Definitely start in Halifax if you can. The giant tides of Nova Scotia are truly amazing. From there drive on to Quebec City. A beautiful place where the local tradition for steak tartare is to serve a big, floppy, paper thin slice of raw beef that drapes over the edges of the platter. None of that nouvelle "mince the meat until it is unrecognizable." There are a couple of options for driving from Quebec to Montreal and by the time you've arrived you'll have quickly picked up the Quebecois accent (if you speak French). Montreal is worth at least three or four days of spooking about.
On the way out of Montreal you can begin to check out provincial parks for camping and moose worship. Ontario has the largest mosquitos in the world, so you'll need to constantly replenish your supply of DEET. But the lakes and forests are incredible.
Following the Trans Canadian Highway will lead you through Sudbury (a mining town built on rock for there is NO soil). There are various places along the edge of Lake Ontario where you can risk hypothermia by jumping in the pristine water and turning completely blue in less than 15 minutes -- in the middle of July to August. Thunder Bay is a cute little spot for breakfast al fresco, good coffee, and watching tankers as large as the largest in the world slip quietly by several hundred feet off shore (usually carrying grain). That's when you realize the Great Lakes are really much greater than you imagined.
Winnipeg is an odd city in the northern prairie that boasts a world-class ballet company and more art fairs and events packed into the short summer than probably any place in the world.
There are places along the Trans Canadian where you'll want to stop and live out the rest of your life (until you realize the bucolic intense green world is covered in 40 feet of snow for more than half the year. Saskatchewan has some of the most amusing political graffiti in the mens rooms truck stops that you'll ever encounter. By all means plan your trip so you have to spend the night in Moosejaw. They have a tiny transportation museum that is hilarious and everybody needs a post card from Moosejaw.
Alberta is probably the most conservative of all the Provinces, but Calgary has a great rodeo (stampede) and if you have the bad luck of visiting Edmonton you'll be amused at how much of the city is now underground (cold, long winters). But from Calgary you can enjoy the drive over the Canadian Rockies which aren't any higher in altitude than the US Rockies, except the canyons and valley floors are at a lower altitude so they LOOK humungous. And there is Banff (sp?) with it's odd lake filled with milky blue water and there are the hot springs and spas you can spend days floating about at around 7,000 feet and enjoying the local scenery.
On the other side of the Rockies there is Whistler (my favorite place to ski and that's saying something because I grew up carving down the mountainsides of of Ewetaw's famous "dry" powder.
Take the time to visit Kelowna and cruise the Canadian wine country. By then you'll realize that Canada, compared to the USA, is: 1. generally cleaner; 2. the people are friendlier; 3. Canada obviously is suffering substantially less from the "world" economic melt down than the USA; 4. Canadians enjoy a substantially better quality of life than their neighbors to the south; 5. and that Toronto is the worst city Canadians can build where the average 'Mericuhn from New York or Boston can feel somewhat at home.
Once you make it to Vancouver you can find neighborhoods of economic blight, but you sort of have to go out of your way to find them. And the fusion of Asian food that is available in the City of Vancouver rivals that of San Francisco.
And if you're into camping and out door activities, Canada wins big time. Only Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the ragged outcroppings of rugged red rock that define southern Ewetaw are in the same league when it comes to outright stunning natural beauty. But those places have smaller mosquitos and moose worship is not as out in the open as it is in Canada.
And don't hesitate to take the ferry to Vancouver Island where you can sample the best sausage rolls in the world at small, independent bakeries. Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island, is no longer the land of the newlywed or nearly dead. British Columbia has the greatest collections of totems enclosed in glass museums in the the Pacific North West. However, if you go to see them at the busiest time of the summer tourist season, they'll most likely be closed because the government employees will be on strike.
And then there is the beer. Besides Labatts, Canadians have truly mastered the art of micro brewing the best nectar of the guys.
And when you return home, you'll have acquired the habit of interjecting "Eh?" whenever you speak.
doh!)
