Queen of the waves, lady of the drink, mistress of my own watery domain: I’ve spent many a summer hammering on these shameless acts of hotdoggery, so those fair titles could be mine, baby, all mine. We (Canadians) all know that modesty has an all-too-prominent place in the Canadian psyche, but not here. Not now. Let the showboating begin!

Paddle Canada—a roundup:

Raft “the Shubie” in Nova Scotia—52 billion tons of water roil up the chaotic Shubenacadie River, about 30 minutes northwest of the Halifax airport.

Learn the precarious art of cartwheeling through giant hydraulics and holes the size of condos from four-time world freestyle kayaking champ Eric Jackson on Canada’s woolliest stretch of whitewater, Ontario’s Ottawa River.

Nose-to-nose with belugas? That’s right—in northern Manitoba. About 3,000 of these snow-white whales summer in the Churchill River estuary, making it the world’s most accessible population of belugas. Kayak among them with Sea North Tours.

If a former Canadian prime minister can power himself through walls of deafening whitewater, so can you. Don a buckskin and make like Pierre Elliot Trudeau: paddle down Canada’s mightiest of northern icons, Northwest Territories’ Nahanni River with Nahanni Wilderness Adventures or Nahanni River Adventures. 

Wiggle your toes on one of Canada’s undiscovered surf spots—Nootka Island, BC; 40 km (25 mi) of empty, world-class surf just off Vancouver Island. Overnight in treehouses with Tatchu Surf Adventures.

Five hours north of Toronto, ON, lies the quintessential Canadian canoe trip, replete with classic wood-and-canvas boats. A multi-day trip zigzags through a snake of interconnected lakes and rivers on the Canadian Shield, where canoeing dates back to the Temagami First Nations people, who plied the waters in birch-bark canoes long before you ever learned how to do a cross-bow draw with Temagami Clearwater Expeditions.