I recently took a university group north of the city to the Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier. If you haven’t been there, you’re in for a treat! The park is a vast expanse of boreal forest managed by the provincial park service and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. It is less
Under the Giant Rocks Read More »
November 1st, 2019: The last time tourists stepped off a cruise ship to visit the cobbled, historic streets of the Vieille Capitale. Fast-forward 29 months. Fast-forward through the appearance of a new and unpredictable virus, and its many variants. Through months of social distancing and confinement. Through the fits and starts of repeated attempts to
Old Québec is ready and looking better than ever. We cannot wait to see you!
Ready, and looking better than ever Read More »
When the leaves are at their peak in the first days of October, Québec City tour guides head toward the water. There, parked along the wharves of the Lower Town, are the cruise ships that converge on the St. Lawrence River Valley to give their clients a front-row seat for the autumn show. Boatloads of
When the first three Augustine nuns sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1639, Québec City was no more than a fur-trading post. There were a handful of rustic commercial buildings by the river and, up on the hill, a small fort, a chapel, and a scattering of isolated dwellings. Part of a religious community from
The Magdalen Islands are a hook-shaped archipelago in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Distant from the Canadian mainland, this string of eight islands is a part of the Province of Québec that is accessible only by ferry and airplane I had the pleasure of going there last month with a curious and
The Magdalen Islands Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, I took a group of students from the Maritimes dogsledding on Québec’s south shore. The weather was perfect: warm enough to keep the eighth graders comfortable, cold enough to keep the canines cool. The snow was ideal as well: abundant and slick, with fresh flakes falling gently from above. The sleds moved easily
The numbers for 2017 are coming in and we are discovering that it has been a banner year for Québec City. Tourists came by the hundreds of thousands to see the la Vieille Capitale. In fact, they came in record numbers, surpassing even 2008 – the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city and the
In the last few days, those of us who work in the tourism industry in Québec have seen our social media dominated by the latest promotional video from the provincial tourism office. Always looking for new ways to show off la Belle Province, they have created a video that looks at the subject from a
The Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park is a maritime wildlife refuge three hours to the northeast of Québec City. 1200 square kilometers large, it harbors and protects the flora and fauna of the salty St. Lawrence River estuary. Among the marine species abundant there are half a dozen different types of whale that summer in the deep
Rolling in the Deep Read More »