Crafting Canada
Located in downtown Toronto is a place where Canada's vast landscape shrinks into an intricate, hand-crafted world. Where engineering meets imagination and absurdity is king.
It is the ambitious creation of a man who made Canada his chosen home; and a playground for artists, designers and storytellers who pour their passion into every detail of a country recreated in miniature.
These are the stories of Little Canada.
On the road just past Quebec City, as you approach the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, there is a scene that is all too familiar to many Canadians: road work. But here, in the little version of Canada, a giant octopus is clawing its way out of the hole in the road. Not a pot hole anyone would like to encounter but the dozen or so 'littlized' humans don't seem concerned.
It's all part of the fun.
Spread over 45,000 square feet, Little Canada is a giant miniature village of sorts — one where cars and trains move, boats dance and day changes to night and back again in 15-minute intervals.
It has been years in the making and is still not complete — Canada is a big country after all. Thus far, visitors can explore the East and West Coasts, as well as Quebec and Ontario. Little North — which will be housed in a climate-controlled room that will be colder than the rest of the exhibit — is next to come, likely sometime in 2025.
Detailed exhibits like these take months to construct and require a team dedicated not just to recreating iconic places faithfully but to adding in touches of the unexpected.
Like the wild animals that can be seen escaping from the Rainforest Cafe in Little Niagara, children ride on their backs as they run out the door.
It is this level of creativity that founder Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer could never have imagined when he first conceived of the idea of Little Canada.
"It was not that I knew exactly how it should look from the beginning, not at all. It evolved into what it became and that was purely because of the team that came together," he said.
"We tell stories and through our storytelling, we invite our guests to tell stories amongst themselves."
Jean Louis Brenninkmeijer
Founder
The best example of the level of teamwork, detail and storytelling is in the iconic Chateau Laurier in Little Ottawa, where one side is open to reveal a tableau of rooms, each designed by a different maker.
"That wasn't planned in advance," Jean-Louis tells me. "We just said to everybody on the team, you can make a room. And this is the result."
@littlecanada Little Château Laurier is overflowing with charming little stories that'll make you wish the rooms were real 🥰 #TellAStoryDay #Miniatures #littlethings #Story
♬ original sound - Little Canada
These creative team members are forever immortalized on the family wall. They have gone through the 'Littlization Station' (more on that below) to create tiny versions of themselves. Let's meet some of these creators.
Aliyah Tom
Senior Design Specialist
Aliyah Tom was studying to be an architect when she discovered her propensity for model building. She moved on to building architectural models and now puts those skills to good use at Little Canada.
Aliyah builds out the tables and supports that hold all the structures and creates many of the giant buildings in the exhibits.
For Little West Coast, which opened in October 2024, Aliyah designed and built nine of the ten skyscrapers.
"I started on the small structures team so in a day I could build like 6 or 7 structures from start to finish," she says. "But now I'm working for a month or at least a couple of weeks on really big buildings, structures that are heavier than me."
She's clearly found her calling and joy in her work. She approaches things from the technical side and lets some of her colleagues fill in the stories and whimsy in the Little World.
I asked Aliyah to take me to her favourite spot in the Little Canada world and she took me to Clifton Hill in Little Niagara — the first place she worked on when she started here in 2019.
"I got to do the entire Clifton Hill block with a coworker. It is the most colourful and most brightly lit and has all these crazy scenes, it is still one of my all-time favourites," she said. "It's really a showstopper."
Abe Brath
Animation Specialist
A mechanical engineer by training, Abe is in charge of helping things move.
"We maintain but also design and build anything that moves," he says. "So any trains, any vehicles, any small little figures moving about."
And there are lots of those in the Little Canada world. From flopping fish in St. John's Newfoundland to the False Creek Ferry Ballet in Vancouver, BC, Little Canada is filled with details that come to life thanks to Abe and his animation coworkers.
He is currently working on laying out the plans for Little North, figuring out how much of a footprint the mechanical side of the world will require and how it will all fit together.
When I ask Abe to show me his favourite spot in Little Canada, he takes me to Little West Coast, specifically Stanley Park.
"This is very silly," he begins. "I have a wonderful sister who lives out in Vancouver and early one morning she was out for a run in Stanley Park and she felt a hard smack at the back of her head. She looked around and couldn't see anything."
Shaken, his sister continued her run and felt another smack. This time she noticed an owl perched on a tree just staring at her.
"The owl then made another attempt at her. She was fine (after some time) but as a good older brother, I have to include that story here."
Abe specially ordered an owl kit and proceeded then to put an owl into Stanley Park as a playful taunt.
"I finally have the owl and so the owl that hit my sister in the head is going in," he says laughing, placing the owl in a tree.
Watch out for an attack next time you visit the Little West Coast.
Damien Webb
Visual Arts Specialist
If you have the need for a monument or statue in the Little Canada world, Damien is your go-to. As a Visual Artist, he works mostly on intricate, detailed structures.
"My background is more in the hand-built, scratch-built stuff, so I use a lot of a product called styrene, which is a softer plastic so I can actually carve and cut and build things by hand rather than 3D printing or laser cutting," he says. "I do do some of that but most of it is done more organically."
Working at Little Canada is a dream come true for Damien.
"In high school, I told my architectural design teacher I wanted to just build the models and he told me that job doesn't exist," he said. "Well, now it does."
I asked Damien to take me to his favourite spot in the Little World and, just like Aliyah, he has a soft spot for the first place he worked on:
On any given day, while visiting Little Canada, guests can interact with the makers. Asking questions, and getting a glimpse of how the magic is made, is encouraged.
And if you feel so inspired by Little Canada that you want a permanent spot inside one of your favourite scenes, there's the Littlization Station.
For a fee, anyone can go through the machine and have a miniature version of themselves created. Take it home to display or become part of the Little Canada story.
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