Unfortunately for a fair chunk of my younger years (mainly due to my own poor decision making at times) I was pretty impoverished and stuck in the praires. I have been as far west as Calgary, it's a totally different feel and vibration out west for sure compared to the praires. I've been out as far as Nova Scotia on the east end of things and first hand seen the Atlantic Ocean.. I'll save that for another post though.
I think Canada as a whole are pretty geniunely laid back people. However that being said we are passionate and you don't want to catch us off on the wrong foot when we've been out sipping maple syrup and playing hockey. :D
I'm glad you don't trust banks. They are truly criminal wizards when it comes to the way they do business and print money out of basically "NOTHING" with their central banking system.
I prefer Bitcoin honestly. It's sort of my gold standard at the moment. Once I get caught up on my debts and get a wee bit more wealth stored away I'm going to try to diversify. It's never good to hold all your eggs in one basket.
<3