QUEBEC CITY – (dpa) – The “Carnaval de Quebec” is probably the coldest in the world, but the deep snow and temperatures that can plummet to minus 30 degrees do not deter the thousands of visitors who flock here for the festival each winter.
Many of them are rewarded by a warming tap on the shoulder from Bonhomme, the chubby yet athletic snowman who is the carnival mascot.Quebec city, built on Cap Diamant on the St. Lawrence River, is the heart of francophone Canada. Anyone who first glimpses the city on the ferry crossing from Levis at sunset will long remember the view. The brightly-lit city is crowned by the huge symbol of the city, “Le Chateau Frontenac”, a hotel.Quebec provides the perfect backdrop for a winter festival with its copper roofs, narrow streets, the citadel with canons, and its city wall.Few visitors miss the ice sculpture park, in which professional sculptors from all over the world compete to create the best fantasies in gleaming white ice. A few steps away, you are likely to find the ice canoeists practising in the snow.Canadians are real men, and they like to prove it to themselves and others each year with adventurous canoe races across the St. Lawrence River. The 800-metre wide river is influenced by the Atlantic tides which prevent it from freezing over completely.The ice canoe races originate date back some 150 years, when the inhabitants had no other means but their canoes to transport goods or sick people in need of treatment over the river in winter. Now it has developed into a passionate carnival competition.The crews negotiate a three-kilometre triangular course past metre-high ice floes. When they come up against immovable hurdles they jump overboard and drag their boats further. It takes a great deal of strength and many of the young competitors can barely stand up at the end of the race.The other big carnival event, the night parade, is just as unconventional. More than 100,000 onlookers crowd the streets to watch the stream of floats and carnival revellers. Advertising has made its mark on this parade and originality is lacking. The highlight is a festival float with symbols of European cities to which Bonhomme has made goodwill visits.But Quebec has plenty more to offer winter visitors beyond the city walls. Just two-and-a-half hours by bus to the north is the Saguenay fjord, situated between the St. Lawrence River and the Saint Jean Lake.The log cabin village Cap au Leste offers a pretty view over the fjord and is an organisational centre for all kinds of outdoor activities throughout the year. You can arrange riding, hunting and mountaineering, here, as well as snowmobile or hound sleigh trips, and ice fishing.A snowmobile tour costs around 87 U.S. dollars. The caterpillar vehicle with two steering runners can take corners at 60 kilometres per hour, and elegantly sails through snowdrifts noticed too late by its driver.But when the biting cold makes your breath freeze over the helmet visor, the trip can become really precarious. Around two dozen snowriders a year are killed after crashing into trees or falling through the icy surface of lakes.Dog sleigh rides are an environmentally friendlier way to get a big dose of fresh air. The six huskies pulling the sleighs run in perfect harmony and the stable brakes can easily control the light sledge, even on steep downhill runs.But the highlight of the trip for many people is the pause in the heated trapper tents. The snow floor is covered simply with fresh brushwood, dry firewood crackles loudly in the oven and the hot bean soup will never taste so good. The tour costs around 56 U.S. dollars per person, excluding refreshments.But freshly-caught fish is included in the price of ice angling on Saguenay Fjord. Anglers gather on a slab of ice one metre thick that rises and falls up to six metres like a giant raft with the changes of tide. The tides also move the fishing huts built on the ice, that contain everything you need to survive in the wilderness.A hole around 20 centimetres in diameter is cut into the ice with a power drill. Then all you have to do is catch your cod or rosefish before returning to the cosy warmth of the hut to grill it. <
