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A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe,” said Pierre Berton, Canada’s much-loved historian. When, soon after arriving in Vancouver, I was offered chance to deliver a car to Montreal I planned a route avoiding hyped tourist destinations and big cities. Intrigued by Berton (With, it has to be said, an effort that was not particularly considerable), I was working to the assumption that Canadians and their canoes might be found in more unheralded and, er, less crowded parts of the country.

Journey begins when I take possession of an Rx-7 the colour of sky before rain, and not quite old enough to make the task ahead seem impossible. I have 10 days to reach Montreal and a map that spreads across much of the front of the car. Still, the entire country appears neatly packaged and, any sense of enormity is hard to comprehend.

The peripatetic Captain Cook offered the first recorded landing at Vancouver in 1778 and now, more than 200 years on, this city is regularly voted one of the world’s most liveable. But at 5am it feels as most others devoid of people, decidedly soulless. The well travelled route across British Columbia (BC) will take you north to Lake Louise but I hug the border with the great southern neighbour. Fernie is my first destination for only one reason - I have never heard of it.

After a mere five hours on Highway 3, it is clear that in Canada it is not just maps and Mounties’ ceremonial hats that are enormous. A plate of eggs and hash browns in a nondescript diner will satisfy me until night and the road-kill – deer - is so tremendous as to be frightening.

This road partly traces the Dewdney trail, opened by the lure of gold during the 1850s. There was a rush hereabouts, of course, yet I am lead to the Kootenays not gold. The sing-a-long sound of this mountain range’s name is almost as appealing as the near endless forest of cedars and firs. Inspired to song I put on the only CD I have - French for Beginners. The country’s bicultural colonialism has a well documented legacy and I shall use the thousands of kilometres ahead to prepare for my arrival in Quebec.

Stretching for 1450 km within Canada the Rockies are the country’s backbone and Fernie, nestled in the Elk Valley, seems prisoner to their towering surrounds. The Three Sisters (2744 metres) are the dominant peaks, however, it would seem I am not the only person to have ‘discovered’ Fernie. Downtown is expanding to increasing numbers of skiers and hikers as Fernie has the longest ski season (November - May) in BC. Yet not all the town is given to makeover. This place was built on coal reserves in the 19th century and in the old town there are still comely brick buildings the colour of the earth.

Next morning, I cross into the province of Alberta, on my way to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a world heritage site. Before the horse came to North America, Indian runners would stampede the poor sighted buffalo along a funnel-like series of rock cairns called drive lanes. These led to a cliff, hidden by a rise, and a plunge to death. A successful drive would ensure food through the severe winter. The place takes name from a First Nation legend that tells of an inquiring brave who stood at the base of the cliff to experience a different perspective of the hunt. He was killed - his head smashed in by falling buffalo.

Returning to the car a hot west wind, a Chinook, blows. This is one of the windiest areas in Canada and it might also be one of the hottest. The surrounding browned summer grasses look and smell as parched as I feel. Heading north I cross the Trans-Canada Highway, a stretching dual-lane of bitumen that has as much appeal as the onset of winter.

Before the First Nations it was the dinosaurs that marched over Canada and though that was 70 million years ago their remains are prevalent around Drumheller, my new destination. Joseph Tyrrell travelled to this part of Alberta as a surveyor in 1884 and stumbled upon an Albertasaurus skull, exposed by the Red Deer River gorging downward. More than a century on, there are more than 30 complete dinosaur skeletons at The Royal Tyrrell Museum. I pass too quickly through it then, briefly, look for my own dinosaurs in Horse Thief Canyon.

In the afternoon of day three, amid a flat and treeless world, I stop for a late lunch just out of Hanna. At the Cactus Corner truck-stop a few drops of rain splat timid on the window. I ask a man about the possibility of rain to the prairies.

“It doesn’t rain in this country. Crickets sweating,” he says explaining the irregular droplets on the diner’s window. To the end of lunch I spread out my map and circle Outlook.

Outlook, Saskatchewan, is totally unspectacular. A prairie town of the type big city might readily deride. But I liked it and its quiet and wide and empty streets. It had everything to satisfy the weary – a shower, food, cold beer and a bed. In the hotel bar I ask Deanne, 23, if she likes living here. “Cities aren’t my life,” she says. Here it’s small enough for everyone to be friends.”

At 6 am, day five, Outlook seems fresh, cleaned by night’s cool. Truck drivers are fuelling themselves at a gas station. Everyone seems to be drinking coffee and I get mine, takeaway, for a loonie ($1).

Near Ituna, on a stretch of quiet road, I stop to admire weathered timber granaries that look like a row of English bathing boxes. A white Chevrolet pulls alongside and a road-side conversation with Fred Martin, a farmer of Irish descent, turns into an invitation to coffee.

Fred’s wife, Mae, sets a table with plates of sliced tomato and cucumbers, bread not long from the oven, maple syrup and carrot cake. A hummingbird hovers outside a window, feeding. “Water and sugar,” says Mae.

“We used to kill our own meat too,” says Fred. “We’d put it in the granaries and it’d stay frozen through the winter.” Fred pulls out photos of the farm lying dormant under a cover of snow. It is fairytale beautiful. The prairies are the nation’s bread-basket and, as it happens, mine and the bird’s too.

I set off for the long drive to Gimli, buoyed by the “Radars are illegal in Manitobo” sign and a hill with grass that is green. After 12 hours and 844 km, I find Gimli. Around 1875 the Canadian Government offered the western shores of Lake Winnipeg to Icelanders after the railways opened the area to settlement. Some of their descendants are still here fishing, sharing the lake’s considerable waters with pelican and double-crested cormorants.

I wake to day five bound for the enormity of Ontario. The size of this country is proving more astounding every kilometre and when I arrive at the province’s border the tourist office advises it is still six hours’ driving to the geographical centre of the country.

I catch up with the Trans-Canada Highway 2500 km after I first saw it and now am thankful for it. Night is soon to fall and it is now moose, not deer, for which I must be aware. I settle in behind a truck that seems oblivious to the 90km/h speed limit and follow its wonderful bright searching lights at 120 km/h.

Around midnight the truck stops near Thunder Bay. In a crowded diner I introduce myself to the driver. Stan’s grey beard is trim yet his watch is set for two time zones away. I ask him what he likes about his life behind the wheel.

“You’re by yourself and you see all kinds of different country,” he says. No kidding I want to say. Canada is starting to feel like a series of different countries.

I leave Stan to the bed in his truck and take the Courage Highway then, seventeen hours after leaving Gimli, stop in White River. At 4am I forgo a hotel and sleep in the car.

White River claims home to Winnie-the-Pooh. A soldier bought a bear cub here and after being posted to Europe during World War I he made gift of the cub to the London Zoo. The cub became a favourite of Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, and a novel’s inspiration. Next day I turn off the Trans-Canada at Espanola and head south. To the north is a largely unpopulated wilderness the size of France and Germany.

On day seven, I catch the ferry across Lake Huron. This lake appears so massive it might well be ocean and yet it is dwarfed by Hudson Bay to the north. Only around 1 per cent of the world’s water is fresh. Canada and its 30 million people have around 8 per cent of it – the inspiration for Berton’s quote surely. As the Chi Cheemaun (The big canoe) cuts its watery path I idle about the decks and revel in the sense of extravagance that comes from travelling without effort.

Around Floradale there are farms with bells that call workers from fields, boys dressed with braces and horses and buggies. The Mennonites’, Anabaptists originally from Switzerland, lifestyle takes lead from the 16th century.

Many of the Mennonites’ horses are ex-trotters and clip around these roads with a certain élan. To the end of a near cloudless summer day I sit on the banks of the Grand River at West Montrose and admire Ontario’s last covered bridge, built in 1881. For the remains of the day I bask in sun and listen to the sound of horses clopping through it.

Next morning I set out for Dresden and in the south-west of Ontario I pass through lands purchased by the French from the Mohawks. Josiah Henson, escaped slave, was inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He was one of the slaves who followed the North Star from America to freedom in Dresden. For a place that inspired so many marches to freedom there are surprisingly few Afro-Canadians around. I ask school teacher Jan about it. “America wasn’t the only country with racial prejudices,” she says pointedly. “Many families moved on.” Heading east again the largest Canadian city, Toronto, seems unavoidable. I meet Louise, a journalist with an uncanny resemblance to Sandra Bullock, at the baseball. I ask her what she thinks being a Canadian means. “It’s the funniest thing,” she says, “It’s really about trying not to be American.” It might be an odd thing to say considering we are also eating hot dogs and drinking beer.

With time running out I avoid Ottawa, the country’s somewhat obscure capital, and cross into Quebec where it does not take long to experience the anticipated rivalry. When I stop at a set of lights the driver in the car beside me calls “Go home”, taking objection I figure to the BC plates on the car.

With some sense of accomplishment I cross the St Lawrence River and arrive in Montreal. I hand over the keys with a certain reluctance for there is so much still to see. Ice Hockey. The Northwest Territories. Polar bears. St John’s, Newfoundland. And after 5,930kms, I never did find a couple in a canoe. Maybe there are just too many places to hide.

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