Refer to Vancouver Island as Victoria Island and risk a chorus of eye-rolls from the otherwise-friendly locals. Yes, Victoria is the main city on the island, but there are many distinct flavours to its logging and fishing settlements. Food and wine enthusiasts flock to the Comox Valley farm region, while the more outdoorsy types get their fix along the remote, forested beaches of North Vancouver Island. Visit the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve at Clayoquot Sound and you’ll return full of cocktail-party factoids.

The land of the midnight sun awaits on the northern shores of Great Slave Lake in Yellowknife, a small but diverse city famous for its spectacular wilderness. Sitting on the edge of the Arctic Circle, the city enjoys summer days with nearly 24 hours of sunlight, and dark winter skies lit up by aurora borealis. Once a gold rush town and now a diamond mining town, Yellowknife is the hub of northern activities, ranging from dog sledding and cross-country skiing to backpacking and birding.