Visiting the Sugarbush Maple Syrup Festival at Bruce’s Mill, Ontario At the end of March we ticked another thing off our bucket list, and paid a visit to a festival celebrating one of the enduring icons of Canada – maple syrup! Unsurprisingly, Canada is the world’s largest maple syrup producer. In fact, if you took the province of Quebec in isolation, it’d be the largest producer … Continue reading A festival dedicated to maple syrup? Oh yes!
The long weekend dedicated to chocolate One of the times we often notice big differences between the UK and Canada is during holidays. This weekend is Easter but definitely not as we know it. For starters, Easter Monday is not a statutory holiday and we both have to go to work! This ruins the first thing I love about Easter – 4 days off! Secondly … Continue reading Happy Easter
Last weekend we rented a car and headed an hour north of Toronto to Barrie, which sits on the western shores of Lake Simcoe. We didn’t visit for the lake though, we were there for the ski hills and to partake in a spot of snow tubing. For those who don’t know, snow tubing is where you sit in a giant rubber ring and slide … Continue reading Snow tubing in Barrie, Ontario: Snow Valley vs Horseshoe Resort
So today is our 6 month anniversary since leaving the UK to come on our Canadian adventure. Doesn’t time fly! The good news is that in the past 2 weeks our respective parents have both booked trips to come and visit us (fortunately not at the same time…), and we can’t wait to see them again! To mark our 6 month anniversary, we decided to look … Continue reading Looking back on 6 months in Canada
So we did it! We survived! Spring officially started today, so goodbye winter. What’s more, February 2015 was apparently Toronto’s coldest month on record EVER, with the daily high never exceeding 0 degrees! Although some might say that February cheated in claiming this record, given that it has only 28 days… Honestly, I don’t think that the winter has been that bad, especially given all … Continue reading Surviving the Canadian winter
This week the weather has improved dramatically, the snow is melting and it finally feels like spring is coming. The good weather started last Sunday, when temperatures reached a massive 2 degrees, which seemed so much warmer after experiencing the coldest February on record in Toronto! We decided to take advantage of the bright sunshine and head down to the Harbourfront Centre to do some … Continue reading Skating at the Harbourfront and drinking chocolate in the Distillery District
On Monday night we did something crazy, after seeing a tweet from WWF Canada we signed up to climb the CN Tower! Yes, that same tower that Stewart walked on the edge of back in September, and features in many of our pictures of Toronto. The CN Tower is one of the world’s tallest towers; in fact from 1976 – 2010 it was the world’s … Continue reading We’ve signed up to the WWF CN Tower Climb – please sponsor us!
Here at Brown Bear HQ we were recently honoured to be asked to write a contribution on our experiences for a Canadian working holiday eBook. The eBook in question is written by Gemma from the excellent offtracktravel.ca. Gemma’s website is full of useful tips and inspiration on travelling to Canada’s lesser known parts. Last year, her and partner JR went on a 5 month road trip … Continue reading Canadian working holiday eBook – recognition for Brown Bear!
On a very chilly winter evening we went down to Gerrard Street East in Toronto to warm ourselves up with a spicy Little India food tour. This was my Christmas present from Emma, which was very generous of her considering that Indian cuisine is not her favourite! The tour was run by the Culinary Adventure Company, who run food tours in many Toronto districts, culinary adventures, classes and … Continue reading Little India Food Tour with the Culinary Adventure Company
Last weekend we ticked off our first 2015 bucket list item, and went to visit the wintry Niagara Falls. We also decided to try something new, so below you can see our first ever vlog (or you can view it here too)! Thanks to winning a Via Rail Facebook competition, our trip was entirely free! All it cost us was a couple of hours of sleep on … Continue reading Visiting the Niagara Falls in the winter
Brown Bear Travels 