Are the Ryans (Gosling and Reynolds) haunting your dreams? Does the smell of boreal forest make you want to raise a large family? Do you have 10 Canadian dollars? If so, you need our guide to mating with Canucks

When the Canadian immigration website crashed on the night of the US election, it underlined how difficult it can be to move to Canada – unless of course you’ve got $800,000 and want to live in Quebec.

There is, however, a shortcut to permanent residency: if you cohabit with a Canadian citizen for a year or more, they can sponsor you.

Despite what you may have heard, however, Canadians guard their, uh, resources carefully. Here’s how to get your “foot” in the “door”.

Location, location, location

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera in This Is the End. Photograph: Columbia/Sportsphoto/Allstar

Unlike Australians, Ethiopians and in fact every other nationality, Canadians don’t tend to congregate in neighbourhoods. No city on Earth has a Little Canada.

Canadians do, however, require shelter like other human beings: try Gumtree or Craigslist and you might be able to attract one to your house. They are sometimes spotted near youth hostels, sports bars and political protests.

If that fails, note that they’re also more susceptible to cold – all that time spent behind double-glazed windows in super-insulated homes has made them soft. So provide sources of warmth: log fires, hot chocolate and hugs. Canadians love a hug.

Use a Canadian dating app

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

If you can’t locate a Canadian IRL, there are a number of dating apps and websites that can help. Maple Match is the most popular, but there’s also Date a Canadian, or if you live near one of Canada’s many porous borders you could set your Tinder search radius really wide.

Alternatively, just swipe right every time you see anyone wearing a hockey jersey. Which brings us to...

Pick a hockey team

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera and Ellen Page in Juno

Ladies, take note: Canadian men are genetically incapable of resisting a woman wearing a hockey sweater that’s 900 sizes too big for her. Let those cuffs really trail on the floor.

Guys: you might want to consider knocking out a couple of your front teeth. Canadian ladies love it.

If you actually go ice skating together, get used to people saying your new Canadian partner “skates like an angel”. Otherwise you’ll go bright red from embarrassment as they take the compliment as a suggestion to ever-so-casually do pirouettes around the ice, their three-pointed fleece hat streaming behind them.

Oh and they call it “pleasure skating”, just FYI.

Layer

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera and Jack Black in Year One

Canadians are rugged outdoorsy types, so get used to hiking. But if there’s one thing that annoys them, it’s sexual partners dressing inappropriately for excursions, such as wearing cotton next to the skin or thinking a fleece is going to keep out the wind.

Mock Canada

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. Photograph: Kerry Hayes/AP

The best thing about negging Canucks is that their national identity is so fluid you can basically just poke fun of anything. For example, when they take a sip of water: “You Canadians love your water!” (They really do drink a lot of water, actually.)



Break out the Canadian tuxedo



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera in Magic Magic. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Braven Films

Canadians invented normcore. What you mistakenly take for bad dress sense is, in fact, a fashion as forward as the future. (RIP Wheels, you absolute don.) Better get on that train to north of nowhere before it leaves you at the non-Canadian station. Speaking of this, when is Sun Ice going to make a comeback?



Be gender-fluid

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera at the Fox Network’s TCA Summer Tour Party at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, California, on Monday 22 July 2002. Photograph: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

With Canada now offering foreign visitors the ability to designate an “other” gender option on identity documents, it’s getting pretty uncool to be too much of one thing. Do you think noted Canadian vamp Elvira, Mistress of the Dark wants you to come in all macho? Which sexual demographic is Justin Trudeau really going for with all that shirtlessness if not all of them? And can you even tell which of former Canadian celebricouple Chavril (Chad Kroeger and Avril Lavigne) is female?

Cook with maple syrup

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Cera at the 2013 Sundance film festival. Photograph: Victoria Will/Invision/AP

The easiest step of all. Just pour it into literally anything. Fish, bacon, porridge, milk, eggs, quinoa. I challenge you to think of something it doesn’t go with. Great for cocktails, too. Plus it’s a lubricant, isn’t it? Yes it is. Top tip: use birch syrup on hipsters. They are powerless to resist.

If all else fails

Just wear this.