Four-century city
By Joel Yanofsky with photography by Martin Beaulieu
As Québec commemorates the 400th anniversary
of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival on its riverbank,
there has never been a better time to visit.
Celebrate the city in all seasons with a parade of
activities that begins, mais oui, in winter.
Linda the horse doesn’t need directions. She knows the 40-minute tour through Vieux-
Québec like, well, the back of her hoof. She even seems to stop at traffic lights on her
own. This allows Serge Roy, the coachman of the calèche Linda is pulling, to keep up a
running commentary for me, my wife Cynthia and our son Jonah. Québec is, after all,
the oldest permanent settlement in Canada — 2008 will mark the 400th anniversary
of its founding by Samuel de Champlain — and Roy has a lot to cover. Including, obviously,
Cap Diamant, the point where the St. Lawrence River narrows, and the spot
where Champlain's dream of a peninsula city, a foothold for New France, first took shape.
“And that,” says Roy, pointing to what looks like a small bowling ball stuck in the base
of a tree, “is a British cannonball.” He’s been driving a calèche for 10 years and has his
patter down. It’s his job but also his inclination. He is, in this regard, a typical Québec
resident: he goes on about history, generals and epic battles — Québec is the only
walled city on the continent north of Mexico — the way people in other cities go on about
hockey or bagels.
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Roy is not easily distracted, either. Not even by passengers who are, in the case of
my family, trying desperately to distract him. We’d like him and Linda to please get us
back to our hotel as soon as possible. In the meantime, if he has another blanket, we'd
appreciate that too. It’s February, and we’re freezing.
In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to spend the first windy Saturday morning
of our vacation at the Carnaval de Québec in an open-air carriage. But since none
of us are cold-weather people — we don't ski, skate, toboggan or drink hot chocolate
— it had seemed like a good way to acclimatize ourselves to what is the world's largest
and, at 17 days, longest celebration of snow, ice and wind chill. What we hadn't taken
into account was that at home, in Montréal, we rely on our winter boots just to get us
from the door to the car and back. Or that my pledge as a teenager never to wear a stupid
winter hat again might return to haunt me.
Back in our hotel room, my ears are a shade I’ve only seen in Jonah’s crayon box: radical
red. Cynthia, meanwhile, is rubbing Jonah’s feet. He’s shivering and singing Beach
Boys songs. The kid just turned eight, so it’s hard to tell whether he’s trying to convince
himself that he will feel his toes again or whether he's being sarcastic. I’m leaning toward
the latter, especially when he breaks into the Club Med chorus: “Feeling hot, hot, hot.”
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