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Beautiful and talented this great land of Canada is! Nature at it's finest and musical talent all around us. Let's talk Canada blooms first.

  Trillium

While we don't have a national flower, as the Ontario provincial flower and one of the most intriguing flowers in Canada, the Trillium is here and gone each spring just as the trees start to bud. They are a beautiful flower, about the size of child’s palm, and have three or six petals. The colours of a Trillium are dependant on the soil from which it grows and the most common ones seen in Ontario are white petals with a yellow stamen, pink petals with yellow stamen, white and brilliant pink centred petals with pink and/or white stamen, and red, burgundy, or deep fuchsia petals with grey and/or cream stamen. Walking through a forest in early spring, just as the world is transitioning from winter, and seeing the Earthen floor covered in blanket of white is simply breathtaking.

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Commonly overlooked, the mighty tulip deserves a nod. According to the official website of the Canadian Tulip Festival, it was “established to celebrate the historic Royal gift of tulips from the Dutch to Canadians as a symbol of international friendship while preserving the legacy of the role of the Canadian troops in the liberation of Europe, and the birth of Dutch Princess Margriet in Ottawa during World War II—the only royal personage ever born in Canada.” As one of the world’s largest tulip festivals, Ottawa hosts half a million visitors that come to enjoy the more than 1 million flowers in bloom.

Canada Blooms

Canada hosts it's largest flower show, Canada Blooms, in Toronto each spring!

Now, let's talk music. While we could be here all day as we have such a vast musical fabric, we'll touch on a few! The music that has come from Canada reflects the diversity that we strive upon as a country. Artists such as Drake, Michael Buble, Neil Young (our very own Director of Customer Happiness Jen's cousin!) and Celine Dion are inspirations that have shaped this country showing the world who we really are. The music industry in Canada is vastly growing as it is now the sixth largest music industry in the world. Canadian artists such as Joni Mitchell, Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Anne Murray, Sarah MacLachlan, The Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, Rush, Alanis Morrisette, Justin Bieber, and The Weeknd  and SO MANY MORE have dominated music charts for decades. The diverse landscape of the Canadian music scene features everything from jazz to rock to country and everything in between. In 2016 we lost Leonard Cohen, musician and poet, however his words will fill our hearts for years to come. Here's our favourite 🙂

This hour we want to share a prize package that includes our brand new summer issue, our brand new Celebrate Canada stamps we revealed earlier today along with our loonie and toonie for one lucky winner! 

Celebrate Canada stampsyou can preorder until July 7 here!

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you can subscribe here!

For an opportunity to win this hour's prizes be sure to leave a comment below by July 7th and we will randomly select one lucky winner this hour to win them! After leaving your comment here we hope you'll take a moment to visit us on Facebook and Instagram (@sctmagazine) and leave a comment there as well for THREE chances to win! We'll be compiling all the comments each hour.

Next hour we will share a little Canadian mystery 🙂

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Fun Fact: Contrary to popular belief, lacross, not hockey, is the national sport! One more? Roughly 30% of Canada's total landmass is occupied by forest. Makes for great photo ops.