Welcome to Ahwatukeelife Travel Canada

Our neighbor to the north offers excellent dining, fascinating cities, amazing shopping, outdoor adventure and spectacular scenery.

Montréal

Montréal is old world and a modern French and English combination that helps to create a unique and wonderful experience. Throughout the year Montréal hosts more than 40 festivals ranging from the traditional to the wildly avant-garde. Jazz, laughter, food and snow are just four of the many reasons to party for weeks on end. Entire blocks are closed to traffic and stages are set up for a lineup of free concerts and film screenings leaving plenty of room in the streets for a party. Every festival has something for adults and children to enjoy whether it's jazz, comedy, cinema or exotic food.

The festivals start in winter, with la feête des Neiges and the Montréal High Lights Festival, a 17 day festival featuring pleasure you can see, touch and taste, The rest of the year finds the Festival International de Jazz, the Air Canada Grand Prix, the Montréal International Fireworks Competition, the Festival international de nouvelle danse, and many film festivals. Food, of course, is major cause for celebration, with events such as Les Feêtes Gourmandes Internationales and the Mondial de la bieère (beer Festival).

Celebrating the outdoors is part of life in this island city with a mountain at its centre. Here there is a tree for every two people and four completely different seasons. There's cross-country skiing, tobogganing and skating downtown on Mount Royal in winter. There's white-water rafting at nearby Pôle des Rapides and in-line skating along the river or round the Gilles-Villeneuve Circuit racetrack in summer. There's hiking in the spring and again in the fall to see the leaves change colours. And there's cycling (almost) all year round with approximately 480 miles of bike paths winding through conserved parks and forests, canals and rivers. Bicycling Magazine has called Montréal one of the best cycling cities in North America.

When your not celebrating a festival, or playing outdoors, you can visit Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Cirque du Soleil, or for more unconventional fare check out the independent films using the latest in digital technology which can be seen at the Ex-Centris Cinema and the New Media Complex. Another favorite indoor activity is the Underground City with 20 miles of promenades that connect major department stores, boutiques, movie theatres, restaurants and hotels.

Toronto

Totonto is located on the shore of Lake Ontario - the easternmost of the Great Lakes and is Canada's #1 tourist destination, with more than 20 million visitors a year. The cities population is more than 4 million people, whose residents come from countries around the world and from all ethnic backgrounds. On any given day, in most quarters of the city, a hundred different languages can be heard on the streets, from Hindi to Greek to French.

Toronto is a large, but beautiful city, that over the last 50 years has become the center of culture, commerce and communications in Canada. One of the best places to start your tour in Toronto is at the CN Tower - the tallest free-standing structure in the world. From here you can get a feel for the size, variety and breathtaking architecture of the city along with a fantastic view of the skyline and unique geography.

The city hosts a successful international film festival each September and is also the second-largest live-theater venue on the continent (after New York). Considered "Hollywood North" by the film industry.

Be sure to pay a visit to the colorful, European-style Kensington Market, which abounds in fresh vegetables, poultry and meats. Another great place to visit is the beach-fringed Toronto Islands. These eight tree-lined islands - and more than a dozen smaller islets that sit in Lake Ontario just off the city's downtown - providing spectacular view of the skyline, especially as the setting sun turns the city's skyscrapers to gold, silver, and bronze.

Toronto is filled with boutiques, restaurants, and cafes, and of course the Underground City (a 7 mile subterranean walkway) that is lined with eateries, shops, banks, medical offices and theaters. As if all that wasn't enough, Toronto is also home to four professional sports teams; hockey - Toronto Mapleleafs, football - Argonauts, basketball - Raptors, and baseball - Bluejays.