Here in Ottawa spiders seem rare. The only ones I've seen are small black ones and mid-sized light-brown ones in the house and usually in the winter. My cat usually takes care of them.

Well there aren't many in my bit of Ontario. Dock spiers are huge apparently but I have never seen one.

I am snake phobic to the extent that writing this is making me feel queasy. I knew there were snakes here so tried to get used to them by trying to look at pictures of them, even touch the photo. Yep it's that bad. I can now see one without fzinting or vomiting. Try a it of therapy and see how you do

Oh, bats, mon amie, deux typos en meme temps.

Trois je crois

Nunawho? Been on the aquavit?

She was feeling queasy! Actually bats my son is like you, and it's bizzare cos he's only 12 and had never had a nasty experience with a snake, but if they are on the television he hyperventilates and gets very badly upset.

it seems that across the board there dont seem to be many spider sightings in Canada.....
im just slightly concerned that they are actually being seen just mistaken for small mammals due to their size lol

I went to University in Victoria BC and lived in a basement suite. On the first night there, the place seemed to be crawling with spiders. And big ones. At least big compared to what I was use to. I was almost ready to move after one day there.

So... if you hate spiders that much, I would not recommend Victoria. Or at least don't live in a basement there.

I see spiders from time to time in Calgary but never anything to be afraid of.

The first two photos are of a common house spider and this one was found on the coat hook in the basement.
The others are of the 'cat faced spider' or Orbweaver. They seem to be fairly common here and they tend to get fatter as opposed to bigger. I think they are all harmless.
I live in SE BC, in the Kootenays.

I have yet to see any dangerous spiders in Vancouver, BC. Small, harmless daddy long legs and whatnot yes, but that's about it. However if you go out to the rural areas like the Okanogan then perhaps you would find bigger spiders up there. You wouldn't happen to have a case of arachnophobia would you?

I grep up in the Okanagan and no big spiders there. They were bigger in Victoria. You will find black widows there though. Not deadly to people but painful I hear (plus the creep factor).

I havent seen any in our house in the almost 2 years we have been here, none in the bath like in England or creeping along the edge of the room (shudder)
We did have an orb-weaver (we googled) outside the kitchen window for a while that was named Charlotte by the kids (naturally!) but she wasnt that big. I havent seen anything big.
Occaisionally we get the little long legged harvesters in the pool (like the daddy long legs), I think thats an error on their part.

It's certainly looking that way from posts so far.

I haven't seen a single spider, in the house, bigger than my little finger nail - including the legs.

Mrs BristolUK will catch sight of a money spider on the wall and freeze. She won't relax until I have disposed of it.

But I've been here (Moncton) nearly 8 years and don't think I've seen more than half a dozen in the house and just a few outside.

June bugs, however, are a different beast.

Oh...and if you see a web like thing wrapped around leaves on the tree, it's nothing to do with spiders. I don't remember what it was but, boy, did that set off a panic.

ive seen one small one in my basement and I've been here in Calgary since april last year.