Quebec - The Independence Protagonists of Canada

Before crossing the border from English-speaking Canada to French Canadian Quebec, we had heard so many stories and opinions about the province of Quebec and the French Canadians that inhabit it. Some people spoke glowingly about beauty of the province and it’s distinct culture, others were tired of the rhetoric about Quebec being different from the rest of Canada and the desire to seek sovereignty and go it alone as an independent state. We went in with an open mind and were instantly enamored by the kindness of the people, the beauty of its cities and the instantly comfortable feeling that we had, particularly in Montreal.

Montreal is the largest city in Quebec and has quite a distinct feel compared to many of the other Canadian cities we have visited. It has a much more European vibe with loads of cafes, bakeries and small grocery stores all lining the streets. Even in the midst of a cold snap in February there were still people out and about, soaking up what the city has to offer.

We stayed at the 9 ½ on St Laurent Boulevard, a small guesthouse that very soon felt like home with its relaxed, comfortable and friendly feel. With its touch of an eco vibe, the 9 ½ was one of our favourite places that we stayed during our trip.

The St Laurent Boulevard area was great place to just wander around and check out all of the stores, restaurants and people. We made the walk up Mont Royal, a large greenspace in the heart of Montreal. It was great to see Montrealers embrace the winter weather, with lots of people cross country skiing, snowshoeing, running and tobogganing in around the mountain (it’s actually more like a big hill than a mountain, but it’s better not to get into arguments about semantics).

Old Montreal, while old and quite nice looking with its narrow streets and laneways, is clearly the hard core tourist zone of the city. Full of restaurants, cafes and overpriced galleries, most of Old Montreal was closed while we were there with the majority of the action coming from the men in cherry-pickers chipping all of the ice off the roofs of the various establishments. Obviously Old Montreal fires up in summer to satisfy the demands of the tourists flocking into the city, but it’s clear that there’s not much there for the locals.

Montreal is world renowned for its food, most notably the Montreal smoked meat sandwich which appears on menus right across the country. Being in Montreal, we decided to check out the real thing so we wandered into Schwartz’s, a Montreal institution that has been making smoked meat sandwiches since 1928. Now usually when people say they have the best xxx in the world, or the world famous xxx, you take it with a grain of salt and if it turns out to be better than average, then it’s a bonus. Having said that, Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwich was possibly the best sandwich we have ever eaten. Layers of moist and tender Montreal smoked meat on rye bread with a splash of mustard. So simple and yet so glorious.

Another Canadian taste sensation that Montreal is famous for is poutine (you may remember that poutine consists of fries covered in cheese curd and gravy). We found ourselves at La Banquise where they had 20 different kinds of poutine. We decided to go the healthy option and get the veggie poutine, which was just normal poutine with a little bit of onion and capsicum mixed in. It is possibly one of the best drunk foods ever that can still be well appreciated even when sober.

With both of us having hailed from cities that are obsessed by Australian Rules football, we understand how consumed the people and the media can get with sporting teams, but we think that Montreal takes this to a whole other level. Montreal is the home of the Canadiens NHL hockey team, the only NHL team in Quebec and the most easterly based team in Canada. In Montreal, people commonly refer to hockey as a religion. It seemed as though every second car had Canadiens paraphernalia on it and plenty of the stores were filled with related merchandise. The most telling sign of the importance of the Canadiens to Quebec came when the CBC (Canada’s public broadcaster which is the equivalent of the ABC) spent the first 20 minutes of the Montreal news with a story about 3 players who had previously associated with a person from the underworld who had been arrested for drug offences. The lead story of the night, twenty minutes of follow-up stories, interviews with fans and commentators, all based around 3 players who had not been accused of doing anything wrong, but who knew a criminal. Imagine if one of them actually broke the law. Ben Cousins and Alan Didak can be thankful that they aren’t hockey players in Montreal.

After a pleasant stay in Montreal, we decided to try some WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), a program in which you help out someone’s farm for a few hours a day in exchange for your food and board. It was an ‘interesting experience’ whereby we really didn’t learn anything about organic farming, but our snow shoveling, fire wood carrying and handyman skills were put to excess use. After 6 days there we were back in Montreal, thankful to have escaped, happy to be back at our second home at the 9 ½, and making plans to visit Quebec.

Quebec City is one of the oldest cities in North America. It is also the only walled city in North America north of Mexico. On the day we arrived, we caught the end of the Winter Carnivale, a two week festival that celebrates the all things cold and icy. People were out in full force in the town centre, looking at ice sculptures, tobogganing, sleigh racing and even enjoying an outdoor spa (nice until you get out and the well below freezing temperatures hit your extremities). It was during the Winter Carnivale that we discovered the cabane a sucre, or sugar shack. Take some heated maple syrup, spoon it onto the snow, wait a few moments as it begins to harden and then roll it onto an ice-cream stick to eat it as a gooey toffee.

In addition to devouring our fair share of Quebecois cuisine, we took a trip out of the city to go dog sledding and to check out the ice hotel. Dog sledding was great fun, being pulled along in a sled by six very enthusiastic and excited huskies each with their own very distinct personalities was certainly a highlight of the trip. We both had turns driving the sled and being a passenger and managed to keep the sled upright for the entire journey. Our only disappointment was not being able to yell ‘mush, mush’, because being French speaking dogs, they only understood ‘allez! allez!’.

Not too far from the dog sledding is the ice hotel or Hotel de Glace. It is literally an entire hotel made of snow and ice, complete with a chapel, bar, ice slide, and rooms and suites for sleeping. Because of its composition, the hotel stays at a fairly constant -3 to -4 degrees Celsius, so to get warm, we went for a walk outside. If you were to stay there, you would sleep on a mattress that sits atop a bed made of a block of ice, wrapped up in a mummy sleeping bag. The ice hotel is conveniently located near another regular hotel so if it gets too much for you in there, you can walk a couple hundred metres, check into the a normal room and crank up the heating as much as you want. The whole ice hotel thing struck us as a very daft idea (building it every year as temperatures begin to drop, only to watch it melt away in spring), but walking through it was a lot of fun and having a drink at the bar out of a ‘glass’ made of ice was something a little different.

---

---