As Canada enters its 150th year and prepares to celebrate its sesquicentennial, we thought it’d be fun to challenge readers with a semi-educational list of true and false things you may not have known about the country and its citizens! Can you separate the fact from the fiction? (If you’re struggling, the answers are at the bottom of the page.)
1. In 1979, Canadians Chris Haney and Scott Abbott created the popular board game, Trivial Pursuit.
2. 75% of an Oilers fan’s time at a game is spent gazing wistfully at the rafters, daydreaming of championships past.
3. Common Canadian texting abbreviations include MOTH (moose on the highway), 24424 (don’t forget to pick up a case of beer for Victoria Day weekend), and LOLS (long Oilers losing streak).
4. The Al Rashid Mosque — North America’s first mosque — was built in Edmonton in 1938. Originally located at 101 St. & 108 Ave., you can now visit it at Fort Edmonton Park.
5. In 1885, the first penny was flattened on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
6. Western Canada consumes five times more Nickelback than Eastern Canada.
7. Canada has hosted three Olympic games: Montreal in 1976, Calgary in 1988, and Vancouver in 2010.
8. The comedy Porky’s is the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in Canada’s domestic box office.
9. Due to overwhelming popularity, a tray of nanaimo bars became mayor of the BC town from 1967–1972, until it was accidentally assassinated at a town hall meeting.
10. Canadians consume three times as many donuts per capita as Americans.
This list was compiled using Lonely Planet’s Canada Guide (9th edition, 2005) and Stats Canada: Satire on a National Scale. Read either to learn more true and false things about Canadian history and culture!
CONTEST ALERT
To celebrate Canada Day, WHERE Edmonton is giving away a set of 2016 Royal Canadian Mint coins from West Edmonton Coin & Stamp! This set features a special edition loonie designed by Canadian artist Glen Scrimshaw with the image of the tundra swan.
To enter to win these beautiful coins, sign up for our WHERE Edmonton Bulletin below, which is a monthly e-newsletter packed full of the best things to see & do in the city! We will draw for the winner on July 15, 2016, at 2 pm.
Sign up to receive the WHERE Edmonton Bulletin here!
Answers: 1. T; 2. F; 3. F; 4. T; 5. F; 6. F; 7. T; 8. T; 9. F; 10. T
