Quebec Travel Guide

Should Québec secede, Canada will lose its largest province - accounting for a sixth of the country's territory; its 1.5 million square kilometres could enclose Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland. Of this vast expanse, sixty percent is forest land peppered with more than a million lakes and waterways and, though some mining towns dot the interior, the majority of the population is concentrated in the rich arable lands along the southern stretches of the mighty St Lawrence.

The Gallic ancestry of most Québécois is clear in their attitude towards hedonistic pleasures - they eat and drink in a style that combines the simplicity of the first settlers with the rich tastes of the French. Nowhere is this more evident than in the island metropolis of Montréal , premier port of the province and home to a third of all Québécois. Montréal's skyscrapers and nightlife bear witness to the economic resurgence of French-speaking Canada, whereas in Québec City the attraction lies more in the ancient streets and architecture. Beyond these centres, the Gaspé Peninsula , poking into the Gulf of St Lawrence, is the most appealing area with its inspiring mountain scenery and rocky coastline. Part of the peninsula, protected as parkland, provides sanctuary for a variety of wildlife, from moose to herons. Here, a score of once-remote fishing villages have become mini-resorts, the most attractive of which is Percé . Some 200 miles southeast of the peninsula, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, the Îlesde la Madeleine 's windswept archipelagos and beach-trimmed islands are Québec's version of the Caribbean.

Along the north shore of the St Lawrence, the agricultural - and intermittently industrial - settlements that dot the landscape north of Montréal thin out past Québec City, giving way to the bleak desolation of a coastal road that stretches beyond Havre-St-Pierre . On the way, you'll pass through the delightful resorts of Baie-Saint-Paul and Tadoussac ; the latter offers magnificent opportunities to go whale-watching . The contrasting landscapes of the Saguenay fjord , west of Tadoussac, and the northerly Mingan Archipelago are among Québec's most dramatic sights. Beyond the regions covered in this guide, Québec's inhospitable and largely roadless tundra is inhabited only by pockets of Inuit and other aboriginal peoples; it's a destination only for those travellers who can afford an expensive bushplane and the equipment needed for survival in the wilderness.