By the numbers
The Queen has made 22 official visits to Canada during her reign, and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has been present for most of them. He's also made several official visits on his own, though these began to wind down in the 1990s in favour of personal working visits to the charities and organizations he supports.
Ontario is the province he's visited most often in that time, with Ottawa and Toronto being the most common destinations. But his next-most-visited community, he's usually seen only from the airport: Gander, Nfld., a refuelling stop for many of the royals' worldwide tours and travels. Gander was the first place in Canada Prince Philip visited during the Queen's reign, for a one-and-a-half-hour stopover during the 1953 Commonwealth tour.
Through the years
Prince Philip's travels in Canada have included several openings of Parliament, the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and the opening of Commonwealth Games in Vancouver (1954), Edmonton (1978) and Victoria (1994).
The Queen and Prince Philip are pictured in Schefferville, Que., on on June 20, 1959, as they listen to explanation on the workings of an iron ore mine.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Queen and Prince Philip board their Air Canada plane on July 1, 1973, at Malton Airport in Toronto after seeing the Queen’s Plate race at Woodbine.
JACK DOBSON/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The Queen and Prince Philip stand in the Senate Chamber on Parliament Hill during their visit to Ottawa on April 17, 1982, when the Queen signed the Constitution Act.
FRED CHARTRAND/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Queen and Prince Philip watch performers wearing cowboy hats during the official departure ceremony at the Saddledome on May 25, 2005, in Calgary with then governor-general Adrienne Clarkson and her husband John Ralston Saul in the background.
PAUL CHIASSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Prince Philip entrusts new regimental colours to Lieutenant Bronson Peacock from the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment at a Queen’s Park ceremony in Toronto on April 27, 2013.
FRED THORNHILL/REUTERS
In his own words
Prince Philip, known for gaffes and insults in his public appearances at home and abroad, made a few memorable wisecracks in Canada.
In 1969, he forgot the name of the annex he was dedicating at Vancouver City Hall mid-ceremony ("It gives me great pleasure to declare this thing open, whatever it is"). On the same visit, he apologized to Calgarians for his jaded response to their gift of a white cowboy hat ("not another one. You must give out dozens of these things"), which he suggested to reporters that he could use as a flower pot or to carry water.
Then there's this one from 1976:
We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves.
Winding down
With both the Queen and Prince Philip in their 90s, international travel has been delegated to their children and grandchildren over the past few years. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, are coming to Canada this summer for the country's 150th anniversary festivities.
Despite his retirement, Prince Philip will remain a patron, president or member of some 780 organizations, Buckingham Palace said in a statement Thursday, "although he will no longer play an active role by attending engagements."
Canadian organizations that Prince Philip is involved with include the Naval Officers' Association of Canada, the Outward Bound Trust, the Royal Canadian Yacht Club and the Canadian Curling Association. He is also a "special visitor" at Upper Canada College, an elite private school in Toronto.
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