Learn Canada before you go

10 phrases to learn

In Canadian French (Quebec French). Capital letters show the stressed part. Tap the heart to practise a phrase later.

At the table

• In a sit-down restaurant, a tip of 15 to 20 percent of the bill before tax is normal. Card machines usually suggest amounts such as 15, 18 or 20 percent.
• Menu prices usually do not include sales tax. It is added to the bill at the end, so the total is higher than the prices you see.
• In Quebec, 'dîner' means lunch and 'souper' means the evening meal, so an invitation to dîner is for the middle of the day.
• Canadian Thanksgiving is on the second Monday of October. Families gather for roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, followed by pumpkin pie, and sometimes butter tarts or Nanaimo bars.
• At a Montreal smoked meat deli, the server may ask how you want your meat: lean, medium or fat.

Local tips

Dishes to try

• Poutine: Hot French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and a light brown gravy. The hot gravy softens the curds without fully melting them, so they stay a little chewy and squeak against your teeth.
• Tourtière: A double-crust meat pie filled with finely minced pork, often mixed with beef or veal, onion and gently warm spices such as cinnamon and cloves. In the Saguenay and Lac-Saint-Jean region it is a deep pie of cubed meats and potatoes, cooked slowly for hours.
• Quebec yellow pea soup (Soupe aux pois): A thick, golden soup of whole yellow peas simmered for hours with salt pork and herbs. The pork is either chopped and stirred back in or served on the side in thin slices.
• Maple taffy on snow (Tire d'érable sur la neige): Maple syrup boiled to about 112 °C, then poured in lines onto clean snow or crushed ice. It firms up in seconds into a soft, chewy toffee that you roll up on a wooden stick and eat at once.
• Montreal-style bagel: Smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser than a New York bagel, with a bigger hole. The dough contains malt and egg but no salt, and the bagels are boiled in honey-sweetened water, then baked in a wood-fired oven. Sesame and poppy seed are the classics.
• Montreal smoked meat sandwich: Beef brisket cured for about a week with spices such as cracked pepper, coriander, garlic and mustard seed, then smoked and steamed. It is sliced by hand and piled high on light rye bread with yellow mustard.
• Peameal bacon sandwich: Thick slices of cured boneless pork loin, rolled in yellow cornmeal and fried, served in a soft Kaiser roll, often with mustard. It is Toronto's signature sandwich.
• Butter tart: A small pastry shell filled with butter, brown sugar, syrup and egg, baked until the filling is set at the edges, runny in the middle and crackly on top.

Cities to see

• Ottawa (capital): Parliament Hill and the Peace Tower, Skating on the Rideau Canal in winter, National museums and galleries.
• Toronto: The CN Tower, St. Lawrence Market and peameal bacon sandwiches, Neighbourhoods from Chinatown to Little Italy.
• Montreal: Old Montreal and Notre-Dame Basilica, Bagels and smoked meat, Festivals, including a famous jazz festival.
• Quebec City: The Château Frontenac hotel, The city walls and narrow old streets, The Winter Carnival.
• Halifax: The harbourfront boardwalk, The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Titanic exhibits at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
• St. John's: Signal Hill and Cabot Tower, 'Jelly Bean Row' of colourful houses, Fog: it is the foggiest of Canada's major cities.

Landmarks and the city map are on the Canada trip