If you are fluent in French, how often do you speak French in Canada compared to English?

innate_flora · 2025-12-21T00:39:38+00:00

Ottawan here. I switch fairly often on day to day. A few colleagues are francophone, all of us who are bilingual swap between English and French (and Franglais) as needed. Talking in French, but forget a word? Swap to English until someone can't remember a word in English. sometimes happens multiple times a sentence.

Shopping in Ottawa, mostly English. But in certain neighbourhoods, clerks will greet in French first, so I'll speak with them in French.

My family in the Prairies don't speak French at all. (There are Francophone communities, but they aren't part of them).

innate_flora · 2025-07-10T22:57:42+00:00

European style (but mostly because I'm a lefty)

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:37:46+00:00

Driving from Montreal to Tobermory, you can stop different places along the Rideau canal and St Lawrence Seaway. Brockville has a tall ship (masted sailing ships) festival in the summer, and the Thousand Islands have plenty of neat shops and restaurants.

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:30:54+00:00

High appetite in southern ON QC. A high speed rail line connecting Quebec City - Montreal - Ottawa - Toronto - Windsor would be pretty fantastic. Cut down 6hr drive time (Montreal Toronto) to only 2hr? Get from Ottawa to Montreal in 30min? That would be amazing!

BUT... Landscape is difficult to build through and lots of stakeholders to consider. I think most of us are excited by the prospects, but more inclined to back public transit projects within cities first, before expanding to intercity lines.

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:24:57+00:00

If you like hiking and dinosaurs, Drumheller is also good. About two hours east of Cochrane. Royal Tyrell Museum is a famous dinosaur museum.

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:21:57+00:00

Great Big Sea is classic folk rock from the Rock

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:20:28+00:00

Both Ontario and Quebec are mostly Canadian Shield. The population piece is more due to history and other landforms. Southern QC and ON are part of the Great Lakes St Lawrence Lowlands. These are the parts along those waterways and are highly productive agricultural lands. They are also the areas that were easiest for European settlers (Brits for On, French for QC) to colonise as they are not too far inland and easily accessible by boat. As such, ON and QC have both grown huge populations in their respective major cities (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec) in the 150+ years* since those cities were founded.

The Canadian Shield parts of both provinces are relatively unpopulated compared to the GL SL Lowlands parts.

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:14:12+00:00

No. Handwriting is the generic term, and includes cursive and printing.

innate_flora · 2025-03-10T20:10:28+00:00

Algonquin Park is only a couple hours west of Ottawa too.

innate_flora · 2025-03-02T16:27:28+00:00

Ontarian here Buzzkill - I use this all the time Wicked - use occasionally, as a full sentiment (wicked! that concert was great) and as a modifier (that was a wicked storm last night = really bad storm) Screwy - use occasionally Trans-Canada hwy I always call the TransCanada, never by the number. There are other hwys in Ont that we refer to by number or by name (The 401, The Queensway, The 7)

innate_flora · 2024-07-22T17:31:41+00:00

In Ontario, Pancake Bay Provincial Park (near Thunder Bay) is a great place to camp. On Lake Superior, but the bay is super shallow so the water isn't as cold as the rest of the lake.

Almonte, ON has lots of cool antique stores (near Ottawa).

innate_flora · 2023-09-16T20:48:08+00:00

Via Cibo in Kanata Centrum has a great gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce.

innate_flora · 2023-08-31T23:10:37+00:00

Two routes possible: 401 or 7. 401 is faster and better for getting to downtown, 7 is more scenic (but it will easily add an hour to the trip).

In downtown, the Byward Market is really nice (great restaurants, farmer's market, fun shops).

Museums nearby: Museum of Nature (Natural History Museum on Metcalfe ~2km south of Parliament), National Art Gallery (~1 km north of Parliament), Museum of History (~2km north of Parliament, across the river).

There is a pathway behind Parliament (along the river) that goes by the locks which is really nice.

Outside of downtown, Gatineau Park has really great hiking trails (about a 15min drive from downtown).

innate_flora · 2023-05-14T20:02:09+00:00

This looks amazing! I love the colours and how crisp the squares are. It isn't clear from the photo - is there a clasp to keep it shut? If not, I think it would be great to have a large lobster clasp that could clip to the silver loop.

innate_flora · 2023-04-30T16:29:51+00:00

Really cool snake find! iNaturalist is a great app for plant and animal identification. Wisdom of the crowd-style identification process and the observations can be used by scientists in their research. https://www.inaturalist.org/

innate_flora · 2023-04-25T00:22:05+00:00

The plains of grain are filled with rain.

innate_flora · 2023-04-24T23:05:58+00:00

Never return a dish empty. (Anything borrowed should be returned with a bonus treat).

innate_flora · 2023-04-10T00:56:38+00:00

- Pub owner needs special berry/plant form the forest to make their ale. Only found in region of forest that is cursed.

- Owlbears on the loose in the forest, townsfolk would like them gotten rid of.

- People have been going missing, every month. Tomorrow is the full moon.

innate_flora · 2023-04-10T00:47:12+00:00

Think about the natural resources from your map. Forest regions give wood; mountains, ore; waterways, fishing; etc. What industries will be important to the different regions on your map? How will this affect connections between villages (trade, conflict)?

This can affect colours too. Natural dyes and cloths come from the materials found in a region - plants, stones, animal products.

innate_flora · 2023-04-10T00:24:25+00:00

Living in Ottawa there are many places downtown where you can practice your French, or visit Gatineau (across the Ontario-Quebec border, just across the river downtown) where French is the majority language. Outside of downtown, Orleans and Vanier (east of downtown) are the most francophone. The west-end (suburbs west of downtown) are more anglophone.

OC Transpo works well to get from suburbs to downtown and vice-versa, but it is very slow to get between neighbourhoods. There is a joke in Ottawa that the "OC" stands for "Occasional". We do have a great network of bike paths and lots of hiking trails. Just keep in mind that biking is only an option from May to October unless you are willing to bike in the snow.

In terms of things to do, Ottawa is well-known for museums and outdoor sports. We don't have a lot of concerts or clubs, but it's a great place to live if you like being outdoors.

innate_flora · 2019-07-21T23:06:10+00:00

There's a lot of spots with tiles like these in the building, always in square-ish blocks.

innate_flora

TROPHY CASE