Travel and Tourism in Canada

Quebec City and the Province of Quebec

Quebec City is unlike any other city in North America. Founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 on a dramatic promontory above the St. Lawrence River, it is the oldest city in Canada and the only walled city north of Mexico. Old Quebec, known in French as Vieux-Quebec, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 in recognition of its extraordinary concentration of historic architecture, its intact fortifications, and its status as the cradle of French civilization in North America. Walking through its streets is as close as the Western Hemisphere comes to walking through a medieval European city, with cobblestone alleys, stone walls, wrought iron lanterns, and the constant drama of the river gorge below.

The undisputed icon of Quebec City is the Chateau Frontenac, the castle-like hotel that crowns the headland above the St. Lawrence and is arguably the most photographed hotel in the world. Built in stages from 1893, the hotel was designed in the Chateauesque architectural style that became a signature of the Canadian Pacific Railway's grand hotels. Its copper-roofed turrets, its massive stone walls, and its commanding position above the river make it one of the most dramatically sited buildings in Canada. Even non-guests should walk its public spaces and take the Dufferin Terrace promenade along the cliff top for views of the river and the surrounding countryside that have been captivating visitors for over a century.

Petit-Champlain, the lower town neighborhood clustered at the base of the cliff below the Chateau, claims the distinction of being the oldest commercial street in North America. Its narrow lanes are lined with stone buildings dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, now housing boutiques, galleries, cafes, and restaurants that serve as a genuinely pleasant introduction to the pleasures of French-Canadian life. A funicular links the lower town to the upper, providing the most dramatic short vertical journey in Canada.

The Plains of Abraham, the battlefield where Wolfe and Montcalm met their ends in 1759, now forms one of the most atmospheric urban parks in North America. Maintained as Battlefields Park, it extends along the cliff top west of the old city and contains memorials, interpretive sites, and sweeping views of the river. In summer it fills with cyclists, joggers, and picnickers. In winter, it hosts cross-country skiing and toboggan runs. The Musee des Plaines d'Abraham, within the park, tells the story of the battle and its consequences with particular thoroughness and balance.

The Carnaval de Quebec, held every February, is the world's largest winter carnival and one of the most unique festivals in North America. It was established in 1955 to lift civic spirits during the harshest months of winter, and it succeeds magnificently. For two weekends and the week between them, the old city fills with hundreds of thousands of visitors who come for the ice sculptures, the night parades, the canoe race across the ice-floe-choked St. Lawrence, the snow slides and ice palaces, and the general spirit of defiant celebration in the face of temperatures that would keep most people indoors. The carnival's mascot, Bonhomme, a large friendly snowman figure, presides over events with cheerful authority. The experience of being at the Quebec Winter Carnival on a crisp February night, with the Chateau Frontenac lit against the sky and the city full of revelers, is one that stays with a traveler for years.

Montmorency Falls, located in a provincial park just east of Quebec City, is a revelation to many visitors who come expecting something merely decorative. The falls are actually higher than Niagara, dropping 83 meters compared to Niagara's 57 meters, though they carry far less water. In winter, the spray from the falls creates a natural ice cone, the Pain de Sucre (Sugar Loaf), that can rise twenty or thirty meters from the base of the falls and becomes a destination for ice climbers. A suspension bridge crosses above the falls, and a cable car and zipline provide additional ways to experience the drama of the site.

The Ile d'Orleans, a large island in the St. Lawrence River just downstream from Quebec City, is one of the most rewarding half-day or full-day excursions from the city. Six distinct parishes line its shores, their farmhouses and churches dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in some cases. The island produces an extraordinary range of agricultural products, including the maple syrup and maple products for which it is most famous, as well as strawberries, apples, wine, and artisan cheese. Farm stands and small producers dot the main circuit road, and the views back toward Quebec City and the river are consistently spectacular. The island has resisted much of the development pressure from the nearby city and retains a genuinely rural character that feels remarkably authentic.

Montreal, located some 270 kilometers southwest of Quebec City along the St. Lawrence, is one of the great cities of North America and occupies a unique cultural position as a French-speaking metropolis that is also profoundly cosmopolitan. With over four million people in the metropolitan area, it is the second largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris, and it functions as the cultural and intellectual capital of French Canada. The city occupies a large island in the St. Lawrence and is dominated by Mount Royal, the small extinct volcano that gives the city its name.

Vieux-Montreal, the old city district along the waterfront, is distinguished by its cobblestone streets, its magnificent nineteenth-century architecture, and the extraordinary Notre-Dame Basilica, one of the most beautiful churches in North America. The basilica, completed in 1829 in the Gothic Revival style, has an interior of extraordinary richness, with its blue and gold vaulted ceiling, its carved wooden altarpiece, and the massive Casavant organs. Celine Dion was married here. The Pointe-a-Calliere archaeology museum, built directly above and around the ruins of the original 1642 settlement of Ville-Marie, is one of the finest archaeological museums in Canada, with a particularly compelling film presentation beneath the original archaeological layers.

Montreal is perhaps most celebrated in the wider world for its extraordinary festival culture. The Montreal Jazz Festival, held over approximately eleven days at the end of June and beginning of July, is the largest jazz festival in the world, attracting over three million visitors with hundreds of outdoor concerts that are largely free. The free outdoor stages on the Quartier des Spectacles plaza are the heart of the festival, where on a warm summer evening enormous crowds gather to hear world-class jazz and related music under the open sky in an atmosphere that captures everything that is wonderful about Montreal. Just For Laughs, held in July, is the world's largest comedy festival, bringing stand-up and sketch comedy performers from around the world to venues across the city. Osheaga, a major rock and popular music festival held in late July in Parc Jean-Drapeau on an island in the St. Lawrence, draws major international headliners to one of the most scenic festival sites in North America.

Montreal's food culture is one of the most distinctive in North America and has generated debates that Montrealers pursue with passionate conviction. Poutine, the combination of french fries, fresh cheese curds, and hot gravy that has become Canada's most famous comfort food, was invented in rural Quebec in the late 1950s, and Montreal has elevated it to an art form across hundreds of restaurants ranging from casual to haute cuisine. The smoked meat sandwich, Montreal's equivalent of New York's pastrami, is available at legendary establishments like Schwartz's Hebrew Delicatessen on the Main, where a line extends down the sidewalk at almost any hour, a ritual that locals and visitors alike participate in as part of the Montreal experience.

The Montreal bagel debate with New York is one of the more passionate culinary arguments in North American food culture, and those who have tried both typically have strong opinions. Montreal bagels, produced in wood-fired ovens by establishments like St-Viateur Bagel and Fairmount Bagel, which have been operating on Plateau Mont-Royal for decades, are smaller, denser, sweeter, and have a larger hole than their New York counterparts. They are boiled in honey water before baking, giving them a distinctive sweetness and chew. Many devoted food travelers make pilgrimages specifically to these establishments, and the question of which city's bagel is superior generates genuine heat at dinner tables across North America.

The Laurentians, the resort region beginning about 80 kilometers north of Montreal, offers the best ski country in eastern Canada, centered on Mont-Tremblant, one of the most celebrated ski resorts in North America. The pedestrian village at the base of Tremblant, with its colorful buildings and sophisticated restaurants, functions as a year-round destination that draws visitors for mountain biking and hiking in summer as readily as for skiing in winter. The Charlevoix region, northeast of Quebec City along the St. Lawrence, is one of the most dramatically beautiful river landscapes in Canada, with steep hills dropping to the river and a culinary culture that has earned the area recognition as one of Canada's foremost food and wine destinations. The Gaspesie Peninsula, at the far eastern end of Quebec, is one of the wilder and less visited parts of the province, with the Chic-Choc Mountains, the furthest east the woodland caribou can still be found, and the Perce Rock, a massive limestone monolith rising from the Gulf of St. Lawrence at the tip of the peninsula.

Twenty-Two UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Canada's 22 UNESCO World Heritage Sites represent a remarkable concentration of natural and cultural heritage recognized as being of outstanding universal value to all of humanity. They span the full breadth of the country and the full range of what UNESCO criteria recognize as exceptional.

The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site encompasses Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks, along with Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine, and Hamber Provincial Parks. L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America. Old Quebec City preserves the most complete surviving fortified colonial city in North America. Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland offers exceptional geological evidence of plate tectonics. Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories protects the most spectacular wilderness river in North America. Wood Buffalo National Park protects the last free-roaming bison herd and the whooping crane's nesting habitat. Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta contains the richest concentration of Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils in the world. Kluane and Wrangell-St. Elias in the Yukon protects the largest non-polar ice fields in the world as a transboundary site shared with the United States. Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park straddles the Alberta-Montana border as the world's first International Peace Park. Miguasha National Park in Quebec contains the finest fossil record of the Devonian period, the age of fishes. The Historic District of Old Quebec was recognized in 1985. Rideau Canal in Ottawa is a remarkably intact example of a slackwater canal from the early nineteenth century. Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Nova Scotia preserve the world's finest record of Coal Age terrestrial life. The Red Bay Basque Whaling Station in Labrador is the best preserved sixteenth-century whaling station in the world. SGang Gwaay (Anthony Island) in Haida Gwaii preserves Haida village sites with the largest collection of standing original totem poles in the world. Landscape of Grand Pre in Nova Scotia preserves the agricultural land and dyke system of the Acadian settlers. Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta, declared a World Heritage Site in 2019, protects the greatest concentration of Indigenous rock art on the North American Great Plains. Tr'ondëk-Klondike, inscribed in 2023, encompasses Dawson City and the surrounding Yukon landscape, recognizing both the ancestral territory of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people and the extraordinary heritage of the Klondike Gold Rush. Anticosti, inscribed in 2023, protects Ile d'Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, an island of outstanding geological significance for its exceptional Silurian and Devonian fossil deposits that illuminate the history of early marine life.

These 22 sites are signposts to the finest of what Canada preserves and offers. They are, however, only a selection of an extraordinary country's extraordinary heritage. Beyond them lie thousands of kilometers of coastline, millions of hectares of wilderness, and the living cultures of peoples who have been here for tens of thousands of years.

Conclusion: Why Canada Endures as a Destination

Canada rewards repeat visitors in ways that few countries can match, because the country is, in truth, not one place but many. A traveler who has explored Quebec City and Montreal thoroughly still knows nothing of Haida Gwaii. A visitor who has spent a week in the Rockies has barely touched the surface of what Newfoundland offers. Someone who has marveled at the Northern Lights from Yellowknife has experienced one dimension of the Arctic and yet has not stood at Churchill watching polar bears on the frozen shore of Hudson Bay, or paddled through beluga whales in a summer estuary, or seen the sun rise over the tundra of Baffin Island.

What ties all of these experiences together is something that is genuinely difficult to name but that travelers consistently report: a quality of openness, both in the landscape and in the culture. Canada's scale creates a particular relationship with space that residents and visitors both feel, a sense that there is always more beyond the next horizon, that the world extends further than the eye can reach. The culture, shaped by that landscape and by the successive waves of people who have come to inhabit it, tends toward a generosity and curiosity that makes the country welcoming in ways that do not require performance.

The great question for any traveler considering Canada is not whether to go, but where to begin. The answer, as with all great travel questions, is: wherever you can. Begin on the shores of the St. Lawrence at Quebec City, or in the mountains above Banff, or on the ferry approaching Victoria, or in the pre-dawn darkness of a Yellowknife winter watching the sky slowly fill with light. Begin, and then return, because Canada does not reveal itself in a single visit. It accumulates, layer by layer, visit by visit, until the traveler begins to understand something of what it means to exist in a country of this scope and this ambition, a country that is still, in many ways, discovering itself.

Canada is a country where Indigenous cultures tens of thousands of years old persist and revive, where French and English voices argue and negotiate and sometimes celebrate together, where immigrants from every corner of the world arrive each year and gradually become Canadian, where the wilderness begins at the edge of the city and extends for thousands of kilometers. It is, in the fullest sense of the word, extraordinary. And it is waiting.