One Nation, Ten Provinces

What visiting every province taught me about leadership, connection, and the lived experience of Canada.

This reflection was written by Douglas Anweiler, Chief Strategist at Bellwoods Strategy. It’s part of our ongoing Perspectives series, exploring the intersection of strategy, identity, and storytelling in moments of complexity.

I just came back from a family wedding in Newfoundland, the tenth and final Canadian province on my personal map. What a beautiful place and people.

I’ve lived in five, worked in eight, and finally stood on the rock that anchors the East. I still have the Territories to go, but crossing this threshold felt like a quietly profound moment. It reminded me there’s a difference between knowing your country and having been in it.

When I first moved to Toronto, I was surprised by how many people had never been west of Niagara Falls. That gap in experience feeds into something deeper: the Western alienation that policymakers and business leaders often wonder about but struggle to understand. How can you grasp why the West feels disconnected when your mental map of the country ends at Thunder Bay?

It’s easy to talk about Canada as a whole. Harder to hold all its parts in your head at once. Harder still if you’ve never had fish and chips with dressing and gravy in St. John’s, walked the prairie wind in February, seen the way Montreal lights up on a summer night, or watched orcas dance through the water off Vancouver Island.

To meaningfully participate in national conversations, whether in business, policy, or community, you need more than data. You need to know the people. The values. The culture. Not the mythologized version of Canada, but the lived one. The one where you kiss the cod after your shot of Screech. The one where someone you just met insists on giving you a ride home because it’s too far to walk. The one where regions shape outlooks, not just accents.

At Bellwoods Strategy, we believe clarity comes from context. And in a country as vast and varied as this one, context means knowing where you’re standing and where someone else might be coming from.

Because strategy doesn’t travel well if it doesn’t translate. And translation starts with understanding.