1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (128 page)

At the southern end of Massawippi, in the town of Ayer’s Cliff, Auberge Ripplecove sits directly on the lake, a testament to its beginnings as a 1940s fishing resort. In its modern incarnation, Ripplecove is the most hotel-like of the Massawippi inns, focusing in summer on
golf, water sports, tennis, hiking, and horseback riding, and in winter on alpine and cross-country skiing. The 35 rooms are uniformly warm, cozy, and charmingly decorated, about half with fireplaces, balconies, and whirlpools.

Lake Massawippi’s wintertime offerings include dogsledding.

W
HERE
: 100 miles/161 km southeast of Montreal.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-355-5755 or 819-820-2020;
www.easterntownships.org
.
H
OVEY
M
ANOR
: Tel 800-661-2421 or 819-842-2421;
www.manoirhovey.com
.
Cost:
from US$110/C$130 (off-peak), from US$127/C$150 (peak) per person, double occupancy, includes dinner.
A
UBERGE
R
IPPLECOVE
: Ayer’s Cliff. Tel 800-668-4296 or 819-838-4296;
www.ripplecove.com
.
Cost:
from US$115/C$129 (off-peak), from US$137/C$153 (peak) per person, double occupancy, includes dinner.
B
EST TIMES
: June–Sept for fishing and boating; July for North Hatley Antique Show; 1st week of Oct for foliage.

Celebrating Winter’s Chill

Quebec City, Quebec

In winter’s midst—partly in defiance, partly in celebration—Quebec City springs to life during the Quebec Winter Carnival (Carnaval de Québec), with over two weeks of music, parades, winter sports, and high spirits serving as
Quebec City’s Mardi Gras. The world’s largest winter carnival—the event attracts more than a million festivalgoers—owes some of its feistiness to a traditional beverage called the Caribou, a mixture of brandy, vodka, sherry, and port, though there are plenty of events that cater to the whole family.

Presiding over the carnival is Bonhomme, a snowmanlike creature who serves as festival mascot, master of ceremonies, and mythical resident of the Ice Palace, an enormous castle built entirely of snow and ice near the Quebec Parliament building. A high point of the carnival is the snow sculpture competition at Place Loto-Québec, while from the ramparts of Dufferin Terrace, adults and children whiz down icy chutes on toboggans. The narrow streets of Vieux-Québec ring with the musher’s cries as La Grande Virée dogsled-ding competition circles the city, and after downing a few fortifying Caribous, hardy Quebecois engage in the annual Snow Bath by stripping down to their Speedos in front of a raucous outdoor crowd and diving into a snowdrift. Even more daring is the annual canoe race, in which paddlers race across the ice-choked St. Lawrence River.

Teams from around the world give life to blocks of snow at the International Snow Sculpture event.

While all Vieux-Québec hotels put on a festive air, there’s no more appropriate place to make reservations than the Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada, a 30,000-square-foot hotel constructed each winter of ice and snow. Located on the shores of Lake St. Joseph, 30 minutes west of Quebec City, the hotel offers 32 guest rooms and suites, and includes a wedding chapel, two
art galleries and exhibition space, a Nordic-style spa with hot tubs and sauna, plus a bar and nightclub—all fashioned anew each year from 12,000 tons of snow and 400 tons of ice. Admittedly it’s not an overnight choice for everyone, but at least make time to visit, and perhaps have something cool to drink—in an ice glass, of course—at the Ice Bar.

Q
UEBEC
W
INTER
C
ARNIVAL
: Tel 866-422-7628 or 418-626-3716;
www.carnaval.qc.ca
.
When:
late Jan–early Feb.
I
CE
H
OTEL
Q
UEBEC
-C
ANADA
: Ste-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier. Tel 877-505-0423 or 418-875-4522;
www.icehotel-canada.com
.
Cost:
from US$137/C$159 per person, double occupancy.
When:
early Jan–early Apr.

Old France in the New World

Quebec City, Quebec

Once capital of New France and a fur-trading empire that stretched west to the Rocky Mountains, Quebec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America, and the continent’s only walled city north
of Mexico. Perched on Cap Diamant, a rocky promontory above the St. Lawrence River, Quebec City was established in 1608 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain. The walls of Vieux-Québec (Old Quebec) didn’t stop the British troops of General James Wolfe, who took the city after a two-month siege in 1759, ending France’s colonial aspirations in eastern North America.

Quebec City reflects its French birthright in thousands of ways, both obvious and subtle: cobbled streets with outdoor cafés, slate-roofed stone houses, patisseries, and an attitude toward life that’s at once studied and playful. Vieux-Québec is divided into the Haute-Ville and Basse-Ville (upper and lower towns), designations that are now simply geographic but were once economic and strategic. Haute-Ville is the fortified city that occupies the crest of Cap Diamant. At the base of Cap Diamant, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, was Basse-Ville, lined with warehouses and other necessities of the river trade.

Filled with old-world atmosphere, Haute-Ville is best explored on foot. Winding, hilly streets lined by vintage stone houses and chic boutiques give onto leafy public squares, with glimpses of the St. Lawrence in the distance. The Citadel occupies the highest crag of Cap Diamant, a still-militarized fortification constructed by the English against U.S. invasion during the War of 1812. From the Terrasse Dufferin viewpoint, take the Escallier Casse-Cou (the aptly named Breakneck Stairs) or the funicular to Basse-Ville, the old port district. The center of life in Basse-Ville is Place Royale, the city’s public market area since the 17th century.

Situated on the cape overlooking the Saint Lawrence River, the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac offers the best views in town.

Without a doubt the best place to spend the night is the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. Designed in the style of a Loire Valley château and looking as if it has stood here forever, it was built in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway on the highest point in town. Outside, it’s all stone-and-brick turrets, green copper roofs, and dormered windows, while inside its labyrinthine corridors lead through various wings built over a hundred-year span with total stylistic consistency. Book an odd-numbered room in the main tower for a view of the St. Lawrence River, or an even-numbered room for a panorama of the city’s rooftops—probably the most European vista this side of Paris.

V
ISITOR
I
NFO
: Tel 877-266-5687 or 514-873-2015;
www.bonjourquebec.com
.
F
AIRMONT
L
E
C
HÂTEAU
F
RONTENAC
: Tel 800-441-1414 or 418-692-3861;
www.fairmont.com/frontenac
.
Cost:
from US$132/C$150 (off-peak), from US$149/C$170 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: late Jan–early Feb for Carnaval de Québec (see p. 1020); July–Sept for best weather.

A
LBERTA
• B
RITISH
C
OLUMBIA
• M
ANITOBA
• N
ORTHWEST
T
ERRITORIES
• S
ASKATCHEWAN
• T
HE
Y
UKON

The Canadian Rockies’ Top Destination

Alberta

Summon a mental image of the Canadian Rockies: towering, glacier-clad peaks; turquoise blue lakes; grand, castellated hotels; and ambling moose, bear, and mountain sheep. The vision’s reality is Banff National Park,
the very archetype of Canadian wilderness, and one of several federal and provincial parks that form the Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, one of the largest protected areas in the world. Banff was Canada’s very first national park, incorporated as a tiny 10-square-mile parcel in 1885 and now grown into a 2,656-square-mile giant that’s Canada’s No. 1 tourist destination. Banff’s most famed beauty spot, jaw-droppingly dramatic Lake Louise (see next page) is only one of many stunning sights and recreational destinations in this beloved park.

In fact, Moraine Lake, 8 miles south of Lake Louise, is considered by many to be the most beautiful of all. Certainly it’s a much less crowded, less commercialized experience than Lake Louise; you might even find yourself alone on the hiking trail that skirts the sapphire lake’s north shore beneath soaring 10,000-foot peaks.