18-03-2025
35 Hilariously Ignorant Comments Americans Have Made To Canadians That Are Making Me Roll My Eyes Over And Over Again
Being Canadian means living with the fact that other countries don't know much about us. It's unfortunate. But we're about to turn that negative into a positive, because as it turns out, it's REALLY fun to laugh at the misinformed things people from other countries say about us.
So recently, Reddit user livelaughshop asked, "What personal experience made you realize people knew so little about Canada?" and a TON of people responded with their (hilarious) experiences. Here are the top responses:
1. "To enter this bar in the States, we needed to bring our passports. The security at the door looked at our passports absolutely bewildered, and called over his coworkers. They stared at it, confused. Then, they called over management, and the manager asked us if they were fake. We stood there for 20 minutes as they went through our passport."
"We legit told them 'We're Canadian,' and they still were very confused. As they finally let us in, the group of security checking our passports were Googling what a Canadian passport looks like."
– livelaughshop
2. "When I was around 11, we went to Disneyland. There, we ended up in a conversation with an American family and their father asked if we really had to get around by snowmobile up there."
"My dad looked at him and told him that no, we don't go by snowmobile, and that it's a common misconception. Then he said that gas actually freezes up in Canada and we have to make do with dogsleds.
The family totally believed it."
— Aggravating-Car9897
3. "I was in Connecticut and witnessed a car accident. One of the drivers was starting university the next day, and she mentioned that I had an interesting accent, and asked where I was from. I said Vancouver, and she looked confused. Then I said 'On the west coast of Canada,' and she came back with, 'Canada has a west coast?!?!?!'"
— MuckleRucker3
4. "I used to know someone who worked as a border guard on a minor crossing point. She told me that the guards had a 'Second Amendment betting pool.' Apparently, they got as many as four or five people in a week trying to cross with their guns because they believed that the constitution applied to all Americans anywhere in the world, superseding any 'local' laws in other nations. So they had a pool going on how many they'd catch in a month."
— ChrisRiley_42
5. "I was in Detroit for work, and some guy started talking to me. He asked where I was from, and when I said Ontario, he went wild with, 'OMG! What a small world; I know a couple from Ontario! How is it over there? Is it freezing all the time?!'"
" literally a 10 minute drive, LOL."
— CureForSunshine
6. "I had a German exchange student stay with us in Ontario. She wanted to go to Vancouver on the weekend. I had to explain to her that it was a four day drive. Showed her on a map how we could fit three Germanies in Hudson Bay, and it blew her mind."
— GreatBoneStructure
7. "Way back in the days of chat rooms, I mentioned where I was from, mentioning it was north of North Dakota. Their response? 'There's nothing north of North Dakota.'"
— toni_devonsen_28
8. "In 1986, I worked for the summer at Expo 86. It was a huge deal at the time, and there were like millions of American tourists. I was asked three times, 'Is this money good off-site?' At first I couldn't understand it, but apparently they thought they had bought some kind of amusement park currency instead of Canadian dollars."
"The fourth time, I said 'I think it's just park money' and the dad gave me a stack of cash and said 'Here, give this to someone who might need it.'
Me. I needed it. Over $700 in real Canadian money. I felt disgusted with myself, but a few ounces of weed spread out among my friends took care of that."
— GrumpyOlBastard
9. "I bartended in a major city. I was chatting with a table and came to find out they were all specialist doctors from all over the US, but here for some conference. Bill time comes, and one of the women — who was a surgeon visiting a MAJOR CANADIAN CITY and had been here for a week by that time — sees Canadian cash and absolutely loses her shit."
"'You mean to tell me you have your own cash money?'
'
'Y'all don't just use American, REAL money?'
'Our money IS real money.'
'Can you give us American back?'
'No, we accept it on par, and you'll receive Canadian change. I don't just keep a whole till of every foreign currency.'
'What's on par?'
'Well, it means the exchange rate will be 1:1 regardless of the actual dollar right now.'
'What's an exchange rate?'"
— tattooedroller
10. "I was checking into a hotel in Atlanta and the lady behind the desk said she never heard of Winnipeg and asked where it was...I cut her some slack being from the south. After playing a few trivia hint games, like saying it's the home of The Guess Who, who sang 'American Woman,' she guessed England! I finally told her from Manitoba, Canada. She said 'How was I supposed to know that? I'm from Minnesota!'"
"Then I explained we actually share a border."
— ReputationGood2333
11. "My father had someone say to him, 'You speak pretty good English for a Canadian.'"
"We must admit, however, that we take glee in perpetuating the stereotypes and misinformation. A friend spent a summer in Georgia with his aunt and uncle, and took delight in telling his cousin's friends about dogsledding to school and having to carry a rifle because of polar bears. We lived in Belleville, Ontario."
— oshawaguy
12. "I was at the Tim Hortons at Fort Knox, and the guy behind the counter asked why we all lined up for coffee every morning. I was like 'It reminds us of home.' He was so shocked, and said 'Y'all have Tim Hortons in Canada?' 😂😂😂"
— Alternative_Art_1558
13. "My friend had an exchange student from Wales and at the end of her stay, her family wanted to tour the US and Canada before flying back. They told us about the plans to go to Toronto, New York, Florida, Texas, California, Vancouver, then back to Toronto to fly out. They planned this big trip. We asked how long they were traveling for. They said three weeks."
"I don't think you can drive all that in 3 weeks, let alone do a bunch of sightseeing. They had to reduce the trip to the Eastern seaboard."
— Thorboy86
14. "A random Jamacian on vacation knew stuff about Canada... whereas an American asked me if everyone's cars freeze during winter."
— r1n86
15. "I (American) got accepted into grad school at Western (then the University of Western Ontario). On a couple of occasions, when I told people about it, their response was, 'Hmm…Ontario…is that near Toronto?'"
"I mean, kind of? But also, wow."
— WhiskyTangoNovember
16. "I was on a flight from Atlanta to Toronto. The lady sitting next to me was very Midwest. She told me it's her first time flying to Canada. She had friends that lived between Toronto and Ottawa. She asked if we use the British Pound for currency."
"'No, we have Canadian dollars,' I replied.
'Do you drive on the left side of the road?'
'No, we drive on the same side as America.'
'But you are a British Colony?'
'Uh, so was America at one point, and you don't use GBP or drive on the left.'
'Oh, did you fight Britain for your freedom like America?'
'Uh, no, we just asked nicely and they let us go!'"
— Thorboy86
17. "I had coworkers from Paris set an online meeting time for 6 p.m. I had to explain that 6 p.m. in Toronto is not 6 p.m. in Calgary or Vancouver."
— IronCavalry
18. "Worked at a hotel inside a national park in the Canadian Rockies when I was in my 20s. My hotel was a common stop on the way up to Alaska. I had a very long conversation with some American bikers about why they needed Canadian currency even if they were just passing through."
"I also had set of tourists from the UK who expected to just go over to Toronto the next day and then make it to Montreal the day after.
I asked where they were flying out of, and their jaws dropped. They couldn't believe they couldn't drive the distance in a few hours and that they would need days to get all the Canadian hotspots.
I have so many stories from working in that national park."
— Quirky0ne
19. "I was in California years ago and met some Americans who asked where I'm from. I said Alberta, Canada. They asked where that is. I said north of Montana. Then they asked where Montana is."
"That's when I realized how clueless Americans can be."
— galenak79
20. "I was in Seattle and was talking to this guy on the subway. He asked where I was from, so I told him Winnipeg, and he said 'Oh yeah I have some cousins really close to that city, they're up in Vancouver!' Yeah, really close, only 2,321 km away! And I also had a guy ask if we had birds in Canada!"
— americano143
21. "I was a buyer in the oil patch. A supplier from Houston called me in Calgary, Alberta, and we spoke for a bit. Then he asked me to transfer his call to our Ontario warehouse. I said I couldn't do that because it was a different province with a different area code. He was angry and just thought I was being lazy or difficult. 😂😬"
— PeaceOut70
E! / Via
22. "When I was in university, my roommates and I bought a Dirt Devil vacuum, and after a week it started not working. One of my roommates called the support line from the box to figure out what was going on, and a southern lady took our call. We tell her our address, and my roommate says our city, province, and Canada. The lady says '……can..a…duh…. Like the state?'"
"Once we got her to understand Canada was a country, then she asked which state in Canada. 🫠 She got likely her first geography lesson that day, and we got a new vacuum."
— ThisIsMyLongShirt
23. "I once went to a grocery store in western New York state that was a 15 minute drive from the border. I was buying beer and the cashier asked for ID, so I gave her my Ontario driver's license. She said 'Ontario? Where's that?' Um, it's a province of 14 million people that's 15 minutes from here. LOL."
— UmpireMental7070
24. "Met an exchange student from France. He had come to Winnipeg to study art history. (I guess he thought Paris was lacking?) Anyway, he said he was excited about snowboarding in the Rockies on the weekends."
— mitchandmickey
25. "I was sitting in my office in Toronto, on the phone with a vendor in Florida. It was mid-January and -20 degrees in Toronto. She says, horrified, 'Are you guys going to be OK up there? I heard it got so cold that the temperature went backwards!'"
— Abject-Error6109
26. "In Switzerland, I was lectured about voting for Trump and had to explain how we are very different countries with different histories and political systems. And then, I had to explain whose side we were on during the American Civil War and where we were during World War II."
— Choice_Tie9909
27. "I got my driver's license taken away at a bar in California because the doorman didn't believe that Saskatchewan was a real place. And then he had the audacity to get mad at me because I refused to leave without my driver's license and I had to call the police."
"The police came like 30 minutes later and called the guy a 'fucking moron,' and I got my license back. The doorman was seriously going to die on that hill and refused to even Google it, LOL."
— eugeneugene
28. "On a trip to Florida, my family went out for dinner. The waiter could tell we were tourists — and without knowing where we were from, somehow he got on a rant about how stupid Canada is. He ranted about us riding polar bears to school, saying 'aboot,' and all the other stereotypes. He even bashed our politics — can't take our government seriously because there is a federal Green Party promoting marijuana."
"At the end of his speech: 'So, where are you from?' My step-dad looked him straight in the eye and said 'Canada.'
The waiter turned beet red and instantly started sweating, fanning himself with his shirt. We got the fastest service ever, free apps, free refills, and free desserts.
We were completely unimpressed with his lack of discernment — Canadians are pretty frequent visitors to Florida in the winter months — but not at all personally offended. Watching his panic throughout the dinner, however, more than made up for it. 😅"
— Complete-Finding-712
29. "I was driving down to Washington State, not far from the border. At a rest stop, an American noticed our licence plate. We got to chatting, and this man asked us — AN HOUR AWAY FROM THE BORDER — how often we got polar bears. We thought he was joking, typical American humour. But no, he was fully earnest in his question."
"He kinda scampered away after it."
— ButWhatIfTheyKissed
Johnny Johnson / Getty Images
30. "A coworker of mine had her Ontario driver's license cut by a bouncer in Las Vegas because Ontario is a city in California — 'nice try.'"
"Not sure what happened to the bouncer, but I know he was arrested that night."
— ben_z03
31. "I was living in Toronto and became acquainted with someone online who was from the DC area. She was telling me about her plans to go to Halifax to visit her friend and suggested we could meet up one night while she was there."
— Agent_Raas
32. "Visiting a grad school in the USA, I was paired with a guy from Louisiana, also visiting the same school. We got talking about Montreal and how there was infrastructure there leftover from the 1976 Summer Olympics. He could not believe that Canada could host a Summer Olympics — he thought it was winter year-round."
— Joe_Q
POV: Canadians in July.
33. "I met a dude in Pittsburgh once, and we started talking. I said, 'Yeah, I'm from Quebec,' and then he says a friend of his went there some years ago, and 'can you believe they speak French there?'"
"Yeah, I can believe it."
— rocourteau
34. "In Japan, the local people I spoke with in Kyoto only knew Vancouver. All other cities had to be referenced based on their proximity to a US city."
— accforme
35. "One time, I had a call about renewing a service agreement that was about to expire. The person on the other end of the call tried making some small talk about the weather and how cold it must be in Canada. It was September; not cold. I asked where she was calling from: Dayton, Ohio. I told her I lived not much more than 100 miles north of Cleveland. Based on her reaction, I might as well have said I was from Mars."
— Objective_Party9405
NBC / Via
