Canada, our polite and unassuming neighbor to the north, may be a bit bland as a tourist destination, but it’s not without its selling points. If you’re into Francophile culture, you’ll love Quebec. If you’re the outdoorsy type, you have to see Banff. The summers are cooler and the winters … hey, did I mention that the locals are super friendly? Also, Tim Horton’s absolutely crushes Starbucks.
Somewhat off the radar though, is their national capital of Ottawa, a place I had the opportunity to visit recently. Vastly overshadowed by big brother Toronto, Ottawa has many of the same amenities, albeit in a scaled-down, more manageable context. Parliament Hill is gorgeous, and the free tour was worth every minute I spent waiting in line for it. The pub and restaurant scene is as vibrant as any I’ve ever visited (a fairly extensive dataset), and it’s all just steps from a plethora of decent hotels (which is a very good thing, as my recollection of the walk is more than a little foggy).
The bar that I’ll remember most however, is the solid gold bar I found on a Sunday morning at the Royal Canadian Mint. Admittedly, I only heard about it from eavesdropping on a nearby conversation in that long-ass line for Parliament, but the mint made for a great tour. It only set me back $4.50, and I learned all about how to make coins with Queen Elizabeth on them. There was a neat exhibit on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic medals that were cast there, and I got to hold a genuine 24k gold bar.
Outside of action movies and video games, I’d never even seen a gold bar, let alone touched one, so I wasn’t prepared for how heavy it felt (it was 28 pounds). I was further unprepared for the peculiar combination of power and abject dismay I felt while holding it. At today’s prices, the bar was worth $600,000.
It was tethered to the table by a chain, but in true polite and trusting Canadian fashion, the bar was guarded by a single security officer…with no gun…and a demeanor so pleasant that he offered to take this photo for me. I figured that all it would take is quick hands and some heavy-duty bolt cutters and… I could spend the next several years in the cleanest prison imaginable. Pretty neat, eh?
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