Growing up somewhere, the weird bits often just become wallpaper — you don't really notice them. Arrive from the other side of the country, though, and suddenly everything feels either aspirational, absurd, or actively threatening.
I'm from B.C. and was dropped into the not-so-organized chaos of Toronto, quickly realizing that locals are blind to some of this city's most unique traits. I've since moved back West, but still have lots of thoughts and takeaways from my time in Toronto.
Some of it is great. Some of it is cursed. Some of it has little hands and lives in your green bin. Here's what I noticed that Torontonians don't clock about their own city...
Bagged milk is not a Canada-wide thing
Toronto, I need you to stop dragging the rest of the country into this. The bagged milk situation has somehow become an international Canadian stereotype, and I regret to inform everyone that many of us from the West Coast did not grow up partaking in this.
The first time I saw someone confidently place a floppy plastic sac of milk into a designated pitcher, snip the corner, and proceed as though this was normal, I had the same degree of culture shock I felt in completely different countries.
Your raccoons are another breed
There was a stretch of time when I lived in Cabbagetown where leaving my house felt like a survival challenge. A massive cohort of streetwise raccoons would man the sidewalk, blocking my path like bouncers outside a club.
Sometimes one would be lurking in a bush, waiting to launch itself into my peripheral vision, hissing for maximum effect. Some of said hissers would even stand on their hind legs when they were feeling extra bold. Which is frankly demented.
Torontonians talk about raccoons with a kind of resigned affection that I simply cannot access. Olivia Chow doesn't mayor your city, the raccoons do.
You're spoiled for things to do
As someone now living in Vancouver, affectionately known in some circles as the "No Fun City", "Raincouver", or, on harsher days, "Blandcouver", I need Toronto locals to fully appreciate what they have.
The city is awash in things to do: Cool restaurants. Comedy shows. Good theatre. Pop-up events. Shopping that's actually worth it. Live music on a random Tuesday. There is always something happening.
Toronto has this constant hum of possibility that locals seem to stop noticing because it's simply everyday life here. It's the urban equivalent of Vancouverites forgetting to look up at the mountains.
The grind culture
Coming from a place famously associated with mountains, cannabis, Seth Rogen, and ocean waves, Toronto's energy can feel intense.
There's a very palpable hustle here that seems to consist of a full day's work followed by another full day's itinerary of networking, side hustles, social obligations, and career-building. It's impressive, vigorously capitalist, and definitely jarring when you come from the West Coast.
Jaywalking is...mandatory?
For legal reasons, I obviously cannot endorse this. But I will say that Toronto has a very strong collective mindset around crossing the street whenever and wherever the spirit moves you.
If anything, you'll be the odd one out if you're the only person still waiting politely at the light. The moment one person steps off the curb, everyone else follows in sync. I think I respect it.
Nobody agrees on what "Toronto" actually is
This remains one of my favourite recurring debates. Everyone seems to have a different definition of what counts as "real Toronto." I've heard everything from: "only South of Eglinton" to "between the Don and Humber" to "anything outside downtown doesn't count."
In B.C., Vancouverites know exactly when we've crossed into Burnaby, Burnabians know exactly when they've crossed into Surrey, and so on and so forth. The boundaries are not only factually, but also spiritually and emotionally understood.
Toronto's borders seem to shift depending on who you're talking to, how many drinks deep they are, and where in the city they live.
The TTC is elite
I know this is a hot take and that Toronto locals love to complain about the TTC. And yes, no transit system is perfect.
But coming from Vancouver chock-full of experiences I'd deem some of the most hellish transit of my life, the TTC feels kind of lux. The subway is clear. The routes make sense. The grid is intuitive. And the streetcars, though often rerouted, actually show up.
We're lucky, (especially in a Vancouver suburb), if the bus shows up at all, much less on its scheduled time. You don't know how good you have it.
People don't know the city's history
In smaller towns and cities, people often know the baseline lore. For instance, my boyfriend is from Guelph and when we visited I learned a plethora of information about how they invented the Yukon gold potato, how it's the birthplace of In Flanders Fields author John McCrae, and that their famous strip club The Manor is protected under the Ontario Heritage Act since it used to be home to the Sleeman family, known for Sleeman Breweries.
Toronto, by contrast, often feels like a city so focused on what's next that people don't seem to know what came before.
It can take an hour to get from Toronto… to Toronto
I need locals to understand how wild this feels to an outsider. You can be travelling what looks, on paper, a completely reasonable distance (literally a couple of kilometres) and somehow it still takes 40 minutes. An hour, if the traffic gods are feeling theatrical. In Toronto, saying "I'm five kilometres away" tells me absolutely nothing about when you'll arrive.
And don't get me started on the highways. Not only do you people have traffic, you have layers of traffic: express lanes and collector lanes — as though congestion itself needed a multi-level organizational chart. Please, Facebook dwellers, drop it in the comments and explain the point of this to me. I'm still trying to understand the logic here.
This article has been updated from its original publication date.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
Fresh fruit at St Lawrence Market.
The vegatable aisle at No Frills.
Ellie stocks up on veg at St Lawrence Market.
Ellie's grocery haul at No Frills.
