Mounties and Maple Syrup Trivia Quiz

Answer: Penny

The one-cent coin, the Canadian penny, stopped getting minted in 2012 and stopped getting distributed the following year, leading the copper coin to slowly disappear from circulation. While pennies could still be used as legal tender, all vendors were required to round their transactions to the nearest $0.05 unless their customers were paying via means that didn't involve physical cash.

The Canadian penny was known for featuring a maple leaf on one side, a design which emerged in the 1930s and was used for nearly eighty years.

Answer: Banff

Lake Louise is a postcard-ready body of water nestled between mountains in Banff National Park, Alberta, and on top of being one of the most photographed locations in Western Canada, it's a popular luxury resort site. The Chateau Lake Louise Resort on the shores of the lake was built in the early twentieth century to entice tourists towards the west coast on the Transcanada railway, but it survived the century, becoming a major destination for sightseers and sports enthusiasts looking for Rocky Mountain skiing.

Answer: Halifax

The explosion of Halifax Harbour was, at the time, the largest man-made explosion to ever occur. When the SS Imo collided with a French ship (the SS Mont-Blanc) transporting TNT through the water, the resulting explosion levelled buildings for nearly a full kilometre, killing thousands.

Despite blizzard conditions in the days to follow, relief efforts were sent in from across Eastern Canada and from the Northeastern United States. Halifax, nevertheless, grew to be the largest of the Maritime cities and remained Nova Scotia's capital.

Answer: Lard

While the modern poutine can certainly pile on more ingredients than one would expect or swap out the key components depending on the person, there's no further to look than fries, cheese, and gravy. Originating in Quebec, poutine is a greasy dish that doesn't need refinement.

Although it's been seen as a junk food by many for years (and probably rightfully so), it's been popularized as a trendy fast food option and, in some cases, by restaurants known as poutineries which specialize in variations of the classic.

Answer: Celine Dion

The song in question is, of course, the power ballad classic "My Heart Will Go On", which was one of many elements of the film "Titanic" to win awards and shatter records at the Oscars in 1998. While the film, Canadian director James Cameron's sixth, went on to earn over two billion in the box office, "My Heart Will Go On" went multi-platinum internationally, becoming the top-selling single by any female artist and winning four Grammy Awards. Dion would go on to headline a Las Vegas residency starting in 2003.

Answer: Quebec

The white fleurs-de-lis on the flag may have been a giveaway since those are famously symbols of French Catholicism, one of the keystones of Quebec's French culture dating back to settlements in what would become Lower Canada (and what would become Quebec, eventually).

The flag was adopted in 1948 as the first post-Confederation provincial flag in the nation. Prior to this, Quebec's flag was the Union Jack (since Confederation in 1867).

Answer: Rangers

The Maple Leafs are Toronto's team, the Oilers are from Edmonton, and the Jets are in Winnipeg. They share the Canadian side of the league with the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators, the Calgary Flames, and the Vancouver Canucks. The Rangers, however, are one of two New York teams (the other being the Islanders).

In the history of the NHL, there have also been other Quebec teams that have gone defunct and a team from Hamilton, Ontario which moved to New York before closing shop due to World War II.

Answer: A sofa

It may be a couch in some parts of the world or a sofa or a settee or a loveseat, but in Canada, this piece of furniture is also known as a 'chesterfield', a word that dates back to England wherein a sofa and two-chair set would be called a Chesterfield set in the early 20th century.

Interestingly, there's a location in Nunavut, Canada known as Chesterfield Inlet. It's the oldest permanent town in the territory (formed in 1911 by the Hudson's Bay Company), but seems a lot less warm and comfortable for the average person than an actual chesterfield.

Answer: East

Cabot Tower sits atop Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and it acts as one of the easternmost Canadian landmarks. Notably, this is the location where Guglielmo Marconi made the first trans-Atlantic telegraph message. Today, Cabot Tower, named after explorer John Cabot, who arrived in Newfoundland in the fifteenth century, overlooks the bay and harbour of St. John's and serves as a National Historic Site for its military history.

It's also very windy up there. All of Newfoundland is windy.

When I asked someone there if it was always like that, they shrugged and said yes. Yikes.

Answer: Fireweed

It sounds invasive, and it probably is, but Chamaenerion angustifolium is Yukon's official flower and despite the Yukon being a territory and much colder than much of the rest of Canada, this plant perseveres. Perseverance is key for the fireweed since it has the distinct ability to thrive in soil that has been scorched by forest fires and other damage.

In other parts of the world, this plant is also known by the name of rosebay willowherb.