I am gutting and removing all exterior and interior walls on my 1/2 top
floor completely and going with a full story.

My question is this.

When the exterior walls are built by the contractor, is it normal to just
nail the exterior walls into the top (header maybe) of the main floor walls?
I am wondering if this is typical and enough strength wise since I live in
the east coast of Canada and we often get high winds (tail ends of
Hurricanes - 90 - 130 km/hr) during hurricane season. We actually were hit
directly by Hurricane Juan (Cat 1 - 2) and last hurricane season
(summer/fall of 07) we had wind gusts from a tropical depression up to 130
km/hr.

I am wondering if the exterior walls should be bolted down with a big type
of lag bolt. Is just nailing the exterior walls typical and enough strength
wise?