Québec 2022

Sept. 10–16/17

We’ll go from Québec City to the tip of the Gaspésie region, where we’ll hike across Bonaventure Island and mingle with the colony of 100,000 northern gannets. Along the way, we’ll visit by-the-sea national parks of Gaspésie. Like this one, Forillon…

On the International Appalachian Trail to Land’s End, Forillon National Park, South Sector, 2019

And Bonaventure Island, home of the gannets

The gannets

On Bonaventure Island. Each surviving bird comes back year after year to the same exact nesting spot, and same mate. We’ll be only feet away from them, and they will ignore us.

1. Québec City

A day here at beginning and end. Historic, buzzy, walled city. Plus a zipline alongside a waterfall taller than Niagara.

Old Québec

Iconic Chateau Frontenac (Hi Bob!)

Montmorency Falls

You can take all those steps, or a cable car, to the ridge

2. The River

The St. Lawrence River blends with the sea so you can’t say where the river stops and the sea begins. It quickly widens so you can’t see the other shore. Cycling here along the river/sea and through villages like Kamouraska is the best I’ve experienced.

Outside Kamouraska

Left, entering Notre-Dame-du-Portage. Right, at Auberge sur Mer in the village

We’re staying at Auberge sur Mer, an elegant building with a great restaurant, plus affordable motel-type units in an outbuilding overlooking the RiverSea.

Auberge sur Mer

Kamouraska

3. Gaspésie & the Parks

First comes Parc Bic, then the Lighthouse Route taking us to Forillon National Park, which has 2 distinct must-see sectors. After that, Bonaventure and the birds.

Parc Bic, like the parks to come, could be a destination of its own

This is from the Riotel in Matane, gateway to Gaspésie.

From Riotel, Matane.

Then it’s on to the Lighthouse Route, driving a stone’s throw from the water, on a ribbon of road bordered on the other side by the Appalachian Mountains, which rise in the American South and drop into the sea right here.

Grande-Vallee, by our hotel

The Lighthouse Route

Forillon — North Sector

Cap Bon Ami, North Sector, Forillon

Forillon — South Sector

The International Appalachian Trail extends from Maine to here. The last miles are through a meadow in this seascape, to the promontory known as Land’s End.

Land’s End

Percé, Bonaventure and the Northern Gannets

We complete our outward-bound journey at Percé, where we stay 2 nights. The seaside Riotel-Percé looks out on the commanding Percé Rock and the island of the birds.

The Percé Rock and Bonaventure Island, from outside the Riotel

They tell you on the boat that the rock looks like a horse drinking

To the island, and hiking across

On the boat to Bonaventure

On the island, right.

Raised beaks are a sign of affection. The dark ones are the island-born young

This represents where we are staying, except we go to Grande-Vallee instead of Matane

Cal pix