Eastern Canada with Trek America
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 5, 2018
- 4 min read
A few years ago, before I met my husband-slash-travel-partner-for-life, I signed up for my first of three tours with Trek America, a solo travel tour company for 18-35s. (Funnily enough, I had such a great time on both my Trek America tours I ended up taking my husband-slash-travel-partner-for-life on one to Alaska a few years later!)
I was initially incredibly nervous but shouldn't have been, because the nice thing about travelling solo with a small tour group is that everybody else is, too - meaning everyone just wants to make friends, just like you!
The great thing about Trek America is that their tours are small - a maximum of 13. You travel in a van and the cosiness of it is great for bonding! Most tours involve camping in some pretty darn scenic campgrounds (and camping facilities in America are some of the best in the world!), and the whole evening routine of setting up camp and taking turns to cook dinner is more fun than you'd think!
So anyway, on with the tour!
Day One:
First stop in Canada? It HAD to be Niagara Falls! We took a stroll along the boardwalk, snacking on kosher hot dogs (tastes just like the normal kind.....) and trying to figure out why our hair kept going static, sticking straight up in their air every so often for no apparent reason. Of course, we then took a Maid of the Mist boat ride into the Falls, which was spectacular. One of our group had been given a tip-off that the lower deck was better than the upper deck as it gave you a more dramatic perspective of the size of the falls: most tourists headed straight for the top and ended up packed in like sardines, so down below we luxuriated in our freedom to stroll around and see the falls from different parts of the boat. The bottom deck was much, much dryer, too!
After heading to Toronto, we set up camp at the Indian Line campsite, my team cooked pasta for the rest of the group and we settled in for a night of s'mores (our guide Kyle taught us the "proper" way to make them), and beer/wine/other. On a trip to the washrooms, we encountered an old man with a guitar who, on discovering that we were English, serenaded us with his special rendition of the Spice Girls.
Day Two:
Today mostly involved queuing up to get into the CN Tower. And then, once inside the CN Tower, queuing up to get to the observation deck. And then queuing up to get down again. The second time I visited Toronto with the husband-slash-travel-buddy-for-life, we'd already learned the difficult but logical lesson that the best way to see famous landmarks is from outside them, not inside them. So if you don't feel like queuing, try seeing the CN Tower from either of these two viewpoints:
A) From inside the Rogers Center (bonus: you get to watch a baseball game)
B) From Toronto Island at sunset (bonus: you get to play frisbee golf)
Days 3 and 4:
We headed to Algonquin Provincial Park. Fun things to do in Algonquin when in a group include:
A) Park at the side of the road, leave your vehicle, and pretend to be looking at an animal in the bushes. Make sure there actually is no animal. See how many other cars stop to see what all the fuss is about.
B) Hike to Beaver Lake. This place is beautiful, but the best thing about it is that it got its name because it only exists because a couple of beavers once decided to build a dam where they shouldn't have, redirecting water into this valley.
C) Go canoeing. Algonquin has a lot of lakes, so it seems a shame not to. Make sure you do it with a guide, though: ours (Steve) brought the lake to life, leading us to its hidden corners, and got super excited at the sight of a squirrel swimming, which he'd never seen in all his years as a guide.
Day 5 and 6:
We headed to Montreal, and very much had a "stumble upon" kind of visit. Things we stumbled upon on Montreal included:
A) A stall selling delicious maple lemonade (because, Canada)
B) An inspiring exhibition of artwork by indigenous artists
C) O Noir, a "dining in the dark" experience that involved accidentally eating our napkins instead of the food
D) A pirate-themed restaurant where the waiters dressed as pirates (obviously), carried fiddles, put us in the stocks and aggressively sang sea shanties at us while we ate. Sadly, it's closed down now - I can't imagine why at all!
Day 7 and 8:
Quebec City! This was another "stumble upon" day (back in the days when I did no research before a trip!) but the things we stumbled on were perfect!
A) Poutine! My first taste of poutine! What a defining moment in my life. I'm convinced that this event is what led me to marry a Canadian, actually.
B) The changing of the guards at Quebec's star-shaped Citadel. Why was this amazing? The ceremony involves a goat with gold-painted horns, which just happens to be the regiment's mascot. It begins at 10am.
C) A ghost tour of the old town. The highlight of which was being let into Quebec's Notre Dame Cathedral at night. Our ghost guide made us stand in the middle, then shut all the lights off and asked us to spot ghosts. I love the experience of being able to see somewhere that is so busy during the day at night when it's quiet, so this was a perfect (if terrifying) choice.
D) The Morrin Centre. This is an ex-jail turned museum, and a guided tour around it involved us being warned that we were about to be "treated like prisoners", sent to the medical room and given a "tonic", then locked in a prison cell with our arms in shackles.
E) Thanks to some rain that led to us sheltering under a highway underpass, we accidentally stumbled upon a free performance of Cirque du Soleil! The reason it was free is because it featured newer performers who weren't yet reader for the world tours, but it was still absolutely incredible and the only time I've ever been thankful to be caught in the rain.
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