As Canada’s capital, Ottawa attracts tourists from all over the world to visit its historic sites and landmarks, enjoy its culture, and appreciate its sights and sounds. Ottawa is home to the Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, which connects Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario.
It is 202 kilometers long. This canal is also a UNESCO world heritage site, and in winter, it happens to house the world’s longest skating rink.
Bay of Fundy
Many Americans would be quick to write Canada off as their timid, maple-scented upstairs neighbor, but those Americans are definitely missing out. Canada is packed with some of the most majestic sights in the hemisphere, from coast to coast, south to north.
Take the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick for example, this aquatic fantasia is home to a 50ft tidal range, the world's highest tide, and it's five times higher than the average on the Atlantic. Twice every day, around 160 billion tons of water move in and out of the Bay of Fundy, which is enough to fill the Grand Canyon.
The First Pace-Maker
Canada also boasts of inventing the first subcutaneous pacemaker! It was built in 1949 by Canadian engineer John Hopps, based on two Toronto-based cardiac surgeons, Wilfred Bigelow and John Callaghan. Their research and experiments with heart surgery made them notice that an electrical pulse could restart the heart.
They contacted electrical engineer Hopps to build a clinical device for them. Further progress made by them, and other inventors, led to the first implantable pacemaker in 1958. It was used on a Swedish man who, thanks to the device, lived to the age of 86. Wilson Greatbatch is considered the inventor of the first practical implantable pacemaker.
Canada's Ice Hotel
The famous Hotel de Glace in Quebec is built using 400 tons of ice and 12 000 tons of snow. The Hotels is just a 15-minute drive from Quebec City, with the point of being fully immersed in the unique, snowy, and icy surrounds.
The Hotel de Glace has 45 rooms, each designed with a different theme, with some rooms even having their very own fireplaces! Since the hotel melts every summer, the hotel is built from scratch in winter, and each year it's designed with a brand new theme.
The Largest Source of Fresh Water
With its millions of lakes and rivers, it’s not surprising that Canada has earned this title. For instance, the Estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of the largest and deepest estuaries in the world. Its water comes from the Great Lakes, a series of interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid-east region of North America.
It mixes with oceanic saltwater as it widens into a large estuary - a water passage where the tide meets a river current - near Ile d’Orléans.