If you will be participating in the Vancouver portion of the PNW Fest, here are details on currency exchange between the USA and Canada. From now until July, I will try to keep the rates current once or twice a week. They will change slightly at the end of every business day. As of now, the US and Canadian dollars are inching towards parity.

You will get your best exchange rates at Canadian banks.

While not an issue in Canada, for those of you ever heading to Europe, do not take over US Currency. Both the former eastern Bloc countries and North Korea especially are doing a huge amount of counterfeiting of US Currency, esp US $50 and $100 bills. These are routinely rejected in Eurpoe. take travellers cheques.

Better still, take you bank card that works with Cirrus or Plus. You will get the best rates at the ATMs. I have not touched a travelers check or taken cash along except for very small amounts for emergency in the last 10 years and I do 3 to 6 international trips every year. My bank card has worked quite well in all of Europe, India, Singapore, Thailand, Israel, Japan, China+Hong Kong, and of course everywhere that I have been to in the Americas including Canada.

As of now, the Canadian dollar is doing better than the US dollar. It may change back the other way, but for now, a US dollar is only worth about 93 Canadian cents, and a Canadian dollar is worth $1.08 in US currency. I'll try to keep this page more current as we move closer to the trip.

Kevin,

You've got it backwards, the US dollar is stronger than the Canadian. If I convert 1 US dollar into Canadian funds, I'll get $1.0766 back in Canadian funds. That's of course before any conversion fees.

Kevin has it right. The converson has reversed within the last week. Today if you convert $100 to Canadian you will get C$94.83.

Or, maybe not. My currency widget shows the Canadian dollar stronger than the US dollar. But, actual currency sites (MSN, for one) are showing the opposite.

It's a sad state of affairs when you cannot trust a widget.

I'm using the chart on this page, but let's wait until the market settles for May 25th, since it shows a different amount than it did when I checked it for the 24th several hours ago.

Using that chart that you linked to, read down the US colum to find what you'd get in Canadian dollars. The amount shown under the Canadian colum is what the US will give you for a Canadian dollar.

Further confirmation of this can be obtained by clicking on the Currency Calculator link on the top left. There you can enter $1 US and ask it to convert to $1 Canadian. Set the "convert" field to US and the "into" field to Canadian. As of 4:50 PM that shows that one US dollar would buy $1.08026 CDN.

Actually US dollar is at its highest level vs Canadian Dollar in the last 120 days today.

It is also at its highest level relative to Israeli New Shekel today in the last 120 days which is good news for me, since I will have to convert at least some dollars into ILS on Saturday.

A few years back, the Canadian Dollar was at about 66 cents. That devalued C$ meant that Canadian manufacturers such as Bombardier had a huge hidden subsidy - and could export their products readily. As the C$ inches back towards parity, those rail cars from Bombardier get ever more expensive. The currency change alone has apparently wiped out Bombardier's net income last year (or so I heard, I did not look at the numbers) for their Domestic production. The answer: buy up plants in other lands to compete. Thus, Bombardier just purchased seven (?) railcar factories in Europe, to take the sting out of the appreciated Euro. the plant just South of the Border in Plattsburgh NY is closing as the US contract it supplied is ending. You see how currency fluctuations dictate where the jobs go, in a duty-free world.

I believe Bombardier also partly owns a manufacturing plant in India in collaboration with some Indian outfit for manufacturing equipment for the Indian market (e.g. cars for Delhi Metro). In addition it has licensed technology to Indian Railways for use in manufacturing electric locomotives in IR's Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, and currently the WAP-5, WAP-7 and WAG-9 class engines manufactured there use these licenses. Similarly Bombardier has licensed technology to China for local manufacturing in that country.