March 26, 2006: My visit to Québec.

I knew that Québec the province was an interesting place back when I was a little kid in early eighties in what was then the Soviet Union. First, they had that monster of a hockey team, the Canadiens. Second, my sister, five years older than me and already in school, claimed they spoke French in Québec, while I heard that English was the language elsewhere in Canada.

20+ years later, in 2003, I moved from California to New England. I didn't care much about New England's proximity to the French Canada for a few months, up to the moment we first went to Smugglers'. With a couple French-language TV channels in our unit and an occasional French-speaking group in liftlines, I realized that the French Canada was really close and really French.

So, me being me, I figured I had to drive up there and check it out. Unusually for me, though, I didn't do it the following week, and not even the following month, and not even the following year. When my latest attempt to gather a couple friends for a weekend trip failed this winter (in the friends' defense I have to admit I only called them up Friday noon), I figured I would have to do it alone. So, one week in March 2006 I asked my boss for permission to leave early on Friday the 17th, reserved the hotel online, threw skis (just in case) and camera into the trunk, and off to Québec I went.

I knew there were at least three places in the province that I have to see sooner rather than later: Eastern Townships (les Cantons de l'est), Montréal and Québec City. Going to Eastern Townships knowing I can't really afford to ski too long or too aggressively (still recovering from the shoulder dislocation and subsequent surgery) didn't make much sense, and I didn't want Montréal to be the first place in Québec that I visit (people claim that, while nice, it's relatively americanized and in general is more or less a typical North American metropolis), so I chose Québec City (La Ville de Québec is its official French name, but in reality Québec used without an article in French refers to the city, while "le Québec" refers to the province, so "Je suis allé à Québec" means I went to Québec City whereas "Je suis allé au Québec" means "I went to Québec the province", or at least that's what I was told :-)).

The drive

The drive was shorter than I expected. From South Nashua to downtown (or, as they say in French, centre-ville) Québec, it took me about 5 hours. I was very much surprised by the terrain along most of my route between the border crossing on I-91 and Québec City. It was as flat as it is on I-90 somewhere between Chicago and Cleveland. Not surprising really, for those of us familiar with the geography of the region. That said, over the past few years I got used to the fact that in Vermont, the farther north you go, the higher the mountains are. Well, apparently this trend is reversed at about Stowe/Smugglers' latitude.

Another thing that drew my attention was pretty horrendous quality of the roads. I heard about that, and Autoroute 20 was not really even close to the worst roads I have ever seen, but still, it was a bumpy ride compared to either I-93 in New Hampshire or I-91 in Vermont.

Québec City

I arrived in Québec City on Friday night. There wasn't a whole lot I could see while driving for the first time in an unknown city at night, but I did notice that buildings were clean and neat, people dressed nicely, public transportation working, and -- oh surprise -- the city of that size (less than a million in the entire metro area) alive and kicking at 10 PM! Was I still in North America?!

That this was a very special kind of North America I figured as soon as I tried entering a parking garage. No English signs in sight and the attendant doesn't speak English. The latter is actually a common situation in South Boston, too, but here I figured I should try French before I try Spanish. Not surprisingly, but still somewhat unexpectedly, the guy understood my (admittedly broken) French and responded. Things started looking as advertised.

I checked in to the hotel, looked out of the window at the beautiful Rue St. Jean, still sizzling at midnight (this was St. Patrick's Day), and, tired, went to sleep.

Le Massif

I was having breakfast in my room (the breakfast was surprisingly good, but it wasn't until later in the day that I realized that there apparently is no such thing as mediocre food in this place) when the view of St. Lawrence River (Fleuve St. Laurent) made me think that bad shoulder or not, I'm unlikely to forgive myself if I just stay here and do not bother to drive to Le Massif that I read so much about. An hour and a half later I was skiing Le Massif.

Le Massif is actually a pretty small mountain that got pretty crowded that weekend. It was, however, worth skiing, and I will sure return there next year. It definitely has a distinct character, compared to New England ski areas (some people also say it has a distinct character compared to even the nearby Mont Saint Anne, but I can't attest to this as I have never skied Mont Saint Anne). Le Massif is an "upside down" mountain in that the "base" area is actually at the top of the mountain, so you arrive, you do your first run, and only then you get to ride the lift (correspondingly, you end your skiing day with a lift ride, and not with a ski run). It has some relatively impressive views of the river (that said, don't bother going there just for the views -- they are not as good as they might seem to be when you look at Le Massif ads). It also has a lot of snow. Actually, it rained Tuesday that week with no snowfall afterwards, but some places were still powdery (!). Yes, they did have some ice, especially on popular trails frequented by snowboarders, but it was nowhere near as bad as what we had in New England for most of the "winter" this year. Overall, I'd expect this place to have a very good snow quality in January and February. It also seems that they regularly get decent amounts of snow. I'll check it next year.

What I really need to mention is lunch. Here in the States I got used to the fact that lunch-time food options at ski areas can successfully compete with McDonalds for the "Worst Food Ever" prize. There at Le Massif, I didn't see either burgers or hot dogs (they do serve pizza and various pastas, however). What I did see, though, was abundance of what would here be considered upscale restaurant quality food, from lamb cutlets to fried deer (and the food was cooked and served with quality close to what I'd expect from a respectful restaurant in Boston).

I forgot my camera in the car, and I parked pretty far from the lifts, so I didn't get any pictures. I'll fix it next year, though.

Saturday night

I spent Saturday night in the city. I was lucky enough to spend most of the evening with a local girl who showed me around the town and patiently answered the two zillion questions that I had about the local culture, politics, history, weather, sports and other aspects of life in the city. Combined with a couple lift ride conversations that I had at Le Massif and with a conversation I had with a waiter next day, I feel I can make some conclusions about Québec (not that they necessarily reflect the truth, it's just that I feel I can make them :-)).

I was actually about to write a paragraph about the dinner, but I figured I would then be overdoing it. I'll repeat it briefly, really briefly: if there is mediocre food in that place, I don't know where you can find it. And the wine choices are abundant. Even the cocktails they serve in bars are really, really good. All right, I'll shut up about the food for a moment.

Sunday

I checked out of the hotel, walked around the city for a couple hours, watching locals and tourists go about their business, took a few pictures, had a really nice lunch at Le Cochon Dingue (highly recommended by more than one local), and drove back home.

Thoughts

French

A lot of people who went to Montréal as tourists and even a few people who grew up in Montréal told me "everybody is bilingual there". I'm not sure about Montréal, but that's definitely not entirely true in Québec City, and especially as you drive farther North from it.

One thing to understand is that French is the first language for the vast majority of people living there. That's what they speak to their family, their friends and random people on the street. From what I gather, they are strongly motivated to also learn English. I don't know what all the motivating factors are, but an obvious one is that they greatly increase their employability and economic prospects in general by speaking English -- (a) because bigger businesses have to interface with the rest of Canada and often the United States, both of which are English-speaking, and (b) because tourism is an important part of the economy, and the majority of tourists come from the English-speaking neighboring regions, so service jobs in tourist areas also more or less require the ability to speak English.

So, that's at least one motivating factor, and a pretty strong one in the modern society. However, that doesn't change the fact that English still is a foreign language to them, and as such it requires an effort to learn, and a significant effort to learn properly.

Of course, for many of them it is relatively easy to learn English. They can get to plenty of English-language TV and radio programming, and those of them growing up in towns bordering English-speaking provinces or the United States (as well as those, I guess, living in large cities), often have plenty of English-only-speaking friends. Yet, it needs to be understood that not everyone there grew up on the Ontario border or in Montréal. So, at le Massif at least, I have seen plenty of people who didn't speak English.

What I'd like to mention at this point is that it is way too easy to go there and expect everybody to speak English, but from what I saw, some Québecers consider this rude, and I can totally understand this. So, my advise to would be tourists: while in Québec, try starting all conversations in French, even if all you know is "Bonjour". Those of them who speak English will switch to English as soon as they realize that their English is better than your French. In my experience, most of them treat you a lot better if you do this. And, as I said, to me at least this is totally understandable.

Is this really French?

My understanding is that linguistically there are more differences between Québec French and French spoken in France than there are between American English and British English (Wikipedia, as usual, has the details).

I heard it before from French people that, while traveling through Québec, they encountered some regional accents that they just couldn't comprehend at all. I could barely believe it until I heard the same thing from Québecers. Weird, but interesting.

Winter

It was refreshing to be at a place where people appreciate the winter. Here is the quote from the Canadian five dollar bill (by Roch Carner): "The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places -- the school, the church, and the skating-rink -- but our real life was on the skating-rink."

It's relatively cold in there (by modern New England standards, it would probably qualify as "really cold"), but people not only can handle it, they actually enjoy it. Skating rinks are everywhere, and there are always people skating on them. Whoever I talked to claimed they do cross-country skiing. Le Massif was of course crowded. Hockey...this deserves its own section.

Hockey

Hockey is, in fact, the sport number 1 (and probably 2 through 100, too) there. I heard a lot about this when growing up in hockey-crazed Russia and then watching the NHL in the United States. I was wondering if I would notice this during a 40-hour stay in Canada. I did. The first sign came when the local girl I mentioned told me Saturday night she plays hockey, then proceeded with describing the current situation in LNAH, and finally explained the major political and economical issues surrounding the potential return of the NHL to the city.

That wasn't it, though. I was truly impressed when the French-speaking (as opposed to American tourists) patrons of a pretty respectable restaurant, along with the waiters and the manager, got up their seats and went to the TV sets in the bar to watch the final minute of a Penguins -- Canadiens game (the game was fairly dramatic, and Montréal were trailing by one with a minute to go, but still, that's not even playoffs, and that wasn't exactly in Montréal).

Next day, I really almost wanted to cry looking at Nordiques replica jerseys still sold all over the city. It has been 11 years since the team moved...

Miscellanea

A culture is inevitably connected to the language, and to that extent, Québec culture is probably different from the rest of Canada and the United States in more ways than any other region of the two countries is. Of course, they have their own prominent authors (who write in French), they have their own bands and singers (who sing in French) and they make movies (also in French). (More on that, of course, in Wikipedia entry on Québec culture.) Interestingly, however, it wasn't my impression at all that they relate to France in any noticeable way, not even to the extent that Americans relate to Britain or Australia. That makes Québec even more interesting than it otherwise is: it doesn't feel at all like New England, it doesn't really feel like the parts of Canada to the West of them, and it doesn't feel like Europe. Yet, it's within a few hour drive from a major U.S. metropolitan area (Boston).

I didn't see any bumper stickers there! I'm not talking just about ribbons of various colors — I really didn't see any, political or not. I was almost ashamed of my Unix one, not to mention the Anaheim Angels license plate frame. I am wondering if bumper stickers are by any chance illegal there (kind of like billboards in Vermont)?

I also didn't see as many SUVs and other road behemoths there as I do here in New England. I'm not sure why, might be simply because they are more expensive there (relative to the average after-tax income). Whether or not that's the primary reason, it certainly makes freeway traffic smoother, even when relatively dense.

Pictures

Things I am taking with me — PowerBook, skis, water bottles, tripod, camera (I didn't use it, unfortunately; all these pictures were taken with a Nikon digital point-and-shoot), the backpack, ski boots):

Rue St.Jean Sunday morning:

While the rest of the downtown is still sleeping Sunday morning, the rink at Place d'Youville is filled with people, from toddlers to 80-year olds. What you don't see on the picture is the fresh air, nice music, and the smell of pastries that are baked and sold next to the rink (and if you didn't get it yet, that's Québec, so if it is meant to be eaten, it's really, really good). Another thing that you don't see is a set of modern office buildings behind my back -- right across the street from this Old City wall. (Yeah, I know this picture would benefit from some cropping on the left and at the bottom, but I am too lazy to do that.) Here:

Rue St.Anne and the Price Building:

Rue Petit Champlain, a popular tourist destination, and a very romantic place :-) :

Rue Petit Champlain again (one more reason to love the winter: it's not as crowded as it is in the summer):

Côte de la Montagne:

I was neither equipped for nor capable of taking a good picture of Château Frontenac, but since I was in Québec, I had to take a picture of the most known structure in the city, so here is my failed attempt:

That's the best I could do trying to get a picture of the Saint Lawrence River from Terrace Dufferin: