We followed the tourist route known as the Flavor Trail that features many local growers, producers and restaurateurs. There are endless of big rolling hills from Québec City to La Malbaie… it was like riding a roller coaster. It wasn’t until we stretched our legs at a visitor center in Baie-Saint-Paul that we learned we had been driving inside a 33-mile wide meteorite crater.

At the visitor center, we chatted with a very personable older gentleman working there who told us many interesting stories about Charlevoix, for example, how the founder of Québec, Samuel de Champlain, named La Malbaie (“bad bay”) because his ship got stuck at low tide. He recommended us to take the ferry to Isle-aux-Coudres (Hazelnut Island), but we didn’t make it there due to lack of time. A visit to the visitor center was supposed to take us minutes, but it ended up to be more than half an hour.

We had a wonderful lunch in Baie-Saint-Paul, the birthplace of Cirque du Soleil, then drove to La Malbaie before driving 2 hours back to Québec City in the evening.

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Just like our visit to Parc national du Mont-Tremblant, due to the unseasonable long winter, it was still too early in the season to hike. Our initial plan was to spend the whole day hiking the 6.8 miles Les Loups trail, but it was still closed due to snow. The park warden recommended 2 shorter trails for us to hike, so we hiked the 2.5 miles Les Cascades trail and part of the 6.5 miles Les Coulées trail. With the temperature hovering between 33F and 48F, it was the coldest throughout our 12-day trip. We hiked until 3:30 PM when it started to drizzle.

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Île d’Orléans (pronounced more like “eel-door-lea”) is located about 15 minutes drive from Québec City. It was one of the first settlements in New France. Known as “Garden of Québec”, this island is famous for its produce.

This was a laid back day trip. In the morning, we visited Parc de la Chute-Montmorency, which is located just right by the bridge that connects to Île d’Orléans. In the afternoon, we spent 5 hours on this idyllic island. We stopped by to check out anything that looked interesting to us. Most establishments were not opened for the season yet, but we were still able to taste some wines and local treats.

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Although we stayed for 6 nights in Québec City, we spent 2 days exploring the historic Old Québec by foot and the remaining days exploring the surrounding areas by vehicle. The weather was considerably colder in Québec City compared to Montréal. The mornings were usually in low 40s warming up to high 50s in the afternoons, but the cold weather didn’t deter us. We walked countless steps from day to night marvelling at the exquisite European architecture in historic places such as Quartier Petit Champlain, Place Royale, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac and Terrasse Dufferin.

A couple of observations…

• While French language is heavily used in Montréal, it is even more apparent in Québec City. Road signs, conversations, restaurant menus and establishment names are mostly in French. It did feel intimidating, but unlike the Parisians, the Québécois could not be any friendlier. We never encountered any unpleasant behaviors throughout our stay in this beautiful city. The locals tried their very best to communicate in basic English with us, and we tried our very best to sprinkle in common phrases such as “bonjour”, “bonsoir” and “merci beacoup”. When chatting with our AirBnb owner, we were told that Canadian French is slightly different from French.
• There were very few people strolling on the streets in the evening because most establishments were closed by 6 PM and the weather got much colder after the sun had set. Instead, most people spent their time dining and socializing in the restaurants or at home.
• It took us awhile to figure out how to activate the pedestrian traffic light before crossing the road, not knowing we just had to wave our hands below the sensor without touching it. When standing at a junction with 4-way traffic lights, we had to wait for every single traffic light to turn red before we could cross the road. The walking signals all activate at the same time. Hence, it was unsurprising to see most people jaywalking instead of standing at the junction for a long time.

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Due to our limited time, we followed parts of Townships Trail, Wine Route and Summit Drive recommended by the Eastern Townships’ tourism site. The Eastern Townships, known as Les Cantons-de-l’Est in French, originated in 1796 when the British granted land to Loyalists fleeing the United States during and after the Revolutionary War in the 18th century. It reminded us of the quaint and charming towns in Vermont and New Hampshire when we explored New England 10 years ago. We covered several small towns: Bromont, Dunham, Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Magog, North Hatley and Compton. At one point of time, we were literally half an hour drive away from the US border.

From the Eastern Townships, we continued our scenic drive on Chemin du Roy to Québec City. Chemin du Roy, the King’s Road, is a historic route that connects the province’s two biggest cities in New France: Montréal and Québec City. The road dates back to 1737 and it is one of the oldest highways in North America. We drove past Trois-Rivières, Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Deschambault and Grondines before arriving in Québec City.

The road trip took us 12 hours. By the time we got done with our dinner and walked back to our accommodation, it was 11 PM. It was a tiring day, but we got to get out from the vehicle several times to explore the beautiful small towns by foot.

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We chose to visit the park in early May after learning about the horrendous black fly season that typically affects areas in New France and New England between late May and mid June. Due to the unseasonably long winter this year, we didn’t encounter any bug problems simply because it was still too cold with lots of snow on the ground when we were there.

The 6-mile Le Centenaire trail that we wanted to hike was still closed for the season. After consulting with the park warden, we hiked the only 2 opened trails: 3.3-mile La Roche trail and 0.5-mile Les Chutes-Croches trail. These trails may be short, but they were challenging to hike because we didn’t have the proper footwear to traverse the snowy and icy trails. At times, the snow level was knee-deep. Nevertheless, we spent 4 hours in this quiet park.

On our way back to Montréal, we stopped by at the Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal and the nearby park to enjoy the late afternoon view of the Montréal skyline.

A couple of observations…

• While Parc national du Mont-Tremblant is a “national park”, it is technically a state park. Since the Québécois always consider Québec as a nation within Canada, this province has its own national parks maintained by Sépaq (instead of Parks Canada), national day on June 24 (instead of Canada’s national day on July 1), etc.
• Driving in downtown Montréal was challenging due to the traffic, flyovers, tunnels and detours. It seems like the whole city was under road constructions. It was supposed to be a 2-hour drive from Montréal to Parc national du Mont-Tremblant, but it took us 3 hours to get there due to the morning rush hour and the fact that we took a few wrong turns because the GPS device struggled to keep up with our exact locations.
• Since the law change in 2003, the province of Québec allows right turns on red except where prohibited by a sign. However, like in New York City, it remains illegal to turn right on a red anywhere on the Island of Montréal.

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Prior to arrival, we bought 3-day Passeport MTL cards, which allowed us to access the metro system and many must-see attractions. We initially plan to spend the first 3 full days exploring downtown Montréal and the last full day hiking in Parc national du Mont-Tremblant. However, due to possible bad weather on the last day, we decided to do the hike first on the very next day before spending the remaining days in Montréal to maximize our Passeport MTL card usage.

The temperature throughout our stay in Montréal was between high 30F to high 50F. So, while it was chilly in Minnesota, it was even chillier in Montréal. We purposely chose to travel during the off-season to avoid the crowds before the school holidays and national holidays began.

Our first full day in Montréal was also the sunniest day throughout our time there. Walking for more than 26K steps, we strolled along the cobblestones of Rue Saint-Paul (Montréal’s oldest street) in Old Montréal, learned about the birthplace of Montréal at the Pointe-à-Callière Museum, enjoyed the cruise along the St Lawrence River, bought local goodies (crepes, wine, cheese and maple syrup) at Jean Talon Market in Little Italy and admired the spiral staircases in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood.

We spent another full day visiting several closely located attractions near Montréal Olympic Park. Since it was highly expected to rain in the afternoon, we picked up the pace and visited the Montréal Tower Observatory, followed the Olympic Stadium guided tour, wandered aimlessly at the Botanical Garden and stopped by Château Dufresne. We lucked out… the rain started to drizzle right after we arrived at the doorstep of our accommodation in the evening. We were also lucky to be able to visit the Montréal Tower Observatory because it is now closed for an indefinite period for some reason.

On our last full day in Montréal, we experienced a long torrential downpour. Armed with our umbrellas, we visited several indoor attractions such as the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Observatoire Place Ville Marie, Grévin Wax Museum and Underground City. Montréal’s Underground City is the largest underground complex in the world with 20 miles of tunnel cover.

A couple of observations…

• We had our initial fear that communicating with the Montréalers might be too challenging knowing that we don’t speak French, but almost everyone we talked to spoke fluent English too.
• It was truly a breath of fresh air to eavesdrop on French-speaking conversations everywhere we went even though we had no idea what the strangers were talking about. Typically, any public announcement would be done in French first, followed by English.
• Some on-street parking along busy streets have single EV charging station for one or two vehicles.

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A couple of observations…

• The Canadians are indeed one of the friendliest people we have ever met. It was very easy to strike up conversations with the locals, which allowed us to learn whole lot more about Canada. For example, we were told the Yukon residents can buy campground permits for just $50 per year that allow them to use any campsites in Yukon. Firewood is provided for free.
• The businesses in Canada have figured out how to handle credit card payments efficiently and safely. In the US, we typically pass a credit card to the server, the server vanishes with the credit card, the server comes back several minutes later with a bunch of paper receipts, we the “math-challenged” folks calculate the tips in our head, and finally, we write the incorrect amount of tips on the “top copy” of the receipts before scribbling our signature on it. In Canada, the server brings a portable credit card reader to us, the server vanishes, we insert a credit card to the reader, we select one of the predefined tip options on the reader, and finally, the reader prints a receipt for us. Mind blown.
• Most Canadian drivers are rather courteous and they do not generally hog the fast lanes. They use the fast lane solely to pass slower vehicles before merging back into the slower lanes. In the Land of the Free, the American drivers, especially in the Midwest area, think their “3 miles over the speed limit” give them all the rights to stay on the fast lanes until they reach their final destinations. That said, when the Canadian drivers try to pass you, they tend to follow very closely behind your vehicle as if they are sitting right at your back seats when you look at the rear mirror.

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The Columbia Icefield, the largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains, feeds 8 major glaciers and Athabasca Glacier is the most accessible one from the Icefields Parkway. Equipped with our winter gears and the provided crampons, we did a 3-hour guided ice walk on Athabasca Glacier because it allowed us to freely explore the glacier without taking the crowded snow coaches.The hike was rather leisure and we learned a lot about pressure cracks, crevasses, moraines, mounds and crystallized ice, and most importantly, the effects of climate change on glaciers.

We spent half day visiting Mt Robson Provincial Park, which is located on the west of Jasper National Park. Unbeknownst to us, this area observes Pacific Time Zone. So, after arriving at the park at 7:30AM, we technically arrived at 6:30AM… and since it rained heavily in the morning, we took a short nap in our hamster car outside the visitor center. At 12972 ft, Mt Robson is the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. It is the second oldest provincial park in British Columbia. We did a 6-mile round trip hike to Kinney Lake in the rain where part of the trails along the lake were flooded. During the drive back to Jasper, we experienced weather system malfunction at the mountain area. Heavy rain, sun, cold wind, cloudy, near zero visibility due to clouds on the road… all in the matter of minutes.

Jasper National Park is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies. It has also one of the highest concentrated black and brown bear populations in Canada. We spent the entire day in the Maligne Valley and we were very fortunate to see some black bears. Maligne Lake is the second largest glacier-fed lake in the world. We did a 2-hour boat tour to the Spirit Island, made famous by Kodak early advertising of color film in the 40s. We initially planned to hike Edith Cavell Meadows Trail (5.3 miles), but due to road closure to Mt Edith Cavell until August, we ended up spending a day hiking Sulphur Skyline Trail (4.8 miles) on the north side of the park… not a bad alternative plan because we got to soak ourselves in the Miette Hot Springs pool at the end of the hike. During our drive back to Calgary, we visited Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls to do some short hikes in the morning.

An interesting tidbit… we were supposed to visit the Jasper Skytram, the longest and highest guided aerial tramway in Canada, on late Monday afternoon but decided to swap our plans around with other day. That night, we found out the strong wind gust caused a power surge that shut down the tram system, stranding 160 people on the top of Whistlers Mountain. 110 people were ferried down by helicopters until late night and the remaining folks had to stay overnight in the restaurant at the summit. We didn’t get to do the tram ride because it was closed for the next 2 days for maintenance and to investigate the problems. However, we visited the base and enjoyed some beautiful views of the townsite. That said, it’s probably not a bad idea to get stranded on top to enjoy the best views of Jasper National Park.

A couple of observations…

• Jasper National Park is probably our most favorite national park among the 4 national parks we visited. It is not as crowded as Banff National Park, hence, it was quieter, more peaceful and much more laid back.
• We were blessed with one blue sky day in Jasper and we decided to make an unscheduled visit to the Valley of the Five Lakes in one late afternoon to fully enjoy the beautiful day. This place has some of the most impressive and insanely beautiful lakes we have ever seen.
• The landscape in Jasper National Park is a little different than Banff National Park. While Banff National Park has lots of big snow-capped mountains, Jasper National Park seems to be surrounded by thick lodgepole pine forest with beautiful milky green curvy rivers. We had initial unfounded fears that the scenic views in Jasper would look identical to Banff.
• We gained much appreciation on how glaciers work and how much they have receded over the past decades. At the same time, we continue to be baffled how some powerful people in the world still think climate change is a hoax because they struggle to understand the difference between “weather” and “climate”.

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Yoho National Park, named after the Cree word meaning “awe”, has several stunning places and one of them is Lake O’Hara. Lake O’Hara is indeed a paradise inaccessible by most people due to its exclusivity. Yet, we somehow managed to secure the most coveted bus rides to it. The general consensus is if you only have one opportunity to experience the finest view of the Canadian Rockies, this is it. Regular vehicles are prohibited from entering into this area, but there are 2 ways to get in: a 6.8-mile one-way hike just to the base of Lake O’Hara or get bus tickets provided by Parks Canada. There are 2 bus rides going in per day carrying a max total of 42 hikers due to the strict quota system to protect the fragile alpine environment. Every year, 17000 users tried to secure these coveted bus tickets when the reservation line opens every April, and only 1000 of them succeeded. So, on April 20, 2018, 5 minutes before 8 MDT, I refreshed the Parks Canada website repeatedly. To my dismay, everything was fully booked from June to October the moment the reservation line opened. However, my persistence paid off after refreshing the website for half hour, and somehow, we managed to secure these bus tickets on the exact day and time slot we wanted.

During our all-day hike at Lake O’Hara, the rain poured the whole day with the temperature hovering between low 40s and mid 50s. However, armed with some tasty snacks, rain gears, gloves and plastic-bag-wrapped camera, we were ready to roll. We initially planned to hike the whole alpine circuit loop for 7.4 miles, but part of the trails including Yukness Ledges and Opabin Plateau were still heavily covered with snow and avalanche debris. After consulting with the park wardens, we hiked part of the loop, covering the strenuous and treacherous Wiwaxy Gap, which connects to Huber Ledges, and finally followed Lake Oesa Trail back to Lake O’Hara. The Wiwaxy Gap is only 1.3 miles long but we gained over 1600 feet in elevation… a rather steep hike where we had to cross a dangerous part of avalanche debris with a pretty serious drop to the bottom. In Yoho National Park, we also covered Natural Bridge, Emerald Lake and Takakkaw Falls.

Kootenay National Park, named after the people of Ktunaxa, has been constantly ravaged by forest fires in the recent years. On our “rest day”, we did short and easy hikes at Marble Canyon and Paint Pots before soaking ourselves in the Radium Hot Springs pool to soothe our sore muscles.

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