Québec
See a different side of Canada’s largest province — this winter, and beyond
Québec is massive. Over three times larger than Spain, it stretches from the glacial Hudson Strait in the northwest down to the windswept Iles de la Madeleine in the southeast.
With more than 30 national parks, 55+ downhill ski centres and some of the best food scenes in the country, the province will always offer visitors new secrets to uncover. There's a reason Travel + Leisure readers named Québec City and Montréal among Canada's top five city destinations in 2021.
Beauty on an epic scale
By Brittney Wong
Skiing, snowboarding
& après-ski life
Québec’s 400-centimetre snowfall and plethora of ski resorts positively spoils skiers and snowboarders eager to make fresh tracks. We picked our favourites to help you narrow your search.
Best all around: Tremblant is Québec’s most popular and decorated resort for a reason. Soar up the mountain on one of 14 lifts, zip back down on 102 trails and then enjoy perhaps the best après-ski experience in eastern North America at the European-style pedestrian village.
Hit the slopes
Over 13 feet of snow falls on Québec every year
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hit the slopes
more winter fun
vibrant cities
great outdoors
Best for black diamond-chasers: Located about an hour’s drive northeast of Québec City, Le Massif de Charlevoix boasts the highest vertical east of the Canadian Rockies. About 55% of its runs are marked as “difficult or “very difficult,” so veteran skiers won’t need to look far for a challenge. Conde Nast Traveller readers ranked it (and Tremblant) one of the top five ski resorts in Canada in 2021.
For a breakfast pastry: Mamiche
Packed with locals, this neighbourhood boulangerie (with outlets in the 9th and 10th arrondissements) was opened by two friends in 2017. The duo kneads sourdough and bakes brioche fresh every day. Focused on seasonal flavours and natural ingredients like living yeast, a return visit to this aromatic café will guarantee your palate something new, like a pumpkin beignet or summertime clafoutis. But they’re most well known for their sweet braided babka, woven with orange blossom and Valrhona chocolate.
Best for an all-inclusive experience: On Dec. 3, 2021, the all-inclusive resort operator Club Med opens its first Canadian outlet in Charlevoix, an hour and change northeast of Québec City and less than a half-hour drive from Le Massif de Charlevoix. All meals, drinks, activities and access to the 23-metre indoor pool, hammam and outdoor Jacuzzi are included in one package price.
See two countries from the peak of Owl's Head
On your next trip, maybe you’ll witness Québec under a fresh blanket of snow for the first time, explore a new part of the province or finally check off that bucket-list experience. With so much to do, there’s always another side to see in Canada's largest province.
Bromont, montagne d’expériences has 101 night-skiing runs
Best for families: Mont-Sainte-Anne's 71 trails and multiple snowparks offer a diverse split for all the beginners, intermediates and experts in your gang. And the daycare at the mountain’s base can take care of tots too young for the slopes.
Best for night skiing: The Eastern Township’s Bromont, montagne d’expériences resort lights up 101 different runs in peak season, earning it the title of largest night-skiing area in all of North America. It’s only an hour from Montreal, so you can go skiing for an evening before driving back to the city.
Best hidden gem: Owl’s Head is so close to the U.S. border that you can see both countries from the peak’s panoramic view. Carve downhill with views of Lake Memphremagog and relax at the laid-back, low-key chalet.
Ice fishing, skating and sliding
Québec doesn’t shy away from winter. The cold-weather months mean donning ice skates, breaking out the sled and licking a glistening maple taffy after a sugar-shack feast. There’s so much to enjoy once the calendar flips to December.
Best for a date: What could be more romantic than skating on a frozen labyrinth of trails deep in a snow-dusted pine forest? At Domaine Enchanteur, a farm area about halfway between Montréal and Québec City, you and a loved one can glide along 15 kilometres of intersecting, groomed ice paths, stopping periodically to pose with the on-site population of friendly alpacas, goats or deer.
More winter fun
Best for thrill-seekers: It’s no surprise Québec has a whopping 33,300 kilometres of marked snowmobile trails. After all, the first snowmobiles ever made wheeled out of the Bombardier factory in 1936. You can hop on one and fly through boreal forests and pristine snowfields all over the province, but our favourite spots are Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean's Monts Valin and Haute-Gaspésie. In both areas, you can get quality rentals, expert guides (if needed) and jaw-dropping views.
Best for families: A 45-minute drive from Montréal, Les Glissades du Domaine des Pays d’en Haut is the largest snow-sliding centre in the continent. Whoosh down 61 different slopes in a bobsled, tube or 12-person raft, or spin down in a Vortex 360 or Tornado, which rotates as it speeds down the snowy slide.
Best day trip: There’s something special about ice fishing. You and family or friends augur a hole into feet-deep ice, lower a line and catch up over a hot chocolate or beer. People have been doing this for centuries in Québec. From mid-December to March each year, ice-fishing huts pop up in rivers and lakes all around the province. Head to the frozen Saguenay Fjord to rent a colourful hut or be one of the 500 cabins that rise up on the Riviere-Sainte-Anne for the Tomcod Ice Fishing Festival in February.
Best for a sweet tooth: Maple syrup is part of Québec’s DNA. First Nations people collected sap from maple trees long before Europeans arrived on the continent, and today the province produces 72.9% of the world’s maple syrup (Québec Maple Syrup Producers).
Taste a bit of this sweet tradition at one of the 100+ sugar shacks dotting the province, where you can gorge on a maple meal of baked ham, pea soup, fried pork rinds, syrupy omelettes and hefty slices of tourtiere, capped off with just-poured maple taffy. Sugaring-off season typically runs from mid-February through April. We love going to the classic Sucrerie de la Montagne, a Québec heritage site about an hour outside of Montreal, for the traditional experience. For a high-end meal, check out Au Pied de Cochon, if you can snag a reservation!
Beauty in the province's extremes
Québec producers make 133 million pounds of maple syrup a year
Québec’s cities embody joie de vivre. They’re home to world-renowned jazz festivals, UNESCO sites and 30 of the country’s top 100 restaurants (Canada’s 100 Best 2020). And they light up in winter.
Montréal en Lumière has illuminated the city every winter for over 20 years. (It’s scheduled for Feb. 17-27 in 2022.) Festival-goers can race down urban slides, watch dazzling art installations or take in all the action from above on the towering Ferris wheel. And some of the city’s best restaurants break out special menus for the event.
Vibrant cities
Montréal is home to the oldest brewery in North America
Not like you need a reason to dive into Montréal’s foodie scene. Chefs focusing on historic traditions and multicultural cuisines are all over the city, so you can treat your taste buds to anything they desire, from honey-poached St-Viateur bagels and foie gras poutine to gourmet Argentine empanadas and 20-course, Cirque du Soleil-inspired omakase meals.
Lovers of lagers and ales can’t visit the city without trying some craft beer — after all, Montréal is home to the oldest brewery in all of North America (John Molson started brewing in 1786). Taste nine of the best beers with a local expert on a brewery-hopping tour.
To build up your appetite, stroll along boutique-lined Sainte-Catherine Street or spend a day gazing at delicate watercolours or Phoenician glass-blown flasks at the expansive Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, one of the top 15 most-visited museums in all of North America.
Want to step inside art itself? Head to OASIS immersion, Canada’s largest permanent immersive space at 2,200 square metres, where you can wander through galleries and light installations that pull you within the piece.
The toboggan in Dufferin Terrace whooshes at up to 70 kph
Québec City — while equally as foodie-focused and cultured as Montréal — exudes history. Walking around the UNESCO-recognized Old Québec feels like stepping into a different century. Start in Dufferin Terrace, overlooking the St. Lawrence River, where in the winter you can swoosh down a toboggan slide at up to 70 kilometres per hour while looking out at the water and the great Chateau Frontenac. After your ride, take a tour of the historic hotel that’s hosted everyone from Queen Elizabeth II and Charlie Chaplin to Céline Dion and Leonardo DiCaprio.
If you’re visiting around the holiday season, follow the twinkling Christmas lights and head to Quartier Petit Champlain, a pedestrian street lined with designer boutiques and cozy French bistros. In December, the entire area glows with glittering Christmas trees, strings of fairy lights and the season’s frost. And don’t miss the German Christmas Market for holiday gifts. You can sip mulled wine as you browse the 90 wooden stalls overflowing with sweet stollen, handmade ornaments, Nuremberg gingerbread and Angus beef terrines.
From January through March, drive about 25 minutes northwest of the city to see North America’s only ice hotel. Visitors can tour the property that’s created anew every year out of snow. Slide down the frozen slide, check out the igloo-like rooms and sip a cocktail at the bar from a glass made of ice. For a real bucket-list adventure, spend the night in one of the rooms or gorgeous themed suites, which have intricate designs like rushing waterfalls or Egyptian pharaohs carved delicately into the walls. Before you get tucked into warm sleeping bags on a real mattress (the beds are one of the few parts of the hotel that aren’t made out of ice), you can soak under the stars in the on-site hot tub or sauna.
Capitals of
culture & light
After living so long without travel, we’re craving wide-open expanses of otherworldly landscapes and novel experiences to pull us out of routine. Québec’s far corners fit the bill.
Nunavik, the province’s northernmost region, dazzles visitors with tundra moonscapes by day and the dancing northern lights at night. In winter you can cross-country ski over along the Hudson Bay coast in Parc national Tursujuq, which is roughly the size of Massachusetts, or kite-ski to a 1.4 million-year-old meteorite crater in Parc national des Pingualuit. Visit in summer to see the crater’s limpid waters, a perfect O of blue.
Great outdoors
Hike to a 1.4 million-year-old crater in Pingualuit (or kite-ski over it in winter)
Québec has over 30 national parks managed by Sépaq and Parks Canada
Every winter, from late February through early March, hundreds of thousands of cloud-white harp seals migrate to sea floes off the coast of Iles de la Madeleine to give birth to pups and mate. This Québec archipelago in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of only two whelping grounds for these Northwest Atlantic beauties.
Fly in a helicopter with Château Madelinot to these islets of sea ice. You’ll land where it’s safe, strap on some crampons and walk out to witness newborn pups nuzzling with their mothers or getting their first swimming lessons, a rare experience named one of National Geographic’s 25 best trips in the world in 2020. Limited spots are open for the 2022 season, scheduled for Feb. 25 - March 8.
Credit: Loïc Lagarde
Credit: A. Poulin/Facing Waves
Credit: Gaëlle Leroyer
Credit: Charles Mercier
Credit: Mathieu Dupuis
Credit: Loïc Lagarde
Credit: Francis Gagnon
Credit: Jean-François Hamelin
Credit: Jean-François Hamelin
Credit: Jean-François Hamelin
Credit: Gaëlle Leroyer
Credit: Linda Turgeon
Credit: Francis Gagnon
Credit: Francis Gagnon
Credit: Heiko Wittenborn
Credit: Jean-Guy Lavoie
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After living so long without travel, we’re craving wide-open expanses of otherworldly landscapes and novel experiences to pull us out of routine. Québec’s far corners fit the bill.
Nunavik, the province’s northernmost region, dazzles visitors with tundra moonscapes by day and the dancing northern lights at night. In winter you can cross-country ski over along the Hudson Bay coast in Parc national Tursujuq, which is roughly the size of Massachusetts, or kite-ski to a 1.4 million-year-old meteorite crater in Parc national des Pingualuit. Visit in summer to see the crater’s limpid waters, a perfect O of blue.
Québec’s cities embody joie de vivre. They’re home to world-renowned jazz festivals, UNESCO sites and 30 of the country’s top 100 restaurants (Canada’s 100 Best 2020). And they light up in winter.
Montréal en Lumière has illuminated the city every winter for over 20 years. (It’s scheduled for Feb. 17-27 in 2022.) Festival-goers can race down urban slides, watch dazzling art installations or take in all the action from above on the towering Ferris wheel. And some of the city’s best restaurants break out special menus for the event.
Best for a sweet tooth: Maple syrup is part of Québec’s DNA. First Nations people collected sap from maple trees long before Europeans arrived on the continent, and today the province produces 72.9% of the world’s maple syrup (Québec Maple Syrup Producers).
Taste a bit of this sweet tradition at one of the 100+ sugar shacks dotting the province, where you can gorge on a maple meal of baked ham, pea soup, fried pork rinds, syrupy omelettes and hefty slices of tourtiere, capped off with just-poured maple taffy. Sugaring-off season typically runs from mid-February through April. We love going to the classic Sucrerie de la Montagne, a Québec heritage site about an hour outside of Montreal, for the traditional experience. For a high-end meal, check out Au Pied de Cochon, if you can snag a reservation!
Québec doesn’t shy away from winter. The cold-weather months mean donning ice skates, breaking out the sled and licking a glistening maple taffy after a sugar-shack feast. There’s so much to enjoy once the calendar flips to December.
Best for a date: What could be more romantic than skating on a frozen labyrinth of trails deep in a snow-dusted pine forest? At Domaine Enchanteur, a farm area about halfway between Montréal and Québec City, you and a loved one can glide along 15 kilometres of intersecting, groomed ice paths, stopping periodically to pose with the on-site population of friendly alpacas, goats or deer.
Best for families: Mont-Sainte-Anne's 71 trails and multiple snowparks offer a diverse split for all the beginners, intermediates and experts in your gang. And the daycare at the mountain’s base can take care of tots too young for the slopes.
Best for night skiing: The Eastern Township’s Bromont, montagne d’expériences resort lights up 101 different runs in peak season, earning it the title of largest night-skiing area in all of North America. It’s only an hour from Montreal, so you can go skiing for an evening before driving back to the city.
Best hidden gem: Owl’s Head is so close to the U.S. border that you can see both countries from the peak’s panoramic view. Carve downhill with views of Lake Memphremagog and relax at the laid-back, low-key chalet.
Québec’s 400-centimetre snowfall and plethora of ski resorts positively spoils skiers and snowboarders eager to make fresh tracks. We picked our favourites to help you narrow your search.
Best all around: Tremblant is Québec’s most popular and decorated resort for a reason. Soar up the mountain on one of 14 lifts, zip back down on 102 trails and then enjoy perhaps the best après-ski experience in eastern North America at the European-style pedestrian village.
Québec is massive. Over three times larger than Spain, it stretches from the glacial Hudson Strait in the northwest down to the windswept Iles de la Madeleine in the southeast.
With more than 30 national parks, 55+ downhill ski centres and some of the best food scenes in the country, the province will always offer visitors new secrets to uncover. There's a reason Travel + Leisure readers named Québec City and Montréal among Canada's top five city destinations in 2021.