Category Archives: Hip Guide to Canada


Hip Guide to Canada
Canada is a land of wealth and natural beauty, with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Canada stretches from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific out west, and its border with the United States is the longest in the world, and to the north is the Arctic Ocean. That’s how big Canada is!

Whether you come for a quick visit or extended tour, you will find a wealth of information about destinations here. The Hip Guide to Canada offers the highlights of the country, and contains many tips for making your stay here more rewarding.The Hip Guide to Canada is your source for hotel reservations, tourist information, events, reviews, shopping and much more! Don’t forget to visit our Canada Photo Gallery! Bookmark this site, and visit whenever you need to find out what’s happening in Canada.

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Getting around Canada is easy with an extensive rail system, highways, and air service just about everywhere else. So get ready and get going to Canada for a great visit!

Laurentian Mountains near Montreal, Canada

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Montreal as many know is a MAJOR hippie mecca of Canada with enormous urban counterculture activity. For those of you who love nature, mountains and forest, and more organic, health-oriented back-to-the-land hippie havens, a short trip just north of Montreal will find you in the Laurentian Mountains which is one of the most beautiful places on the planet in the Canadian summer. Loads of organic outdoorsy hippies from Montreal and other parts of Canada hang out in the Laurentians to commune with the shimmering lakes, birds, beautiful bright green trees, and the bluest of skies around for the months of May-October.

If you want to live in the Laurentian mountains, the cost of living is next to nothing – you can find a small cottage for a very cheap/good price. Americans can buy cheap, cheap land/cottages, and take up residence in the Laurentians for up to six months a year. You might bring a English/French dictionary and compliment the passionate french locals – since it’s mostly a french-speaking area. However, there’s about 25% English speaking people in the Laurentians and so you can easily get by with just English particularly on the edge of the resort areas where many Americans travel from i.e., New York to vacation. People flock to the area from all over the world (mostly northern Europe). And, it has a very left-wing, progressive European feel about it.

Loads of free, peace-loving hippies in and around the Laurentians. Communes, yoga and artist studios, an incredible bike path (use to be a train line) that goes to Montreal, and endless nature/recreation!

 

Prince Edward Island, Canada

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Prince Edward Island is totally dreamy – heaven on earth! There’s a large liberal progressive movement on the Island (particularly in the ultra hippie town of Breadalbane – a former commune). The Island is so liberal that even the conservatives there seem like liberal Democrats! There’s practically no crime, and the people are some of the most peaceful, caring, and community-minded souls on the planet. Stunning wide sandy beaches, friendly locals, temperate weather, and it costs next to nothing to live there – very inexpensive housing and living costs (see mls.ca – the homes are listed in Canadian funds). For the organic healthfood hippie, the peaceful, less touristy “Bays and Dunes” area of PEI (and Kings County in general) is more clean, green and wild than the central and western ends of the province. The northeastern part of the Island also has more farmers who use IPM or organic farming methods on the smaller percent of land that is farmed in this region.

The Island is small enough that the picturebook, gingerbread city of Charlottetown or the cute town of Montague are close to most points on the Island. The Island has one of the largest community of writers and artists in Atlantic Canada. See epinions.com – type Prince Edward Island in the epinions.com search, and click reviews for other opinions about the Island.

Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

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I’ve travelled high and low across Canada to find ‘paradise’, and the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia has loads of organic farms and many back-to-land hippies probably due to the cheap older heritage homes for sale in the region. They’re practically giving these homes away. Bear River in ‘the Valley’ as they say is known as a funky arts and environmental hang-out. The Annapolis Valley has stunning scenery, and the mildest weather in Eastern Canada. Forget about the Eastern shore of Nova Scotia – really conservative.

The West Coast along the Bay of Fundy is more liberal and the vegetation more lush with green forested hills and farmland (and in some places along the Fundy shore, you’ll even find turquoise tinted waters).

North Bay, Ontario

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North Bay is a small (population 55,000) tourist/university-college city about 3 hours due North of Toronto, it is built along the shore of a large and warm (in summer that is) shallow lake called Lake Nipissing.There are many beautiful old buildings along the Main st. housing all sorts of locally owned shops and restaurants. Many artists and musicians call North Bay home. There are several head shops in the downtown area as well as many independent bookshops and music stores.

There are lots of old and new hippies scattered around the area both in town and in the surrounding "bush". There’s a restaurant downtown called Greco’s and it seems like some sort of unofficial hippie employment agency since lots of young and older local hippies work there and when someone leaves, there’s always another hippie there to take their place. There are local drum circles at the beautiful waterfront park to celebrate the changing of the seasons and it’s an all around cool laid back kind of town.

Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

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"It’s right on the ocean, and I have never seen so many free spirited, beautiful people in my life. Everyone was so kind to everyone. Lots of free flowing clothes and flowers. You’re always near a beach for a picnic, or just lounging. My guitar was quite welcome there. Tofino is not particularly friendly since the locals are inundated with the mass influx of tourists every year, so they have become somewhat immune to outsiders."

Kaslo B.C, Canada

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There are so many free people here. My friend and I took a trip from Creston to Kaslo. And along the way Kootenay Bay where we visited a place, religious, and the rumor was that it is a hippy hang out with a temple, but I can’t remember the name. This place was beautiful, right on the lake, we also went to a beach called POWER LINE BEACH, because of the power lines crossing the water. lots of free camping on this beach with nice sand and rocks, people playing music and singing, it was a cool place, I recommend this place for the outdoor type hippy.

Kitchener Ontario Canada

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Hippies roam the streets of Kitchener and especially Cambridge. We are up there along with the freaks and jocks, geeks and the boring ones. Hippies are the best, with our butterfly shirts and bell-bottoms, we have our own twists to the 60’s fashions.

In response another visitor wrote:
“Thought I’d add a note to what our obviously young friend above has said, the scene here is extremely diversified, there is much to do see and experience. I have jokingly referred to Kitchener for years as the Berkley of Canada. For some strange reason this little city is a drawing card for hippies. But don’t show up expecting chaos and revolution in the air, because for the ten years I’ve lived here, most of what I’ve seen is behind the scenes, although the older hippie and deadhead community here threw some of the biggest bashes going.”

Sherbrooke and Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada

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The townships are also the most English place in Quebec. Many old and younger hippies live out in the country here. There’s also been a few sizable communes, one of them mysteriously gone leaving all their stuff behind.

Lennoxville is an arrondissement, or borough, of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Lennoxville is located at the confluence of the St. Francis and Massawippi Rivers approximately five kilometres south of downtown Sherbrooke. ~Wikipedia

Joussard, Alberta, Canada

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Location of the NORTH COUNTRY FAIR. Each summer in June there is a Summer Solstice celebration held in this little northern Alberta town. Hippies and free spirits alike come from all over to enjoy this wonderful enlightening experience of live music, new age work-shops, dancing and of course the artisan market. Situated beside the Lesser Slave Lake, there are many great places to camp on and off the fair site. It’s like taking a step back in time, if only for one memorable weekend a year, to see beautiful people join together and celebrate the longest day of the year.

Edmonton, Alberta

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The city is not as well known as a hippie haven as Lotusland (Vancouver, B.C.) because Edmonton is in Canada’s most conservative province. There is a hippy community in the Whyte Avenue or Old Strathcona area, however. The “Two Guys With Pipes” store is a popular destination for hemp enthusiasts. Lots of mellowing out during the Fringe Festival every summer.