Wolf in the Fog, and the Pointe Restaurant at the Wickaninnish all source local halibut, salmon, Dungeness crab, and sea urchin with real culinary ambition.
The Magdalen Islands (Îles de la Madeleine), Quebec
The Magdalen Islands are a remote archipelago of seven main islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence — connected to each other by long sand dune causeways, shaped by the sea in every aspect of life. The islands have 300 kilometers of beaches, most of them empty, backed by red sandstone cliffs worn into sea arches and grottos. The food is superb: the Magdalen Islands produce some of the finest lobster, crab, and mussels in Atlantic Canada, at prices significantly lower than Halifax or Quebec City. The population of around 12,000 is primarily Acadian French-speaking (with an anglophone minority on Grosse-Île), and the culture — fiddle music, traditional crafts, a strong fishing identity — is deeply rooted and genuinely welcoming. In late February and early March, the floating ice in the Gulf arrives with harp seal pups, and guided tours onto the ice to observe them are a remarkable experience unique to the Magdalen Islands. Access: ferry from Souris, Prince Edward Island (5 hours), or Air Transat/Pascan Aviation from Montreal and Quebec City.
The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
The Bay of Fundy has the highest tidal range in the world — up to 16 meters between low and high tide in the upper bay, exposing vast mudflats twice daily and then covering them again in what amounts to a large inland sea filling and emptying on a 12-hour cycle. At Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick, this creates a phenomenon that exists nowhere else: rock formations called “flowerpots” — columns of rock topped with vegetation and trees — that you can walk around at low tide and kayak around at high tide within the same afternoon. The tidal bore at Moncton (where the incoming Fundy tide pushes a small wave up the Petitcodiac River through the city) is one of the more unusual natural spectacles in Atlantic Canada. The Fundy Trail Parkway on the southern shore provides excellent hiking above the bay’s dramatic cliffs and beaches. The entire region is accessible from both Moncton and Amherst, and combines naturally with a Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island itinerary.
Thunder Bay and Lake Superior, Ontario
Thunder Bay is the gateway to the remote wilderness of northwestern Ontario — and one of the most underrated cities in Canada. Lake Superior here is extraordinary: the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area (at 82,000 square kilometers — large enough to contain all four other Great Lakes combined) has a wild shoreline and water clear enough to see the bottom at considerable depths. The Terry Fox Memorial at the point on the Trans-Canada Highway where Fox was forced to stop his Marathon of Hope (after running 5,373km across Canada on an artificial leg before being overtaken by cancer) is one of the most moving roadside monuments in the country. Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, a massive mesa of land jutting 30km into the lake, offers superb hiking across the giant’s “body” — flat-topped diabase hills — with vertiginous views from the Thumb trail (600m drops to the lake). The lake itself, particularly the section from Thunder Bay to Wawa along Highway 17, is among the finest stretches of driving in Canada.
