The province’s extreme north is a barren arctic wasteland similar to that of Canada’s three northern territories, inhabited by polar bears, caribou and arctic wolves, while the central region is filled with dense, boreal forest. As is in Ontario, early efforts to colonize the north were mostly unsuccessful due to the rocky soil and harsh climate that made farming impossible. Autoroute 20 parallels the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, linking Quebec City with Montreal and Toronto to the west and Rivière-du-Loup, Rimouski, and the Maritime Provinces to the east. Autoroute 73 provides a north–south link through the metropolitan area, linking it with Saint-Georges, the Beauce region, and Maine to the south and Saguenay and the Lac-Saint-Jean region to the north.

Largest jazz festival according to Guinness World Record: Festival International de Jazz de Montréal

The town was distinguished by its monumental architecture, fortifications, and affluent homes of masonry and shacks in the suburbs of Saint-Jean and Saint-Roch. Despite its urbanity and its status as capital, Quebec remained a small city with close ties to its rural surroundings. Nearby inhabitants traded quebex their farm surpluses and firewood for imported goods from France at the two city markets.

The Best of Québec City

  • Thanks to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Quebec had, as of 2009update, experienced an increase in its exports and in its ability to compete on the international market.
  • Grand, gothic cathedrals remain popular tourist attractions in Quebec, even as the province becomes increasingly irreligious.
  • Quebec also has a representative to UNESCO and participates in the Organization of American States.202 Quebec is a member of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie and of the Organisation internationale de la francophonie.
  • Quebec City, a captivating blend of European history and Canadian charm, offers a unique and unforgettable experience.

The Fortifications of Quebec are a UNESCO World Heritage Site that offer stunning views of the St. Lawrence River. Walk along the ramparts, explore the Citadel, and learn about the city’s rich military history. Indulge your taste buds with delicious local cuisine, sip on craft beer, or sample fine wines. The argument in favor of separatism takes many forms, and there are right and left wing separatists, as well as separatist moderates and separatist extremists. Some separatists believe Quebec should be its own country for strictly patriotic reasons, and feel humiliated being part of Canada, which they see as this utterly foreign, English place.

Explore Québec’s routes without missing anything!

The calculation of annual cutting possibilities is the responsibility of the Bureau du forestier en chef.189 The Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) seeks to protect the interests of its members, including forestry workers, and works jointly with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) and the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. However, the Quebec government did not recognize the ruling, resulting in a boundary dispute which remains ongoing. Montreal is known as Canada’s “Cultural Capital” and is also the country’s second-largest city. Montreal is home to world-class museums, international festivals, art, culture, history, and amazing food. As the country’s second-biggest province, the politics of Quebec have large influence on the politics of Canada overall.

  • “Le temps des sucres” is a period during springtime when many Quebecers go to the sugar shack (cabane à sucre) for a traditional meal.
  • France ceded New France, including the city, to Britain in 1763,30 when the French and Indian War officially ended.
  • The Government of Quebec then mandated a municipal reorganization in the province, and many suburbs of the north shore of the Saint-Lawrence were merged into Quebec City, taking the form of boroughs, thus constituting the boundary of present-day Québec City.
  • Though Montreal’s winning bid helped put the city on the map, in recent years the infamously over-budget games have become synonymous with government mismanagement.

The rural part of the landscape is divided into narrow rectangular tracts of land that extend from the river and date back to the seigneurial system. The Quiet Revolution was an intense period of modernization, secularization and social reform, where French Canadians strongly expressed their concern and dissatisfaction with their inferior socioeconomic position, and the cultural assimilation of francophone minorities in the English-majority provinces. It resulted in the formation of the modern Québécois identity and Quebec nationalism.9596 In 1960, Jean Lesage’s Liberal Party was brought to power with a two-seat majority, having campaigned with the slogan “It’s time for things to change”. Quebec’s long, snowy winters are an iconic symbol of the province, and the massive outdoor Carnaval du Quebec in Quebec City, featuring skating, dog-sledding, ice-sculpting, and tobogganing is one of the highlights of the year. While Quebec has far flatter terrain than the mountainous provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, the modest Laurentian Mountains in the province’s south serve as the main mecca of eastern Canadian skiing.

Jacques‑Cartier National Park in Winter

Tensions between French and English interests eventually led to war between the two European powers in 1756 (The Seven Years War, or French and Indian War), and the French were clobbered. New France was seized by the British, the French army was forced to abandon the continent, and all remaining French settlers were placed under English rule. This pivotal moment, dubbed simply “The Conquest” by modern Quebecers, forms the context for everything that came after. Autoroute 740 (Autoroute Robert-Bourassa) serves as a north–south inner belt.

Past this valley, the Laurentian Mountains lie to the north of the city but its foothills are within the municipal limits. Until 2002, Quebec was a mostly urbanized city and its territory coterminous with today’s borough of La Cité-Limoilou. The Government of Quebec then mandated a municipal reorganization in the province, and many suburbs of the north shore of the Saint-Lawrence were merged into Quebec City, taking the form of boroughs, thus constituting the boundary of present-day Québec City. In 2008 the city celebrated its 400th anniversary and was gifted funds for festivities and construction projects by provincial and federal governments, as well as public artwork by various entities, including foreign countries. Quebec has hosted several major sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics, the Fencing World Championships in 1967, track cycling in 1974, and the Transat Québec-Saint-Malo race created in 1984. The Cinémathèque québécoise has a mandate to promote the film and television heritage of Quebec.

Many of Canada’s recent prime ministers have come from Quebec, as have many other leading figures in Canadian government. Because Quebec separatism is considered a serious existential crisis to Canada’s survival as a country, the age-old question of “what does Quebec want? ” is something that has been given a lot of attention by the Canadian political class over the years. Initiatives like enshrining French as an official language of Canada and providing subsidies for the Quebec welfare state represent significant efforts to quell separatist sentiment through conciliatory gestures, though they’ve also fostered resentment in other parts of the country, where Quebec outreach can be seen as simply “caving in” to French whining or extortion. As the early history chapter discusses in more detail, explorers from France were the first Europeans to actively settle the land that is now Canada, forming an impressive colony known as New France along the St. Lawrence River in 1603, before proceeding to expand westward. Masters of the fur trade, early French colonists earned a reputation as rugged outdoorsmen, navigating the continent’s hostile terrain and forming productive alliances with aboriginal nations.

This region, characterized by its rocky terrain, contains numerous lakes and rivers, making it a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. The Shield also boasts some of the world’s oldest rock formations, dating back billions of years. Notable rivers in the Canadian Shield include the La Grande River, the Rupert River, and the Eastmain River.

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB), a federal Crown corporation, provides for the same mission in Canada. The Film Festival of the 3 Americas, the Festival of International Short Film, the World Film Festival and the Festival of New Cinema are other annual events surrounding the film industry in Quebec. A number of governmental and non-government organizations support cultural activity in Quebec. The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) is an initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Communications (Quebec). It supports creation, innovation, production, and international exhibits for all cultural fields of Quebec. The Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) works to promote and fund individuals working in the cultural industry.

When Canada declared war in September 1939, the federal government pledged not to conscript soldiers for overseas service. As the war went on, more and more English Canadians voiced support for conscription, despite firm opposition from French Canada. Following a 1942 poll that showed 73% of Quebec’s residents were against conscription, while 80% or more were for conscription in every other province, the federal government passed Bill 80 for overseas service.

Most Quebecers remain ethnic French-Canadians descendant from a fairly small group of 17th century colonial settler families, and many of the province’s most famous cultural tropes harken back to that community’s centuries-old shared rural past. Traditional French-Canadian meals remain hearty “peasant” dishes like pea soup, meat pie (tourtière), and cipaille, a kind of stew. The proud Canadian cliche of maple syrup originates from Quebec, where it was originally harvested by forest-dwelling farmers in cabanes à sucres (literally, “sugar shacks”). French-Canadian folk songs, such as Alouette or Les Raftsmen, are often about rural chores, exploring the wilderness, or farm life. Today, Quebeckers enjoy a host of French language TV channels and radio stations, and often have very different pop culture tastes than English Canadians in the other provinces. Quebec is Canada’s largest province in terms of landmass, but much of its territory is uninhabited — and uninhabitable.

Discover Québec City

All five ridings within the city were won by the leftist New Democratic Party, in the so-called “orange wave” that temporarily swept the province. The boundaries of Quebec were altered many times following the establishment of New France in the early 17th century, when the French colonial empire in North America spread all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and west of the Mississippi River. At that time James Bay, Hudson Bay, and the Ungava region belonged to the British Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1898 Quebec’s boundary was extended north to the Eastmain River and east to Labrador. Quebec’s present-day boundaries were determined in 1927, when the British Privy Council granted Labrador to Newfoundland (now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador).

It is French but Quebec was a British Colony and was known as Canada, once upon a time

The Old Town has many interesting sites to visit and is an awe‑inspiring journey through architectural treasures unlike anything outside Europe. All this monumental beauty has a place on UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites. Our best advice is to take a walking tour when you arrive to enjoy the city’s rich heritage throughout your stay. Quebec’s architecture is characterized by its unique Canadien-style buildings as well as the juxtaposition of a variety of styles reflective of Quebec’s history. When walking in any city or town, one can come across buildings with styles congruent to Classical, Neo-Gothic, Roman, Neo-Renaissance, Greek Revival, Neo-Classical, Québécois Neo-Classical, Victorian, Second Empire, Modern, Post-modern or Skyscrapers.

The large land wildlife includes the white-tailed deer, the moose, the muskox, the caribou (reindeer), the American black bear and the polar bear. The medium-sized land wildlife includes the cougar, the coyote, the eastern wolf, the bobcat, the Arctic fox, the fox, etc. The small animals seen most commonly include the eastern grey squirrel, the snowshoe hare, the groundhog, the skunk, the raccoon, the chipmunk and the Canadian beaver. Between 1534 and 1763, what is now Quebec was the French colony of Canada and was the most developed colony in New France. Following the Seven Years’ War, Canada became a British colony, first as the Province of Quebec (1763–1791), then Lower Canada (1791–1841), and lastly part of the Province of Canada (1841–1867) as a result of the Lower Canada Rebellion.