Hello everyone,
I had a conference in Montreal in August, so I took the opportunity to visit Canada which I've never done before. First I wanted to fly to the rockies or something, basically visit the wild West of Canada, but domestic flights are insanely expensive there, because there's only one company. So I went with plan B, visiting Québec and the atlantic provinces of Canada (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia).
My first stop was Parc National de la Mauricie. It's a favorite for families as it's only 1h30/2h from Montréal. It's basically numerous lakes for kayaking and hills for hikers. It's not that wild, and in summer is full of mosquitoes. The ranger told me mosquito season was pretty much over, but it didn't preven them from having a feast on my shoulders and arms apparently. There are a couple "OK" lookouts accessible from the roads, but it's not wider open views unfortunately. And the 5h hike I did, called the 2 streams, confirmed that. Out of the 5 or 6 lookouts sprinkled over the hike, only 2 had nice open views, the others were entirely or partially blocked by trees and vegetation. So in the end it wasn't the best park I've visited there. It must be much more interesting if you're into kayaking or canoeing. I camped at the park with my 2 person MacPac Nautilus I brought back from Australia with me. The campground is nice, with hot showers and electricity.
On the road I checked some waterfalls called Montmorency but they were ruined by tourism, just like Niagara. 12 $ just to see them, a big concrete jetty at the bottom of the falls, a zipline over them, a giant bridge, and the surroundings are industrial instead of preserved. Don't stop there it's a tourist trap.
Next up was a giant fjord, Saguenay, that empties into the St Laurent river. It's famed for having whales nursing here, especially belugas (white whales). The campground wasn't good though. There's a weird thing with Québec. There are national parks managed by the federal government (Parks Canada) and some managed by Québec (SEPAQ) and should be called state or provincial parks. There, the state of the shower blocks can vary greatly (at Baie Eternité in Saguenay they were terrible) and another annoying thing is that you have to pay for showers (4 quarters for 4 min). You have to pay seperately for those 2 types of parks of course, so I had to buy 2 annual passes. It also rains a lot in the region, there's like a microclimate affecting the fjord.
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- Mauricie
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- Mauricie
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- Montmorency falls
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- Saguenay fjord
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- Sainte Rose du Mont
Last edited by
Hallu on Thu 22 Sep, 2016 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.