Postal services
Post office opening hours are Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5.30pm, though
a few places open on Saturday between 9am and noon. Offices are
sometimes found inside larger stores, so look out for Canada Post signs,
or Postes Canada in Québec. Stamps can also be bought from automatic
vending machines, the lobbies of larger hotels, airports, train
stations, bus terminals and many retail outlets and newsstands. Within
Canada, letters and postcards up to 30g cost 46¢, to the US 55¢ for
under 30g, and international mail up to 20g is 95¢. If you're posting
letters to Canadian addresses, always include the postcode or your mail
may never get there.
Letters can be sent poste restante to any Canadian main post office by
addressing them c/o General Delivery or c/o Poste Restante in Québec.
Make a pick-up date if known, or write "Hold for 15 days", the maximum
period mail will usually be held. After that time the post is returned
to sender, so it's a good idea to put a return address on any post. Take
some ID when collecting. Letters will also be held by hotels; mark such
mail "Guest Mail, Hold for Arrival". If you have an American Express
card or travellers' cheques, you can have mail marked "Client Mail
Service" sent to Amex offices throughout Canada. Others can pick up mail
from Amex for a small fee.
Telephones and telegrams
Coin-operated telephones are available in most public places. Whenever
you are dialling a number outside the telephone region of the call box
you are using, you have to prefix the number with 1; this puts you
through to the operator, who will tell you how much money you need to
get connected. The operator asks for an amount (about $2.50) to cover
the initial time period, which even within a province is fairly brief.
Thereafter you'll be asked to shovel money in at regular intervals, so
unless you're making a reverse-charge/collect call you need a stack of
coins - usually quarters (25¢). Some connections within a single
telephone code area are charged at the long-distance rate, and thus need
the "1" prefix; a recorded message will tell you if this is necessary as
soon as you dial the number. Local calls cost 25¢ from a public phone
and are dialled direct; private subscribers pay nothing for these, so
you'll find that shops often don't mind you using their phone for local
calls. Emergency (tel 911) and information (tel 411 local, tel 555-1212
long distance) are free from payphones.
Long-distance calls are cheapest from 11pm to 8am daily, and most
expensive from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. From 6pm to 11pm on Monday
to Saturday and from 8am to 11pm on Sunday, charges are more economical.
Detailed rates are listed at the front of the telephone directory .
Needless to say, using pocketfuls of money is an inconvenient way of
making international calls . Payphones taking major credit cards,
however, are increasingly common, especially in transport and major
tourist centres. In some cities there are Bell offices that enable you
to make your call and pay afterwards.
Nearly all the provincial and national phone companies produce local and
long-distance calling cards . Cards are sold in various outlets,
including petrol stations, pharmacies and post offices, and in various
denominations from $5 to $50, with calls being offered at discounted
rates. You are given a number to dial and then a PIN number before you
dial your destination. AT&T and other companies also produce affinity
cards whereby the cost of your call is debited directly from your
credit- or debit-card account.
More upmarket hotels and motels have direct-dial phones where the call
is automatically charged to your bill. Elsewhere, the hotel switchboard
operator will place a call for you, or you'll be linked to an operator
who will ask for the room number to which to charge the call - but be
warned that virtually all hotels will levy a service charge in the
region of 65-95 percent.
Many hotels, tourist offices and transport companies have toll-free
numbers (prefixed by tel 1-800, 1-877 or 1-777). Some of these can only
be dialled from phones in the same province, others from anywhere within
Canada, a few from anywhere in North America - as a rough guideline, the
larger the organization, the wider its toll-free net.
Increasingly popular the world round, cellular phones (mobiles) are sold
pretty much everywhere and are sometimes available to rent from
information centres in major cities. However, the cheapest and most
popular phones are only sold to Canadian residents. Pay-as-you-go
accounts are generally expensive to use, and limited to the province
you're in. Check before leaving home if your existing mobile can have
its chip replaced to operate in Canada. Mobile-phone reception in Canada
is still quite limited, and may not work out in the wilds.
To send a telegram either within Canada or abroad, contact the local
AT&T Canada office, listed in the telephone directory. Credit card
holders can dictate messages over the phone. At any time, day or night,
you can also phone in Telepost messages, a guaranteed next-day or sooner
service in Canada and the US; billing arrangements are made at the time
of giving the message. Intelpost is an international fax service
available at main post offices, and paid for by cash.
Letters can be sent poste restante to any Canadian main post office by
addressing them c/o General Delivery or c/o Poste Restante in Québec.
Make a pick-up date if known, or write "Hold for 15 days", the maximum
period mail will usually be held. After that time the post is returned
to sender, so it's a good idea to put a return address on any post. Take
some ID when collecting. Letters will also be held by hotels; mark such
mail "Guest Mail, Hold for Arrival". If you have an American Express
card or travellers' cheques, you can have mail marked "Client Mail
Service" sent to Amex offices throughout Canada. Others can pick up mail
from Amex for a small fee.
Fax and email
Fax machines are found at hotels, city post offices and at photocopy
shops, Internet cafés and similar establishments in main city centres.
Charges are generally $1 a page.
Most major cities and small towns now have cybercafés, where you can
email . They tend to charge around $2-5 an hour for use of their
computers, and you can generally sup on cappuccinos and snack on
sandwiches. You can also access email at most large, corporate hotels,
public libraries and potentially a host of other establishments. If you
don't already have an account you can access while abroad, just sign on
for one of the many free options, like www.hotmail.com , www.juno.com ,
and so on; a quick Internet search will reveal many others.
The media
Canada has no truly national newspaper . The closest thing is the daily
Globe and Mail , a Toronto broadsheet also published in a western
edition and available more or less throughout the country. Most cities
have a quality paper, like the Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, Ottawa
Citizen or Vancouver Sun , which is also available throughout their
province. In Quebec, the French-language La Presse is the most widely
read in the province and there's also the separatist Le Devoir . The
conservative Maclean's and Time Canada are the most popular weekly news
magazines. The monthly Canadian Geographic covers the great outdoors
through articles and fantastic photographs.
To low-budget travellers, watching cable television in a motel room may
well be the commonest form of entertainment. The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (CBC) with national and regional broadcasts has the largest
volume of Canadian programmes. The main commercial station is the
Canadian Television Corporation (CTV), a mix of Canadian, American and
national output. There are other public-broadcasting channels and
private broadcast companies whose output makes Canada's TV very similar
to mainstream American TV. Most US stations can also be picked up.
The majority of Canadian radio stations, too, stick to a bland
commercial format. Most are on the AM band and display little
originality - though they can be good sources of local nightlife and
entertainment news, and road and weather reports. On FM, on the other
hand, the nationally funded CBC channels provide diverse, listenable and
well-informed programmes - for example This Morning (Mon-Fri 9am-noon),
a phone-in programme that gives a good grasp of Canadian opinions and
happenings. Although some of the large cities boast good specialist
music stations, for most of the time you'll probably have to resort to
skipping up and down the frequencies. Driving through rural areas can be
frustrating, as for hundreds of kilometres you might only be able to
receive one or two very dull stations. With this in mind, it's worth
asking your car-rental agency if their cars are fitted with cassette
players. |
