Canada 150 in 4,638 kilometres: Join tourists on a trek from Toronto to PEI and back

Day 1

Fifty tourists and a $700,000 bus set off from Toronto's Chinatown for a whirlwind first day: Seven hours to Ottawa, some quick sightseeing at Parliament Hill and the Canadian Museum of Nature, then two-and-a-half hours to Montreal. A coach tour rarely stops for breath.

June 14, 6:06am

Chinatown – Toronto, Ontario

June 14, 6:24am

Toronto, Ontario.

June 14, 1:24pm

Centre Block on Parliament Hill – Ottawa, Ontario

June 14, 2:26pm

Canadian Museum of Nature – Ottawa, Ontario

June 14, 6:45pm

Cirque du Soleil – Montréal, Québec

“Some people think bus tours are purgatory on wheels. You see them in all countries and in every notable place, disgorging their curious and bewildered riders. I’ve always thought, what’s that like?”

— Ian Brown

Day 2

Breakfast at 6 a.m. (McDonald’s), baggage loading at 6:45, departure at 7. Next stop, New Brunswick. Passengers are allowed off the bus only in strictly controlled bursts. They take advantage of every moment in ways we who live here sometimes don't.

June 15, 8:26am

Québec City, Québec

June 15, 1:39pm

Grand Falls – Victoria County, New Brunswick

June 15, 1:45pm

Grand Falls – Victoria County, New Brunswick

June 15, 1:49pm

Statue of Malobiannah – Grand Falls, New Brunswick

June 15, 3:15pm

Hartland Bridge – Hartland, New Brunswick

June 15, 4:13pm

Covered Bridge Potato Chip Company – Hartland, New Brunswick

“There’s an ancient expression for the perils of rushing through a country: Ride a horse to look at the flowers. It is sometimes attributed to Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, the last time China dominated the known world.”

— Ian Brown

Day 3

The group races through Nova Scotia, with some worrying they're getting only cursory history of the land they're visiting. “Of course, I want more history, for my son,” Alice Xu says. After Halifax, the group finds a busy scene at Peggys Cove. Ian Brown is treated to the worst lobster he's ever eaten.

June 16, 7:29am

Nappan – Cumberland County, Nova Scotia

June 16, 10:37am

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic – Halifax, Nova Scotia

June 16, 1:01pm

Peggys Cove – St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

June 16, 1:19pm

Peggys Point Lighthouse – St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

June 16, 2:15pm

Peggys Cove – St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

June 16, 4:46pm

Halifax, Nova Scotia

“The lobster was the worst I’ve ever eaten. It was the smallest legal lobster I’ve ever seen, and so overcooked and vulcanized it could have been used as a Yanomami slingshot.”

— Ian Brown

Day 4

A group of tourists travelling across Canada, speaking another language, can understand the country only by what they can see and experience. But that concentrates the experience as well: The Hopewell Rocks at low tide feel like the Bay of Fundy's secret brain.

June 17, 11:25am

Hopewell Rocks – Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick

June 17, 3:09pm

Port Borden Front Range Lighthouse/Confederation Bridge – Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island

June 17, 4:10pm

Green Gables Heritage Place – Cavendish, Prince Edward Island

June 17, 6:42pm

Cavendish Beach – Cavendish, Prince Edward Island

June 17, 6:48pm

Cavendish Beach – Cavendish, Prince Edward Island

June 17, 7:04pm

Cavendish Beach – Cavendish, Prince Edward Island

“If you try to understand the country not just as a pretty illusion, but as a complicated morass of struggle and power and failure and sadness and also of beauty and yearning and hope and even humour, it’s more interesting, and certainly more realistic.”

— Ian Brown

Day 5

The bus tourists from mainland China say they like Canada's clean air, plentiful water, front gardens and green trees that stretch forever on either side of the highway. Most Canadians take those gifts for granted.

June 18, 9:26am

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

June 18, 10:43am

Anne of Green Gable dress up – Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island

June 18, 11:52am

First car across Confederation Bridge – Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island

June 18, 2:19pm

World's Largest Lobster – Shediac, Westmorland County, New Brunswick

June 18, 3:13pm

Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island

June 18, 5:13pm

Reversing Falls – Saint John, New Brunswick

“Some people want to understand the country. Some want to experience it. Both begin by witnessing it. That is the way of the bus.”

— Ian Brown

Day 6

The travellers fall in love with Quebec City, looking down from the public observation deck at a St. Lawrence River that looks like a giant vein. Dinner across from the Château Frontenac is Old Quebec to the point of nausea: there’s a man in a red cap inside playing Que Sera, Sera on an accordion.

June 19, 7:07am

Québec City, Québec

June 19, 2:01pm

Aquarium du Québec – Québec City, Québec

June 19, 2:13pm

Aquarium du Québec – Québec City, Québec

June 19, 3:41pm

Observatoire de la Capitale – Québec City, Québec

June 19, 3:43pm

Observatoire de la Capitale – Québec City, Québec

June 19, 4:28pm

Old Québec City – Québec City, Québec

“Whatever you think your country is supposed to represent, however holy its clichés have become, all newcomers – even tourists passing through quickly – make it their own. The bus will become their country, their temporary nation.”

— Ian Brown

Day 7

On the last day, the travellers cruise around the Thousand Islands near Gananoque. The bus becomes, by the end of the trip, an island of reassurance for its riders - a way to navigate its newness and uncertainty in the company of like-minded friends.

June 20, 1:35pm