Plan Your Trip
Month by Month
January
Ski season is in full swing. Toward the end of the month, cities begin winter carnivals to break the shackles of cold, dark days.
z
Ice Wine Festivals
British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley (www.thewinefestivals.com) and Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula (www.niagarawinefestival.com) celebrate their ice wines with good-time festivals.
o
Best Festivals
Montréal Jazz Festival, June
Québec City's Winter Carnival, February
Pride Toronto, June-July
Dark Sky Festival, October
Festival Acadien, August
February
zChinese New Year
Dragons dance, firecrackers burst and food sizzles. Vancouver hosts the biggest celebration (www.vancouver-chinatown.com), but Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa and Montréal also have festivities. The lunar calendar determines the date.
zQuébec City’s Winter Carnival
Revelers watch ice-sculpture competitions, hurtle down snow slides, go ice fishing and cheer on their favorite paddlers in an insane canoe race on the St Lawrence River. It’s the world’s biggest winter fest (www.carnaval.qc.ca).
6
Vancouver Wine Festival
Vancouver uncorks 1700 wines from 200 vintners at this wine festival (www.vanwinefest.ca), a rite of spring for oenophiles.
March
Ski resorts still do brisk business, especially mid-month when kids typically have a week-long school break.
5
Sugar Shacks
Québec produces three-quarters of the world’s maple syrup, and March is when trees get tapped. Head out to local sugar shacks, scoop up some snow, put it on a plate and have steaming syrup from a piping cauldron poured on.
April
2
World Ski & Snowboard Festival
Ski bums converge on Whistler for 10 days of adrenaline events, outdoor rock and hip-hop concerts, film screenings, dog parades and a whole lotta carousing (www.wssf.com).
3
Hot Docs
Toronto hosts North America’s largest documentary film festival (www.hotdocs.ca), which screens 170-plus docos from around the globe.
May
1
Tiptoe Through the Tulips
After a long winter, Ottawa bursts with color – more than three million tulips of 200 types blanket the city for the Canadian Tulip Festival (www.tulipfestival.ca). Festivities include parades, regattas, car rallies, dances, concerts and fireworks.
June
Take advantage of long, warm days to hike, paddle and soak up the great outdoors.
3Luminato
For 10 days in early June, big-name musicians, dancers, artists, writers, actors and filmmakers descend on Toronto for a celebration of creativity that reflects the city's diversity (www.luminatofestival.com). Many performances are free.
3North by Northeast
Around 1000 emerging indie bands spill off the stages in Toronto's coolest clubs. Film screenings and comedy shows add to the mix. Over its 20-year history, NXNE (www.nxne.com) has become a must on the music-industry calendar.
3Montréal Jazz Festival
Two million music lovers descend on Montréal in late June, when the heart of downtown explodes with jazz and blues for 11 straight days (www.montrealjazzfest.com). Most concerts are outdoors and free.
zPride Toronto
Toronto’s most flamboyant event (www.pridetoronto.com) celebrates all kinds of sexuality, climaxing with an out-of-the-closet Dyke March and the outrageous Pride Parade. Most events are free.
July
Weather is at its warmest, fresh produce and seafood fill plates, and festivals rock the nights away. Crowds are thick.
3Country Music in Cavendish
Some of the biggest names in country music come to Prince Edward Island for the Cavendish Beach Festival (www.cavendishbeachmusic.com). This is one of the largest outdoor music festivals in North America, and the island swells with people.
1Calgary Stampede
Raging bulls, chuckwagon racing and bad-ass, boot-wearing cowboys unite for the 'Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.’ A midway of rides and games makes it a family affair well beyond the usual rodeo event (www.calgarystampede.com).
August
3Acadian Celebration
Acadians tune their fiddles and unleash their Franco-Canadian spirit for the Festival Acadien in Caraquet, New Brunswick (www.festivalacadien.ca). It’s the biggest event on the Acadian calendar, with singers, musicians and dancers letting loose for two weeks in early August.
3Edmonton Fringe Festival
Edmonton's Fringe Festival (www.fringetheatreadventures.ca) is North America's largest fringe bash, staging some 1600 performances of wild, uncensored shows over 11 days in mid-August.
1Canadian National Exhibition
Akin to a state fair in the USA, 'The Ex' (www.theex.com) features more than 700 exhibitors, agricultural shows, lumberjack competitions, outdoor concerts and carnivalia at Toronto’s Exhibition Place. The 18-day event runs through Labour Day and ends with a bang-up fireworks display.
September
5PEI Fall Flavours
This island-wide kitchen party merges toe-tapping traditional music with incredible seafood over the course of three weeks (www.fallflavours.ca).
3Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto’s prestigious 10-day celebration (www.tiff.net) is a major cinematic event. Buy tickets well in advance.
October
zDark Sky Festival
In late October, Jasper's Dark Sky Festival (www.jasperdarksky.travel) fills two weeks with events celebrating space. Hear talks by astronauts and celebrities, listen to the symphony under the stars, see the aurora borealis reflected in a glacial lake and gaze through a telescope into the great beyond.
December
Get out the parka. Winter begins in earnest as snow falls, temperatures drop and ski resorts ramp up for the masses.
zNiagara Festival of Lights
The family friendly Winter Festival of Lights (www.wfol.com) gets everyone in the holiday spirit with three million twinkling bulbs and 125 animated displays brightening the town and the waterfall itself. Ice-skate on the ‘rink at the brink’ of the cascade.