The “O Canada” Personality Test TM

What Canadian Province or Territory are You?

Are you cold and forbidding? Vast and French-speaking? Pastoral and surrounded by ocean? Or maybe you're just Manitoba. We can all find a bit of ourselves in a Canadian province or territory. Learn more about you and your neighbor to the north with this easy test (no conversion to metric required). Read on to determine where in Canada your personality resides.

Jessica Cassyle Carr, Laura Marrich, Marisa Demarco and Steven Robert Allen contributed to this article.

British Columbia

Sooooo good-lookin'!

Well, look at you, British Columbia. You are just so fine, aren't you? People come to visit you from all over the world just to gawk at your raw natural beauty, puffing on that famous bud while kayaking, mountain climbing, snowboarding or engaging in some other heroic outdoor adventure. We admire you for so many reasons. When the Europeans first arrived, for example, you had the highest indigenous population of any other region in Canada. And your capital city, Victoria, is located on a beautiful island. How could we not love you? It makes us tingle just being around you, with your earthy, laid-back vibe and that worldly Pacific Rim flair. Are we worthy to even stand in your presence? That's a question only you can answer. (SRA)

Yukon Territory

Cold and distant, cool and delicious

For a land so remote and frigid, you tend to surprise people with your hidden treasures such as the oldest human remains in North America, fields of gold and Klondike bars. You have no motto, but that's all right—you prefer to keep your secrets to yourself, like you did in 1901 when the Canadian government made you a territory, helping to prevent American gold rush stampeders from taking your precious nuggets and frozen treats. Yukoners can at times have short tempers, blowing up on occasion like Mount Churchill did in 800 A.D., an outburst still discussed among First Nations, leaving ash present today along the Klondike Highway (maybe that's why those bars are so tasty). Like the Yukon River system, your personality is meandering and beneficial for those who interact with you wisely. (JCC)

Alberta

Magnetic, complex

Due to your ample endowments in stunning natural areas and natural resources, namely oil, you are one wealthy broad. Just as your official tree, the lodgepole pine, grows tall, your developing economy keeps extending into the sky, along with your ethnic diversity and rodeo fetish. While these qualities may make you ambitious and untamable, you hold the coveted power of transformation. Some like to call you the "Texas of Canada," but those who know you best affectionately call you "home." (JCC)

Saskatchewan

Perfectly shaped

Some might say your balanced trapezoid shape is dull, but in reality you are the refined ideal many other provinces wish they could attain. Anchored by a more populated southern half, your landlocked land mass, consisting of plains, boreal forests and surprising deserts, is filled with small towns and small-town folk. Being the world leader in uranium and potash, your fair-minded nature is sometimes irked by superfluous grain imagery coming out of Saskatchewan. You do grow a great-deal of grain, but your natural diplomacy wishes you were more accurately portrayed. Oh well, like the many songs sung about your largest city, Saskatoon, you remain the strength of many peoples. (JCC)

Northwest Territories

Lonely ... but rich

Ah, Northwest Territories, you more than make up for your frigidity and poor social skills with buckets and buckets of bling. Sure, you're flatulent with natural gas, but with pockets stuffed with diamonds and gold, who wouldn't want to be your friend? Once we get to know you, we'll certainly notice that you're not so bad to look at, with your expansive mountains and tundras, and immense, wild rivers—not to mention that lovely aboriginal exoticism we've heard so much about. Call us, we'll visit. (SRA)

Manitoba

The tortoise—or maybe goat—of Canada

Located in the dead center of Canada, you are careful to position yourself in quietly advantageous ways. Even though you are extremely cold (the weather suits your serious mood anyhow), it's also one of the sunniest places in North America with a tremendous wealth of untouched natural beauty. You tend to be slow but steady-footed, much like your transportation industry (rail, air, roads and waterways) dominates your GDP. (LM)

Nunavut

Practical, resourceful, level-headed

It's hard to be fanciful when you're in the arctic cold with limited resources and not a whole lot of help nearby. But that's OK by you. Crowds really aren't your thing. In fact, if you were a sovereign nation, you'd be the least densely populated in the world. Still, your beauty is grand and unyielding, as are your opinions, though you can always depend on Nunavut to be Nunavut. You're annoyed by vulgarity, stupidity and carelessness, all of which are poor traits for anyone visiting your unforgiving lands. (MD)

Ontario

Freedom-loving and headstrong

A natural leader, you not only house Canada's capital, Ottawa, and largest city, Toronto, but your population of people and sports teams is also greater than that of any other province. Just as your magnificent Niagara Falls gush down toward a self-carved chasm in time and space, you are passionate, action-oriented and sometimes violent. However, as violent waters flow into mighty lakes, you wear your prominence in society and your industrial gigantism well, as represented by the world's largest freestanding structure, the CN Tower, and your humble bird, the common loon. (JCC)

Quebec

Kind of like France, only bigger and colder

With a mix of Indian, French and English cultures, it’s no surprise you embody very different personality types simultaneously. As mercurial and flighty as your avian mascot, the Snowy Owl, you speak quickly (sometimes dropping a few too many vowels in the process). You dart from one idea or project to the next. You are fiercely independent, even revolutionary when you want to be—as in 1998 when you attempted to secede from Canada. Staying active is a must for you. “Quebec” is a Mi’kmaq word that means “strait” or “narrows,” referring to the network of water passageways that run through the area. As such, you are attracted to water sports, exploration and nature. (LM)

New Brunswick

French and Salty

Reflected by the sea chanties and lumber camp songs that founded your maritime culture, you are musical, earthy and resourceful. These qualities are also available in your most valuable foodstuffs--potatoes, lobster and scallops, which can sometimes serve as an overindulgence. As the only constitutionally bilingual province in Canada with 35 percent francophone, you not only embody two languages but also two cultures, making you cautious and stubborn, yet affectionate and strong. Like the gentle blossom of your official flower, the purple violet, you are truly an ethnocultural delight. (JCC)

Nova Scotia

Smoked salmon is only part of your charm

You are small but mighty, outgoing and regal in your own, charming way. However, when you don't get what you're after, you become as withdrawn and salty as halite mines. Like your official dog, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, you tend to keep friends for life, but if they betray you, you'll cut them off like the 12,000 Acadians that were ejected from Nova Scotia in the Great Expulsion of 1755. Nicknamed Canada's Ocean Playground, you similarly prefer a life of leisure, left to your own devices while eating smoked salmon by the seashore. (LM)

Prince Edward Island

Emotional, romantic, surrounded by water

Are you drawn to slow-paced life? Are you pastoral? Is your economy based on small-scale agriculture due to the size of your farming properties? Are you likely to put a "u" into flavor, as in "old-world flavour"? You're totally old-fashioned P.E.I., with its pristine beaches and resistance to aesthetically displeasing development. Birthplace of the dreamy and imaginative Anne Shirley of the quaint Anne of Green Gables series, this is the most densely populated province in Canada. Look out for pockets of industrialization, angry red earth and the sudden mood-swings of rising sand dunes. It's an emotional roller-coaster, this Prince Edward Island. (MD)

Newfoundland and Labrador

Mys ... ter ... i ... ous

As the site of the only Norse settlement in North America, circa 999 AD, and the rumored location of the fabled and mysterious Vinland, your true identity tends to elude your fellow Canadians, and the rest of the green Earth. What's for certain is your rich, cod-filled history and a geography rife with pleasant hiking trails and artistic views. With Labrador's very northern position as a chunk off of Quebec's northeast, and Newfoundland's island location right next to it, you are sensitive, escapist and sometimes unforgiving, like the many European cultures that tried to inhabit you over the years. (JCC)