Driving through BC and YT (from Montana to Alaska in 2009) was my first and only time in Canada. Here are my impressions, that I have told lots of people over the years:
Cleanest and most trash/garbage-free highways I’ve ever seen. They were so clean, the (not kidding) three or four times I actually saw trash along the side of the road during the entire 2000+ mile drive, it stood out like a sore thumb.
No billboards along the sides of the highways. Again, the three or four hand-lettered signs I spotted on along the road during my drive, for yard sales or whatever, were so infrequent that I stopped and carefully read each one of them.
More miniature golf and more A&W rootbeer stands than I’ve ever seen in my life.
More families strolling around with their kids, or pushing baby buggies, than I’ve ever seen. Strolling in the middle of the day, during a work week! It was inexplicable. Also, more families with dogs than I’ve ever seen.
Cigarettes were expensive as heck! And on the outside of every pack was a full-color picture of a cancerous lung, or a cancerous brain, or a cancerous throat, or some kind of tumor or lesion or something. Even being a smoker (at the time) I thought these were both very good things!
Cleanest rest stops I’ve ever seen. Fun Fact: you know how at rest stops in America, the lights stay on in the parking areas all night, I guess so that, in theory, the rapists and serial killers can’t sneak up on you quite so easily? Well in BC and YT, the rest stops are small and safe and cozy and totally dark at night. No parking lot lights are on. Total darkness. It’s easy to sleep. Also, at every rest stop where I spent the night, mine was the only vehicle. I pulled into one rest stop and there was a herd of horses standing there.
I did get spooked at one rest stop, though, in the middle of nowhere. I pulled up, the only car in the lot, and the very second I turned off the engine and rolled down my window, a guy was immediately right there walking past me, not two feet away from my car. It was as if he’d come out of nowhere! And he didn’t say a word! What’s worse, as I watched him walk past, in silhouette (it was dark) I could see that his knees were on backwards or something. His legs bent backwards as he walked, not forwards! Holy shit! AND: after he went into the public restroom, when he exited, instead of walking on down the road in the same direction he’d been heading when he materialized beside my car the first time, he instead went off into the woods. The thought of this backwards-kneed (and possibly even supernatural?) dude circling back around and/or appearing out of nowhere beside my car window again kept me from being able to go to sleep, so I drove on for another 50 miles or so.
The only negative? It appeared to me that people were driving noticeably faster, much faster actually, than average Americans would typically drive in comparable conditions (two lane roads, on curves, uphill/downhill, at intersections, through neighborhoods, etc.)
Canada (or BC / YT at least) wasn’t just like being in another country: it was like being in another decade, the 1950s or something. It was wonderful.
