This past September, my mom, sister, and I traveled from London, Ontario, all the way to Calgary, Alberta, where we would live. It was quite the experience. Now, we’re in Calgary. Things are very different here, in ways that aren’t ever really mentioned. There are obvious changes, but also a lot of smaller details you wouldn’t really think of, but definitely do notice once you’re here! Things locals would find normal. So, if these things are new to me, coming here for the first time, then the differences of Ontario would be new for Albertan people. Ontario’s unique aspects would be unfamiliar or new to Albertan people, and vice versa. Now that I’ve lived in both provinces, I can share my experience with both places and the differences between them.
New Changes
The first big change that we noticed was the time difference. It’s not a big deal for locals in either or province, but it was a change for us, driving through two time zones and suddenly losing two hours, like we were some sort of time travelers. We just magically made two hours of life disappear and went back in time. Ontario time is two hours ahead of Alberta time. This means that when my friends from Ontario text me right before they go to school, I’m not getting ready to go to school like them, it’s actually like 6 am my time. But we’re all getting used to the time difference. There’s a lot of situations where I have to remind people about the difference because of mix-ups with scheduling, like choosing times to call each other. A lot of “Okay I’ll call at 3:00, but your time or my time?” It’s not that big of a deal, but does come up in conversation a lot.
Weather
Another thing, is the transition to the weather change. Yeah, it gets cold in Ontario, but not nearly as cold as here. Calgary recently was colder than the South Pole. The South Pole! It’s insane! Plus, it starts getting snowy very early in the year, towards the end of September. But the thing about it here, is that they have Chinooks. Which are just weather ups and downs because of the mountains. One day you could be wearing three sweaters and a winter coat, and the next you could wear some ripped jeans and a t-shirt. Winter is always cold, of course, but the temperature is all over the place. From just kind of chilly temperatures to super freezing ones.
On the other hand, both Ontario summers and winters are really humid. During the summer, the hot air feels heavy and soggy. Winter still feels soggy, shivery, and of course cold. But Alberta’s winter is a shiver-through-your-bones kind of cold. Plus, it’s way colder than Ontario, here it’s just not humid.
Alberta is very cold, but when it comes to weather, it’s always sunny. Calgary happens to be the sunniest city in Canada. And it’s noticeable. Pretty much every day is sunny, even on rainy days. While, Ontario weather varies. Yes, of course Ontario has sunny days, too, it just has both sun and rain, etc. But I’ve never really seen a dark sky from a storm or anything, for the entire five months I’ve been here. Here it is extra sunny, with gorgeous sunsets and sundowns every day.
Driving System
Another important thing to note is that Alberta’s driving system is different than Ontario’s. Nothing too drastic like having to drive on the other side of the road or anything. Just things like how the license plates in Alberta are only on the backs of cars, contrary to Ontario, where it’s required to have two plates on both the front and back. I didn’t immediately notice this when coming to Alberta, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it, and these cars look really naked without the front plates.
Plus, they seem out of place when they are parked just on the sides of roads. You wouldn’t see that in Ontario. There, you always have to park in parking spots, every house has one. But after five months, I’ve gotten used to seeing houses without parking spots at all. Some do still, but surprisingly there are a lot that don’t. In Alberta, everyone can park on the side of the road.
But, I do have to admit, the roads here are pretty cool! They have highways throughout the cities. Usually in Ontario, highways are just to get straight through cities, or to other cities, with a bit of Toronto as an exception. Here, you can get around in the city with multiple highways options. Also, Alberta has a bunch of weird looking traffic lights. Weird in a good way, I love them! They are horizontal traffic lights rather than the average vertical ones that I’m used to. They still have the regular traffic lights but it’s cool that they spiced it up a bit with the weird ones, every once in a while. Again, a very random fact, but it’s worth mentioning!
There’s one major fact about Alberta driving that stands out above all others. You can get your G1 at the age of fourteen here! Yes, FOURTEEN. In Ontario, you have to wait until you’re sixteen to get it. I thought I’d be waiting a lot longer until I could drive. But the day is coming way sooner than I thought! In like three weeks I’ll be able to take the test since I’m turning fourteen in February! I’ll take the written test, and then I’ll be able to drive with an adult in the passenger seat, who has their license. (If I pass, of course!) There are a bunch of other restrictions to make sure everything is safe, but I could be driving! But, I’m probably only going to be able to drive in like empty parking lots, just as practice, not because of the law but just because of my mom. (And I do agree, it is really young to have fourteen year old kids on the road). But still, even with just practice, it’s a big deal!
And If You Don’t Drive…
Public transportation is really nice here in Calgary. Ontario has a good system, but the actual buses aren’t that nice. Yes, Toronto has really good transportation. But that’s the big city. All of the other cities around Toronto don’t get the same treatment. City buses are dirty and there really aren’t trains to travel in the city, only to other cities (of course with big ol’ fancy Toronto as an exception).
But in Calgary, there’s the Go Train. It takes you all around the city, very fast. The bus stops for public buses are very well kept, and some are even heated. The stops are nice, modern looking, and even have art in them. We have spotted a couple stops that weren’t the fancy new ones, but most of them are. I haven’t actually been on a city bus in Calgary yet but a lot of people just go on the train instead. I’ve heard that the actual train system here isn’t very good, or functional but it can’t be so bad compared to where I used to live, where there wasn’t even a train to get around in-city at all. It seems like an efficient way to get around, but I’ll hold my judgement until I see it for myself. I haven’t really used Calgary transportation yet and have no clue about other cities’ transportation in Alberta, so it’s really judging from what I know from London, ON transit to what I’ve heard about Calgary’s.
A Rant About Milk
By far the most important thing to know about differences between Alberta and Ontario, is that Alberta does not have bagged milk. Bagged milk is just one of those Canadian things, and Alberta does not have it. (Although with the weather, winter sports and extreme Canadian pride, it is still a very Canadian place, of course). Alberta has carton milk and jugged milk. JUGGED MILK. Jugged milk is an unfamiliar thing for me, coming from Ontario. It’s a crazy concept, really. Okay, you can get jugged milk in Ontario, but no one does. Bagged milk, is just the go-to norm for everyone in Ontario, without any second thought. If you’re feeling fancy, carton milk, which is probably almost just as popular as bagged, there, too.
But no, no bagged milk in Alberta! Which is fine. But… I don’t really like the jugged milk. They are pretty cool to me, just because I’m not used to them, but just as a product itself (without me being fascinated by the new things in Alberta)…. I just prefer the good ol’ bags. You expose the entire gallon to air every time you pour yourself a glass, with a huge jug. And it goes bad quicker that way. Bagged, you have it split up into different bags so the entirety of the milk isn’t exposed to air every time. I admit it, it is annoying when someone cuts the bag’s whole too big and you can’t control how you’re pouring the milk, but an extra challenge is good every once in a while. So I’m just sticking to good old cartons, they never disappoint.
Pretty Scenes
I’m not even going to start talking about Alberta’s beauty. Even just driving on our way to Calgary, my mom was amazed by the “pretty rocks” between the highways. Then, we got closer and we drove over mountains and countless gorgeous scenes. Needless to say, she was stunned. Even from in the city, at the right spots, you can see the outline of the mountains. A little bit of drive out of the city and so much nature. All of Alberta is breathtaking. Ontario has nice a lot of amazing places, too. Like Niagara Falls, Beaches, and many more. But overall, the majority of city waters that are green and brown from Ontario don’t compare to the water here where every body of water is crystal clear, etc. Ontario does have pretty landscapes, but doesn’t have as many huge mountains and amazing views to see as often as we do, here in Alberta.
I’ve also noticed Calgary is very clean! You don’t really see litter on the ground. The city is well kept and people respect it’s beauty, as they should. Ontario has got a lot of pollution, Alberta does too, but I haven’t seen nearly as much. I don’t know how they do it and control it so differently but there’s surely a big contrast.
In Ontario, where I lived, you’d see bunnies and garden snakes, gofers or the occasional turtle in the rural areas. But here, the wildlife is as extreme as bears! Bears! They legitimately have bear proof garbage cans everywhere, including right outside of my house, so that bears don’t get into your trash. The wildlife here is amazing. And thankfully bears don’t usually just stroll down the sidewalks of our cities. In Northern Ontario, you’ll see similar wildlife but where I lived in London Ontario, I’ve never seen anything as extreme. Once, we saw a wild coyote. And that was like the craziest thing ever to us at the time. But here we are now, where there are bears! We actually have never seen a bear yet, but my family and I all want to. Though, only from the comfort of inside a vehicle or house.
If you drive or hike up mountains in Alberta, there are all sorts of wonders. We spotted mountain rams on the first mountain trip we took. In the mountains are wolves, mountain lions, mountain rams, all sorts of animals. Though you don’t want to run into them in the wild, so there are specific places for humans to roam where we won’t bother them as much. And bear spray is always recommended.
Toronto’s CN Tower VS the Calgary Tower.
I think it’d be fair to say that the CN tower is like the iconic tower of Canada. It’s like the Eiffel tower of Canada, except not as iconic as Paris’ Eiffel Tower. It’s still well known enough to be known as the CN tower, and people recognize that it’s in Toronto. Calgary Tower is just like the tower for the city. There’s a Niagara Falls tower, and towers for a bunch of other cities, none of which compare to the CN tower. Which doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t better, but I don’t really know how to judge a tower. They all pretty much do the same thing; be a tower. But Toronto does win with the iconic CN tower!
Shopping
Alberta has West Edmonton Mall, the biggest mall in Canada. You could argue and say that it’s just one big mall in the entire province. But, I’ve actually noticed that Calgary has a lot of malls. I used to live in London Ontario and they had four or five malls. Two of which were known as the malls for the elderly. There was another that was nice, but one go-to mall. Masonville mall. It had a big RecRoom, and a bunch of shops, (as a mall does).
Going to one of Calgary’s malls was crazy! There’s a RecRoom here that’s almost as big as Masonville’s entirety. They have like four or five that are the “high end malls”, all of which are like triple the size of Masonville mall, in my old city. They are just a lot bigger, and there are more of them. Not just one “go-to”. Of course that’s just speaking for the two cities, not the entire two provinces! (And to be fair,Toronto does have a lot of really amazing malls, too).
Now Which Hockey Team Should I Support?
I’m not a huge hockey fan. I actually don’t think I could call myself a hockey fan at all since I don’t think I’ve ever watched a game of hockey on TV. I’ve been to actual games in person, and they were fun. But it was the team for London, Ontario, not the popular Maple Leafs. That’s the main team of Ontario from what I can tell. Everyone knows of the Maple Leafs.
Here, the Calgary Flames are a big deal. I see the jerseys everywhere. I went into a clothing store, and there were about 80 Calgary Flames shirts and one small Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. Literally, just one. Different Ontario kids from my old school supported both Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames, even though we were right next to Toronto. They liked whichever team they wanted, and not just Maple Leafs since we were next to Toronto. But here, everyone likes the Flames. People from Calgary support their own local team.
Hockey is very much a “Canadian thing”. But now, I have two teams to choose from, to support or whatnot. But, I don’t really watch sports, so I guess it’s not that big of an issue. I could just support the Flames since I’m in Calgary now. But Justin Bieber is for Maple Leafs, so I don’t know which team I should like. I haven’t seen either play, so I don’t know if I am I supposed to judge from where I live, or how good the team seems. And I’m guessing that neutral isn’t an option.
Moving to another province was a big change. But after all, Alberta and Ontario aren’t so different. We, from both provinces, should enjoy being happy Canadian neighbors!