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 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.
Rideau Canal
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.
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.
'Almost' the Longest Street in the World
Canada was once considered to be home of the longest street – well, kind of. Yonge Street intersects with five other major streets in the downtown area. It was known as the world's longest street until 1999; even the Guinness Book of World Records repeated the misconception. This was due to a conflation of Yonge Street with the rest of Ontario's Highway 11.
In fact, Yonge Street did form a part of Highway 11, which led to those claims about Yonge Street being the longest street in the world. But Yonge Street could only claim that title if it were fully connected with Highway 11, which has never been the case.