Oh, Canada, the land that sounds almost made up. Famed for its politeness, endless maple syrup, and free healthcare, the country seems like a dream already. But when you add the more villainous side to the mix, like the geese that are always prepared for combat and the seemingly never-ending cold, it’s like you’re in a fairytale land. Add a bunch of wild animals and plaid and you've got yourself a weird Disney movie.
This inoffensive weirdness is reflected in the many Canadian memes floating around the internet. They’re always a little self-deprecating, a little modest, and never too in-your-face. The ones you’ll find in the list below were acquired at Only in Canada, a Facebook group with over 438,000 members. Scroll down to enjoy the selection.
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One of the most beloved Canadian things all around the world is, of course, maple syrup. But while it has the love of most of the world’s sweet-toothed population, it needs more attention from scientists. That is because the liquid gold is a mystery to this day. The syrup is made by boiling maple sap, which seems straightforward enough. However, a lot of the chemical reactions caused by the heat are still unknown because sap is so complicated. That’s why replicating the flavor is so difficult.
Replicating the flavor might be necessary as reservoirs of this deliciousness is limited. Just in 2021, we all experienced a worldwide maple syrup shortage. To manage it, Canadians, more precisely, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, tapped into their strategic reserve to fix the problem. They released an additional 50 million tons of the good stuff. It’s not the first time they had to do it, too. Three years before that, in 2018, they had to dip into their stockpile as well.
The reason why shortages happen is because the harvest period highly depends on weather. It can only happen for a limited time during the year, when the temperatures are above freezing during the day, but still drop below 32°F at night. Back in 2021, the spring harvest period was too short to collect enough supply, which caused the unfortunate situation.
It’s important to note that, if done responsibly, sap harvesting does not affect the growth of the tree. After all, it takes about 42 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of syrup. That is why there are strict rules in place to regulate it. One can only tap 1–1.5 quarts of sap per tree, or one tenth of a tree’s sugar. Maples have to be over 8 inches in diameter to be tapped and even the biggest ones can only be tapped up to three times a year.
The produced syrup is classified according to color and taste. The deeper the color, the later in the season it’s harvested, the stronger the flavor it has. And it can be used everywhere, not just on pancakes and waffles. That is why the myth that Canadians use it every day is not so far from the truth. People put it in their morning coffees, use it in salad vinaigrettes and marinades, and replace the sugar with it in baked goods.
When it comes to nutritional value, it’s important to remember that maple syrup is a sweetener that’s high in sugar, so it’s not going to be incredibly healthy. However, it does have some valuable nutrients in it such as calcium, potassium, iron, zinc, and manganese. One study also found that it has 24 different antioxidants, with darker ones having more than the lighter ones. So, replacing your average refined sugar with maple syrup does have some small benefits.
Pure Canadian
Maple syrup has also been a target of a heist. You see, it is not only a delightful indulgence, but also an expensive delicacy. And wherever there’s money involved, there will be somebody trying to play dirty. That’s what happened in 2012 when a group of people siphoned off 18 million dollars worth of syrup off of the aforementioned Quebec stockpile.
Geese are not exclusive to Canada, not sure how this a Canadian thing.
I've told this story before, but anyway. When I was in Charlotte Town, PEI, it had snowed over night, so they had the plough out. They chose not to clear the main street first, because Tim Horton's was on another street, so that had to be done first.
The criminals, led by Richard Vallières, did it gradually, over several months. At first, they were replacing the liquid in the barrels with water, but, later on, as they kept getting away with it, they would just leave them empty. The disappearance of the massive 3,000 tons was discovered accidentally, during the annual inventory. The inspector started climbing the barrels, expecting them to hold his weight. However, they did not and he almost fell to the ground. Once they realized that some of the syrup was gone, they called the police to identify the damage. That’s when they found out that 9,571 barrels out of 63,000 were gone.
Remember Walking To School In The Winter When We Were Kids? Our Parents Never Drove Us - Ever
Michigander. I can attest to this as well. It was leg day everyday during the winter! lol
Me too. My grandparents used to put trouble lights under the hood of the car, trying to make it easier to start in the mornings.
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School was only cancelled if the school bus was upside down in a snowbank, on fire,
Where I'm at in the northern interior of BC, they don't close school for absolutely any reason anymore, due to a child being sent to school when it was closed and no one there, and succumbing to hypothermia:(
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'F'n car wouldn't start. Or if it did, by the time it had warmed up enough, you were in second period.
...because our parents also walked to school in winter, but backwards and uphill..! XD
Great granpa: We had to walk 5 kilometers in -10º temperature through 1 meter of smow! Grampa: me too Dad: me too! Son: me too!
I rode a bus - and I remember waiting for the bus when it was still dark. Of course the blooming bus was late whenever it was really cold.
If it weren't for the antediluvian over-head wiring this could be a picture of me and my siblings back home in Salzburg when we hiked to school like that.
Exactly right. If it was warm enough for school to be in session , it was perfectly fine to walk to school(my mom would say) .Then walk home for lunch & back to school. Then home at the end of the school day. Then shoveling snow from the sidewalk after dinner. Then skating on our backyard rink until it was time to go to bed. In those days, we kids slept like logs all night from the physical exertion we put forth every day. It was a great way for kids to grow up ; there was no time to lay around. Sweet childhood memories.
I was about 8. Bullies shoved me into a snowbank. I laid there until I was found. Both hands frozen. I couldn't use them for a long time but although I had arthritis from a young age I'm 76 now and NEVER made my kids walk to school in the snow alone. If you brag about how bad you had it as a kid and want your kids to suffer like you did because you turned out ok, you didn't turn out ok.
My next door neighbour drove his kids... And they'd all wave at me as they drove by nice and warm in their car. His kids and I went to the same school. It wasn't that our families weren't friends - it's that they were a******s.
Only some parts of canada had this rest of it we had a school bus but you'd have to stand in knee high snow waiting for it to arrive
A bus ride for 4 stops. Hike one and a half mile across cow paddocks and farmers lanes, Cross a busy main road and into high School. In winter, the snow was almost up to my hips.
have you ever had your feet frozen...no joke. pure pain/amputation
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My dad was mean he wouldn't let me jump out the kitchen window into the snowbank
Can't Get More Canadian Than This
Vallières was caught after the police were tipped off, together with 15 others related to the crime. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, the harshest penalty in Canada for anyone involved in a heist. The man also needed to pay 7 million US dollars, or all the profit he was able to make, to his victims. Vallières says he did it to get back at the federation. Apparently, they had fined him 1.3 million US dollars back in 2007 for selling maple syrup illegally. Unfortunately for him, he got too greedy to get away with his revenge plan.
When you think about it though, what a Canadian crime: a maple syrup heist. You can safely file it under the list of things Only in Canada. If you’re curious to see more of those, be sure to check out this and this post as well.
Go Canada! You’re Looking At The Longest Covered Bridge In The World!!
The Hartland-covered bridge in New Brunswick holds the record. Built in 1909 the covered bridge over upper ward creek in New Brunswick has been a charming part of the landscape for over a century.❤️🇨🇦❤️
Made Only In Canada
I crave these in the way that I used to crave cigarettes... I devour them when I find them and then feel horrible afterwards. But they are unnaturally delicious.
Note: this post originally had 32 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
there definitely is, but most of it is uninhabitated
Load More Replies... Weird, we get Canada Geese in the UK but they mostly just stand in a field not bothering anyone. Clearly saving all the aggro for the motherland 😝
Invasive species that I think was deliberately 'imported'... it's still early. They will make a negative impact. They really are quite aggressive. Not 'evil' just very assertive. You have no predators for them in the UK, (unless there's a few wolves still roaming about.) It's more about taking food and nesting sites from other critters.
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A few of these have nothing at all to do with the post, or Canada.
Where is a picture of the huge moose, where Canada started an argument with Norway for the biggest statue of a moose in the world?
I don't know where a picture is but if you've ever been a child in your neighborhood got locked down because it was a full grown male moose wandering around well you know that's Canada
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Some of these are not exclusively Canadian, but the ones that are do my heart glad
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Only in Canada: the largest heist ever committed in Canada involved the theft of 3,300 tonnes, worth C$18.7 million (not adjusted for inflation).... of maple syrup. You can't make this $hit up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist
Everything I know about Canada came from letter Kenny and red green. Thank you and keep your stick on the ice.
I am Canadian, and I live in Canada. A few weeks ago, I went to a poutine feast. Probably one of the most Canadian feasts you'll run into
I was just fishing up near Wawa for a week. Beautiful country, nice people it's like Michigan but with mountains:)
There's our most annoying stereotypes in one group.... I want this for usa or let's be really dangerous and do this about Russia? Where's the nature's beauty? Where's mocking our politics and Mounties where's the free healthcare reference where's the 80% is uninhabited and super beautiful where's the natives that don't get respect... There's so much forgotten. Hockey maple syrup plaid winter and "eh" is as bad as saying Rednecks guns "y'all" football gangs there's more to the USA too but that's the stereotypes.
there definitely is, but most of it is uninhabitated
Load More Replies... Weird, we get Canada Geese in the UK but they mostly just stand in a field not bothering anyone. Clearly saving all the aggro for the motherland 😝
Invasive species that I think was deliberately 'imported'... it's still early. They will make a negative impact. They really are quite aggressive. Not 'evil' just very assertive. You have no predators for them in the UK, (unless there's a few wolves still roaming about.) It's more about taking food and nesting sites from other critters.
Load More Replies... A few of these have nothing at all to do with the post, or Canada.
Where is a picture of the huge moose, where Canada started an argument with Norway for the biggest statue of a moose in the world?
I don't know where a picture is but if you've ever been a child in your neighborhood got locked down because it was a full grown male moose wandering around well you know that's Canada
Load More Replies... Some of these are not exclusively Canadian, but the ones that are do my heart glad
Load More Replies... Only in Canada: the largest heist ever committed in Canada involved the theft of 3,300 tonnes, worth C$18.7 million (not adjusted for inflation).... of maple syrup. You can't make this $hit up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist
Everything I know about Canada came from letter Kenny and red green. Thank you and keep your stick on the ice.
I am Canadian, and I live in Canada. A few weeks ago, I went to a poutine feast. Probably one of the most Canadian feasts you'll run into
I was just fishing up near Wawa for a week. Beautiful country, nice people it's like Michigan but with mountains:)
There's our most annoying stereotypes in one group.... I want this for usa or let's be really dangerous and do this about Russia? Where's the nature's beauty? Where's mocking our politics and Mounties where's the free healthcare reference where's the 80% is uninhabited and super beautiful where's the natives that don't get respect... There's so much forgotten. Hockey maple syrup plaid winter and "eh" is as bad as saying Rednecks guns "y'all" football gangs there's more to the USA too but that's the stereotypes.
