Canada: Adventures in Your Backyard 

This is our final week for hitting some travel highlights. With a fresh new year ahead, your clients may be looking to spend some of that holiday cash they received! And what better place to travel than to Canada with all its year-round adventures?

How much do you know about this highly popular destination? If you feel you cannot speak with confidence to your clients about all of Canada’s attractions, then now is the time to start filling in the gaps and gain as much information as you can, specifically about North America. Enroll today in the North America Destination Specialist Course. The best place to start is the Premium Access Lounge, where you will find ALL our destination and niche courses.

Subscribe today for $159, a savings of $40 (expires December 31st).

Let’s explore Canada’s exciting Territories!

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The Territories are for adventurers—both soft and hard. Sports enthusiasts can paddle lakes and rivers with canoes and kayaks, ride or walk trails, ski or snowboard, access the backcountry by air or snowmobile, climb the highest peaks, take a family hike up a smaller mountain, or try ice climbing and dog sledding.

The almost nonstop daylight in summer brings temperatures into the 70s in many places in the interior, stirs animal and plant life seen nowhere else in the world, and gives almost endless opportunities for outdoor adventures—from the tranquil to the thrilling.

Canada’s Far North is divided into territories whose landmass is larger than all but a handful of countries.

The Yukon

Much of the Yukon is a series of rugged mountain chains. Kluane National Park and Reserve (which adjoins Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Alaska Highway runs along the eastern border of this park, and visitors can take short hikes into it. Mount Logan is Canada’s highest mountain at 19,551 feet and North America’s second highest (after Denali).

Whitehorse, the capital, was one of the starting points of the Klondike gold rush between 1896 and 1899. Relics from that era are on display at the MacBride Museum. Visitors might want to tour the SS Klondike paddlewheeler, which the government has declared a National Historic Site.

Dawson City was the center of the Klondike gold rush. Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall operates as it did in the past, and the Dawson City Museum gives visitors a history of Yukon’s First Peoples, early explorers, and the gold rush.

Every February, Dawson City is the halfway mark for the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Mushers have a mandatory 36-hour layover in Dawson City while getting their rest and preparing for the second half of the world’s toughest sled dog race.

The Northwest Territories

The capital, Yellowknife, is 250 miles south of the Arctic Circle and provides an amazing view of the Northern Lights. Wilderness draws visitors to Yellowknife during the summer with promises of superb fishing in Great Slave Lake—the deepest body of water in North America—and glimpses of plentiful animal life. Attractions also include the Ingraham Trail, bush plane tours, and the architecture of Old Town.

Fort Simpson is a departure point for air expeditions into areas like Nahanni National Park. The park, in the Selwyn Mountains of the Mackenzie Range, has gorges as deep as the Grand Canyon and waterfalls twice the height of Niagara. Outfitters and adventure operators in Fort Simpson can arrange any type of visit, from an escorted expedition to a fly-in and drop-off for self-sufficient adventurers.

Inuvik is a base for adventure trips on the Mackenzie River and plane trips into the Arctic. Because of its northern location, Inuvik experiences an average of 58 days of continuous sunlight every summer and 30 days of polar night every winter.

Nunavut

Nunavut extends to the magnetic north pole and the Arctic Ocean. Its capital, Iqaluit, is on Baffin Island, which has national and historic parks and is noted for fjords, icebergs, and wildlife.

Tourism is all fly-in. It consists of those wishing to see or hunt wildlife and those who wish to experience a starkly beautiful part of the planet and the Inuit people who have lived here for centuries. There are scheduled flights to many locations and charters to others.

All visitors planning a wilderness expedition must register their plans with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) located nearest to their departure point.

Accommodations

There are fishing and hunting lodges and camps throughout the interior. Because of long distances and few services in between, advance planning and/or reservations are necessary. For information about what items can be brought into Canada, visitors should contact the Canada Border Services Agency.

As a reminder: always keep in mind the varying reopening dates, operating hours, and availability of attractions and accommodations. Before booking clients, be sure to consult sources—like the U.S. State Department or the World Health Organization—for the latest global travel updates for individual countries.

Thank you for spending this past month with us exploring four of the world’s most interesting destinations. Have a very Happy New Year! We look forward to an exciting 2022.