As Canadians look to travel closer to home this summer, I am posting province-by-province recommendations of some unique experiences and attractions that can be had in this great land of ours. Since I call Quebec home, I’ll start with la Belle Province.
While the culinary scene and festivals of Montreal and the historic streets of Quebec City get a lot of attention from visitors, Quebec is so vast that there are plenty of lesser-known experiences that deserve a spot on your radar. Here are three that fascinate me:
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Sleep with wolves at Aventuraid
In the forests of Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean near the tiny town of Girardville, Gilles Granal invites guests to sleep with wolves. Not in some metaphorical, Jack London sort of way, but in actual cabins built inside a wolf enclosure. Granal’s passion for animal welfare motivated him to build Aventuraid more than 20 years ago, a wildlife sanctuary and ecotourism site where visitors can spend the night beside semi-wild wolf packs, separated by just a fence and a pane of glass.
Granal realized that giving guests the chance to stay the night and spend more time near the animals lets them observe more of their behaviours which fits with his mission to demystify them.
“The wolf has a reputation of being aggressive because it’s a predator, a hunter, but that’s its role in the ecosystem,” says Granal. “Stories of wolf attacks have been very few, maybe from a sick or starving animal, but usually they are very shy animals.”
The wolves remain wary, as they should, but curious. Watching them move in the twilight, hearing them howl under a full moon, these are primal experiences that stir something ancient in the human brain. And the best part? You’re part of it, but never the center of it.
Explore the tragedy of the Empress of Ireland, Canada’s Titanic
Before the Titanic dominated maritime lore, there was the Empress of Ireland, a Canadian ocean liner that sank near Rimouski in 1914, claiming over a thousand lives. Despite the fact that it is the worst naval disaster in Canadian history, it’s barely remembered, but a museum near Rimouski is keeping the memory of that terrible event alive.
The Empress of Ireland Museum at Pointe-au-Père tells the story of this devastating tragedy with haunting detail, including personal effects pulled from the wreck, survivor stories and multimedia exhibits that walk you through the fog-shrouded night the ship went down.
Adjacent to the museum, you’ll find the Onondaga, a decommissioned submarine you can board for a fascinating look at naval life in a different era. Pointe-au-Père is also home to one of Canada’s prettiest lighthouses which is also the second tallest in the country. Visitors are encouraged to huff and puff their way up the winding staircase to the top for a stunning view of the mighty Saint Lawrence River, which is so wide here that it almost looks like the ocean.
Take the road less travelled by driving through Quebec to the Trans-Labrador Highway
For the intrepid traveller, driving to Labrador from Quebec via Route 389 and the Trans-Labrador Highway is the ultimate road trip. This lonely stretch of road passes through some of the most remote and rugged landscapes in Canada. While the entire stretch of the highway in Labrador is now paved, significant portions of the Quebec route are still gravel and often muddy, which only adds to the sense of adventure.
Because there are few services along the way and cell service is sporadic, it shouldn’t be your first choice for a casual family road trip. It is perfect for those who crave a real sense of adventure and it’s certainly a route that requires advance planning. Those who do take the time to prepare then embark on this journey are rewarded by frequent wildlife sightings, postcard-perfect scenes of vast northern wilderness and a kind of solitude you won’t find on any bustling highway.
One of the highlights along this road is a visit to Manic-5, a massive hydroelectric dam that is one of the most awe-inspiring feats of engineering in North America that almost no one talks about. From the road, it looks like the set of a sci-fi film set in the brutalist era.
