See Canada Trivia Quiz

Answer: Canucks

Canadians have been Canucks since 1835, evidently, and there is no apparent reason why. However, Canada got its name from the Iroquois word 'kanata' meaning village, and the inhabitants of kanatas were kanuchsas, so maybe Canuck derives from kanuchsa (sounds reasonable). During the Second World War, Leo Buchle created a Canadian comic-strip hero called Johnny Canuck. Johnny Canuck first appeared in the February 1942 issue of Dime Comics.

Naturally, he was bent on wiping all Nazis from the face of the earth. Nowadays,I suppose that the most famous Canucks are the members of Vancouver's NHL team.

Answer: John Cabot

In 1497 John Cabot (aka Giovanni Caboto) was looking for a new route to Asia on behalf of King Henry VII of England when he bumped into Newfoundland. However, he was not the first European to do so. Some 500 years earlier, Leif Eriksson (aka Leif the Lucky, son of Erik the Red) had established a settlement in northeastern Newfoundland, at a site now called L'Anse aux Meadows.

It is the only authenticated Viking site in North America. Newfoundlanders lovingly refer to their native heath as The Rock. (Since 2001, the province has been Newfoundland and Labrador).

Answer: Chinook

According to legend, Chinook was a beautiful young aboriginal maiden who wandered away from her encampment and the only trace of her ever found was her sweet, warm breath blowing from the mountains. Well, that's the story anyway. Actually, the Chinook wind originates in moist weather patterns off the Pacific coast.

As they rise over the western slopes of the Rockies, they cool, but as they descend on the eastern side they warm up rapidly, and by the time the Chinook hits the foothills, it can cause the temperature to rise by as much as 30 degrees Celsius.

While the warmth is welcome in the middle of winter, it creates havoc with soil conditions, causing loss of moisture, and when I lived in Alberta, because of the fluctuations in temperature, I had more colds than I ever had before or since. One always knows when there's going to be a Chinook, because a massive blue sky arch appears in the west, and those who are sensitive to air pressure changes get terrible headaches. Chinook, by the way, is a native North American word meaning 'snow-eater'.

There is a species of salmon called the Chinook, but I don't know how it came by that name, since I've never seen a salmon eat snow.

Answer: Churchill

Churchill was not named for Winston, but for one of his forebears. It is an important wheat-shipping port, even though the shipping season is short. Polar bears go through Churchill as it is on their annual migration route. Churchill attracts tourists from all over the world who ride in tundra buggies to see the beautiful (and endangered) polar bears in their natural habitat, which is fast shrinking thanks to global warming. Cornwall is in southern Ontario, and there have been no polar bear sightings there in living memory, or in Cranbrook, which is in B.C., and while Cranberry Portage is in northern Manitoba, it's a little off the polar bears' beaten path.

Answer: Curling

Curling originated in Scotland, and since practically every Canadian either has Scottish blood or has adopted Scottish blood, it's a big sport everywhere in Canada, and we're very, very good at it. The game requires a sheet of ice, a set of polished granite rocks, two teams of four (called rinks) and brooms for each player.

The object is to get your rock closest to the centre of the house (a circle painted on the ice at the other end of the sheet - the centre is called the button), and to knock your opponents' rock out of the house. "Hurry hard!" is what the skip of the rink shouts out to the sweepers as they smooth the path of the rock as it heads toward the house. For a funny look at curling, rent the movie 'Men With Brooms', starring Canadian heartthrob Paul Gross

Answer: Canadarm

The Canadarm was developed in Canada and is located on a space shuttle's cargo bay. It is used for releasing, retrieving and repairing satellites, etc. in space.

Answer: Canoe

In the early days of the fur trade, canoes were the primary means of transportation. There were several different types, but the two that were mainly used were the 12 metre (40 feet) Canot du Maitre, which was used between the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, and the smaller (9 metres or 30 feet) Canot du Nord which was used on the rivers and lakes north and west of Lake Superior. Later, in what is now Manitoba, York boats were developed which carried furs, supplies and trade goods from the northern port of Fort York to the Hudson's Bay fort in what is now Winnipeg.

The boats were wide and shallow, and capable of carrying great loads down the treacherous waters of Lake Winnipeg. Carts drawn by oxen (called Red River carts) were used around Fort Garry and Fort Douglas (now Winnipeg), but not for the long haul east, and some speculate that it was the railways that brought about the demise of the fur trade.

Answer: Creme brulee

Creme brulee is a baked custard topped with caramelized sugar (often maple sugar) - and it melts in your mouth. Yum! It's a standard offering in any French-Canadian restaurant (and quite a few non-French-Canadian restaurants, too). Candy Cane Pie? Yuck! Cranberry Compote - hmmm. (Funtrivia player framboise tells me that they grow cranberries in Quebec, but Cranberry Compote, if there is such a thing, is not a recognized Quebec dessert nationwide, and it certainly wouldn't appeal to sweet-toothed Canadians, since cranberries are tart rather than sweet.) And while there may be something called Crepes a la Quebecoise, I've never seen it on a restaurant menu.

Answer: Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) was born in St. Malo, France. He was searching for a passage to Asia in 1534 (who wasn't?) when he found himself in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On that first voyage he claimed the Gaspe Peninsula for France. He took two Iroquois back to France with him, so that they could learn French in order to act as interpreters on future voyages. Cartier returned to the St. Lawrence in 1535 and explored as far as Stadacona (present-day Quebec City) and Hochelaga (present-day Montreal).

The story goes that when the party landed in 1535, Jacques, with a wide sweep of his arm, asked one of his Iroquois interpreters what this place was called. The interpreter, thinking he was indicating a nearby village, replied, "Kanata", which is the Iroquois word for village. I guess Kanata sounds like Canada to European ears, and the name stuck - that's the story, anway. Samuel de Champlain didn't get to Canada until 1605, by which time it was already called Canada by Europeans. John Cabot is the guy who landed in Newfoundland, and probably didn't realize there was even more land just a bit west of where he landed. Antonie de Cadillac came to Canada in the late 1680s, but spent most of his time in the New World south of the 49th parallel.

He founded the city of Detroit and claimed Louisiana as French territory.

Answer: Calgary

Calgary (which was named by Colonel James McLeod of the Northwest (later the Royal Canadian) Mounted Police for his home town on the Isle of Mull in Scotland), is home to the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede, which bills itself as 'The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth' (humility is not a noticeable trait in Calgary - I say this as a former Calgarian).

The Stampede was founded in 1912 by American cowboy Guy Weadick, and it's been going ever since. The ten-day rodeo draws over a million visitors to the Stampede from all over the world every year.

The other 355 days of the year (356 in leap year), Calgarians just pile up money from oil, and gloat over the rest of Canada because they don't pay provincial sales taxes.