Top 10 Canada facts

Roald Amundsen. In a three year journey between 1903 and 1906, Amundsen explored the passage with a crew of no more than six, in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. Spending winters with ship trapped in ice, he learned from the local Netsilik people about Arctic survival skills that would later prove useful. For example, he learned to use sled dogs and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas. Amundsen later led the expeditions to discover the South Pole (1911) and the North Pole (1926).

Governor of Canada. The trophy is named for Lord Stanley of Preston, a Governor General of Canada, who supported and promoted ice hockey. He awarded the first cup (then named Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup) to Canada's top-ranking amateur ice hockey club in 1893.

The longest vertical fall. The mountain with an elevation of 1,675 m (5,495 ft) features the Earth's greatest purely vertical drop at 1,250 m (4,101 ft). This feature makes the site popular with climbers, despite its remoteness.

A Canadian. The basketball game was created in 1891 by James Naismith, a physical education professor at the Springfield College. His aim was to keep his gym class active on a rainy day. He wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track (see original photo). Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball.

Bjarni Herjólfsson. Bjarni was heading to Greenland to visit his father in 986, when he drifted south and found himself near the coast of today Canada. Despite his crew eagerness, he refused to land and only attested the discovery of a land full of trees and hills.

Lacrosse . Modern lacrosse in Canada has been a popular sport since the mid 1800s. Only field lacrosse was played until the 1930s, when box lacrosse was invented. In 1994 Parliament passed the National Sports of Canada Act which declared lacrosse to be "Canada's National Summer Sport", with ice hockey as the National Winter Sport.

Larch (pictured) is among the dominant plants in boreal forests of Russia and Canada. The needles turn yellow and fall in the late autumn, leaving the trees leafless through the winter.

75m. The gradient between The Great Lakes is generally very shallow. However, the descent between Erie and Ontario is greater than between any of the others, and includes the spectacular Niagara Falls, 51m high.

40.8°F (+4.9°C). Vancouver is one of Canada's warmest cities. The city has a moderate oceanic climate. On average, there are only eleven days of snowfall per year.

Toronto. The largest cities in Canada: Toronto (5.1 million), Montreal (3.4 million), Vancouver (2.1 million) and Calgary (1.1 million).