Canada: Quebec Winter Carnival and the Rockies

John Roberts

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I was replying to someone in the B&B who asked for suggestions on a visit to Canada, see http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/449712-Canada-where-s-good-for-a-week and then realised that somewhere I'd asked myself about the Quebec Winter Carnival a couple of times. Well I did go in 2015 and enjoyed it very much and thought some feedback would be in order so I've cut-and-pasted it on to here as a new thread as I can't find the original thread; no matter, it's just as valid I hope.

Have you considered visiting Quebec City for the Winter Carnival?

It is held in the first week of February, and it's been running since 1894. We only managed the last three days of the Carnival because we couldn't get accommodation, we stayed at the Bellvue hotel (nothing special but adequate) on the other side of the park from the Chateau Frontenac, and after the Carnival finished we got a room on the Gold Floor of the Frontenac for a further week at a very reasonable price as it was by then half empty after the rush. It really is a magnificent hotel, the flagship hotel of what used to be the Canadian Pacific group which is now part of the Fairmont group. No idea why they didn't stick with the original name, far more evocative.

We went two years ago and it was brilliant, nearly every day except the last was blue sky and sunshine. Plenty to do in the evenings as well, but, my God it was cold! With wind chill it was the equivalent of forty below, but the strange thing was that if you wrapped up with plenty of layers it really didn't matter. In my case I had my Helly Hansens next to my skin, then normal/usual clothing including a chunky sweater, then my North Face jacket and then over all that my bike jacket with liner. As for my legs, I only had my jeans and the Helly Hansens and underpants. On my feet I had normal boots with two pairs of socks. But as I said, both my wife and myself were perfectly fine other than when the wind picked up (which wasn't often) and then you weren't quite certain if your face was freezing or in a furnace. But as I said it really didn't bother us during the day as the blazing sun made all the difference. There was plenty to do after the Carnival finished, the city itself is lovely and we went to see the ice hotel a few miles outside, but how the hell anybody could spend a night there is totally beyond me, it was that cold.

For once we didn't hire a car on this holiday because we were a bit nervous of driving in those conditions, if we went again we wouldn't worry about that at all because we rented one last year in Iceland where the road conditions were pretty much the same and found that driving on ice and snow wasn't much of an issue after all.

Hang on, just remembered that we'd been to the Canadian Rockies in winter (Jan/Feb) a few times some years ago and driving there was not an issue either, forgot about that. Now that's another place I would love to go back to, the Icefields Parkway is magnificent especially if it's sunny. It might be worth flying to Calgary, then after a few nights there go via Canmore to Banff, spend a few nights there, then Lake Louise and then on North to Jasper. The high point of that trip for me was hiring a Cessna 172 with an instructor, Jim Bacon, of Jasper Air Services and flew it over the Columbia Icefield and Mount Edith Cavel (no, no, let me explain, I didn't actually mount Ms Cavel as such, Mount Edith Cavel is a mountain, now do you see?) We stayed in the Fairmont in Calgary and asked them to book us in at their other hotels on our route which (apart from the Jasper one that looked like effing Butlins' FFS) were brilliant and got a hefty discount and upgrades in them all. It's worth splashing out on decent hotels once in a while. Oh, another high point of the holiday was a horse drawn sleigh ride along Lake Louise and tucked up with blankets and a hip flask of something bracing in near total darkness, no lights at all but with the peaks and the frozen lakes just about visible. Enchanting. Fuck, I can't stop now, just remembered Rogers Pass on the way West to Vancouver, where the Canadian Pacific Railway being built from the West and from the East finally joined up, there's a very interesting museum there about it as well as the avalanche control measures they take. Well, interesting to me anyway. Ah, just remembered there's very good museum about the Oil Industry in Calgary too, I missed that myself but I read it was excellent. Further West there's Vancouver and Vanc Island, I did like it but the weather is so often dull there, a bit like here at home, mild and moist. As another poster suggested I would love a flight in the Otter/Beaver floatplanes from Vancouver Harbour, I'm so sorry I missed out on that; next time for sure.

I do have plenty of photos but for some reason I can't post them on here. I'll keep trying.

I fecking love Canada. Enjoy your trip, let us know how you got on after.
:beerjug:
 


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