The US has a reputation for being "a nation of immigrants," and stories abound in both popular media and in people's own family histories of the common American immigrant story -- leaving the Old Country at some point between 1800 - 1950, coming through Ellis Island or California, and integrating into the fabric of the country.
It seems like Canada has been fairly similar to the US for most of its history: settled by Europeans, with almost unlimited physical space for homesteaders, strong economy, etc. Is there a reason that Canada doesn't have the same immigrant "story" as the US? Is it the case that immigration was similar in Canada but the US is simply the more commonly told story, or was the US truly a more popular destination for some reason?
Canada and the US have very similar immigration stories. The American story is more well known largely because it happened on a larger scale.
A significant reason for immigration to the US was the huge availability of arable land. Canada as a whole has only about 4.5% arable land, while the US has 18%. Because of less arable land, especially in earlier occupied regions (Ottawa valley, Quebec, Ontario) many immigrants were involved with logging and mining. If you compare the prairies of Canada to the American Midwest, you see similar communities of Dutch, German, and Scandinavian people that survive to this day. Significant Irish and Scottish communities in Montreal and Toronto and most of rural Ontario. Irish immigrants were especially used for large projects like the Rideau Canal system.
Pier 21 in Halifax served a similar function to Ellis island, with thousands of immigrants entering Canada through there every year. BC and the Yukon both had gold rushes in the 1800s, leading to significant westward migration. BC saw huge immigration from Asia, and many of those immigrants were used to build the transcontinental railroad.
Proportionally, a larger portion of the population is from the UK (~45% in Canada ~20% in the US, ignoring those who identify as "Canadian") as opposed to continental European nations.
Generally immigration in Canada followed very similar lines as that in America, but there are some differences that give Canadian immigrant stories a bit of a different flavour.
Are you talking about Quebec or English Canada? Immigration patterns were quite different.
Check out this comment about population development from another question.
Credit to /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit