Autumn in Canada

What’s the first thing you notice when summer turns to fall in Canada? It’s the color … especially in Southern Alberta, our neck of the woods, where autumn hits early and the low hanging, late afternoon sun lights up the landscape like a movie screen.

This is peak hiking season, a time when nature loving locals and tourists alike flock to the Canadian Rockies and compete for a place in the forest. They’re heading to hike trails such as Banff’s Sunshine Meadows (voted one of the top day hikes in Canada by The Lonely Planet), Ptarmigan Cirque in Kananaskis Country and Larch valley above Moraine Lake – where natural light collides with impossibly yellow larch trees creating, to quote writer Diane Ackerman, something akin to “visual opium.”

Head east to Ontario, just north of Toronto, where you’ll find another eye popping display – the changing of the Sugar Maple leaves in Algonquin Provincial Park. Home to a healthy swamp donkey (moose), beaver and loon population, Algonquin symbolizes all that is iconically Canadian.  Canoeists, in particular, enjoy Ontario’s oldest park during autumn as it explodes into a colorful palate of burnt orange, sunny yellow and crimson red.  And frankly, next to making love in a canoe (the mark of a true Canuck!), there’s nothing more Canadian than paddling along one of the rivers connecting the park’s 1500 lakes. You might round a bend to see, like we did en route to Tom Thomson Lake, the tender likes of a mother and baby moose feeding in shallow waters. Just for the record, Thomson was an artist who had a huge influence on the Group of Seven – a collective of early 20th century “plein air” painters who made this region famous.

Next door, Quebec also lays claim to being one of Canada’s prettiest provinces during autumn.

One of the world’s largest French speaking cities, Montreal sees thousands of visitors during this prime tourist season. The city’s enchanting annual “Magic of Lanterns” event – a huge draw for The Montreal Botanical Garden – offers up a different kind of eye candy for fall.  We’re referring to the hundreds of brightly colored, hand painted Chinese lanterns, floating on ponds and hanging from trees beneath starry skies that feature renditions of everything from sea horses and maidens to warriors and dragons. Walking through the garden on a bracing autumn evening, along with Montrealers swaddled in all manner of scarf-wear, their signature trademark, and basking in the glow of this whimsical event is a sensory experience not to be missed.

If you keep in mind that fall is fleeting in Canada, it’s easy to understand why we relish the shortest and most colorful of our seasons. Before you know it temperatures plummet, snow flurries and unless you’re from Vancouver, you’re teetering around in so many layers of fleece and wool – practically indistinguishable – with toques (woolen hats or beanies) pulled over your ears.