Quebec City is lovely in every season, but winter is when it makes the most sense. The stone walls, the steep streets and the copper roofs were built for snow, and the city gets a lot of it, around 300 centimetres in an average year. Between late December and early March, the old town wears the season like a coat it has owned for four hundred years. We have visited in January when the thermometer read minus 25 and in late February during the carnival, and both trips left us convinced that the cold is not a problem to be managed. It is the point.
This guide covers what to see, how the carnival works, and, just as important, how to dress so that you enjoy it.
Old Quebec: walls, gates and the upper town
Old Quebec has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, and it is the only walled city in North America north of Mexico whose fortifications survive intact. The walls run for about 4.6 kilometres around the upper town, pierced by gates at Saint-Louis, Saint-Jean and Kent, and in winter you can walk along the top of them on a cleared path. Inside, the streets of the upper town, with their stone townhouses, churches and the old seminary, are compact enough to cover in a slow morning.
The Dufferin Terrace, a wide boardwalk on the cliff above the river, is the city’s front porch. In winter the view is of ice floes grinding down the St. Lawrence, and at the far end a wooden toboggan run, in operation since the 1880s, sends riders down three parallel lanes at speeds approaching 70 km/h for the price of a few dollars. It is one of the great cheap thrills in Canadian travel.
The lower town and Petit-Champlain
A funicular and a steep staircase, aptly known as the Breakneck Stairs, connect the terrace to the lower town. Rue du Petit-Champlain, at the bottom, claims to be one of the oldest commercial streets in North America, and in winter it becomes the most photographed lane in the country: narrow, lined with small shops and restaurants in seventeenth and eighteenth century buildings, strung with lights and often knee-deep in fresh snow. Place Royale, a few steps away, is where the settlement was founded in 1608, and the small stone church on the square dates to 1688.
The cobbles and stairs are cleared constantly but they ice over just as constantly. Good boots with real tread are not optional. A pair of slip-on ice cleats, sold in every hardware store in the city for a modest price, will save you at least one fall.
Skiing the Plains of Abraham
Just outside the walls, the Plains of Abraham, site of the 1759 battle, becomes an urban winter park. The Battlefields Park grooms about 12 kilometres of cross-country ski trails through the rolling fields and along the cliff edge, with rental equipment, snowshoes and skates available on site, and a small ice rink. It is free to ski, a rare thing, and the trails are lit in the evening. Even non-skiers should walk the paths at dusk, when the city lights come on behind the snow.
The park also stages some of the carnival’s outdoor activities, so in February expect crowds and a festive atmosphere on the weekends. On weekday mornings, by contrast, you may have the trails almost to yourself.
The carnival weeks
The winter carnival has run since 1955 and now occupies roughly ten days at the end of January and the beginning of February, though the exact dates shift each year. It is built around a snowman mascot, a snow palace outside the walls, night parades through the upper town, an international snow sculpture competition, and an ice canoe race in which teams paddle and drag their boats across the broken ice of the St. Lawrence. Many of the outdoor sites require an inexpensive pass, sold as a small effigy worn on the coat; the parades and the general atmosphere are free.
Book accommodation months ahead for carnival weekends, and expect prices to be at their highest of the year. The weeks on either side offer nearly the same snow, the same lights and far more room to move.
The ice hotel and other excursions
About 30 minutes north of the city, a hotel built entirely of ice and snow is rebuilt from scratch each December and melts in late March. Overnight stays are the headline offering, but day visits are the more practical option for most people: the sculpted rooms, the ice bar and the chapel can be toured in an hour for a modest fee. Nearby, the same district has a snow-tubing hill and a ski area, both reachable by car or shuttle.
Closer in, the Montmorency Falls, 12 kilometres east of the centre, drop 83 metres, about 30 metres more than Niagara, and in deep winter the spray builds a cone of ice at the base that can reach 30 metres high. Ice climbers work the frozen sides on cold weekends and the boardwalks and cable car give everyone else a view.
Temperatures, layers and pace
January in Quebec City averages a daytime high of about minus 8 and a nighttime low near minus 17, and cold snaps push both figures ten degrees lower. Wind off the river makes the cliff top feel colder still. None of this is a reason to stay indoors, provided you dress for it:
- A merino or synthetic base layer, top and bottom; cotton holds sweat and chills you.
- A warm mid-layer such as fleece or light down.
- A windproof, insulated outer coat that covers the hips, and insulated waterproof boots rated well below freezing.
- A hat that covers the ears, a neck tube or scarf, and mittens rather than gloves on the coldest days.
- Hand warmers in the pockets for parade nights, when you stand still for an hour.
The trick to a good winter day here is rhythm: an hour outside, then a cafe, then another hour. The old town has more warm rooms per block than almost any city in Canada, and its cooking, built on pork, maple, game and root vegetables, was designed for exactly this weather. Walk the walls, take the toboggan, ski the plains at dusk, and let the city show you that snow was never the enemy.