Visit Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland. On your way there, stop in Trout River and buy a pair of hand-knitted socks to keep you cozy in the Canadian cold. Shop for your socks by driving past the cottages of the local women who, according to the Chicago Tribune, hang the socks on clotheslines in their front yards like the brightly colored pennants on used-car lots. (Reference 1)
Head for Churchill on the Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba between January and March to gaze on the Northern Lights snaking across the Arctic sky.
Return in warmer weather to the Narcisse Snake Dens in a wildlife management area 90 minutes north of Winnipeg to view tens of thousands of red-striped garter snakes snaking across the ground in the throes of mating. (Reference 3)
Visit Banff National Park in Alberta and take an underwater tour of Canada's largest submerged village, Minnewanka Landing, some 100 feet beneath the surface of Lake Minnewanka. (Reference 3)
Continue southwest through the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver, British Columbia, and take in what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the world's narrowest building. The Sam Kee Building at the corner of Chinatown's Pender and Carall streets is a functioning insurance office only 6 feet deep. (Resource 1)
The Yukon town of Whitehorse is where you'll find a dog sled race not nearly as famous but at least as challenging as Alaska's Iditarod. Every February the Yukon Quest follows the trail of the Yukon Gold Rush from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, more than 1,000 miles.
While you're awaiting the arrival of the victorious dog sled team, engage in a challenge of your own with a side trip to the Gold Rush town of Dawson City, about 300 miles to the north. Test yourself by drinking enough of the Sourdough Saloon's Sour Toe Cocktail to earn a certificate. Local lore has it that the cocktail contains a toe amputated from a 1920s miner. If your lips actually touch it, the certificate is yours. (Reference 3)
Visit Point Pelee National Park, about 30 miles southeast of Windsor, Ontario, between August and October to witness the annual migration of monarch butterflies on their journey from Canada to central Mexico.
Then, even though the days of cheap gas may be gone, it's worth the trip to see the birthplace of the North American petroleum industry at Oil Springs in Lambton County, where the Petrolia Discovery site has a fully functioning 19th-century oil field.
