Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118148
26 W E S T W O R L D p22-27_Quebec.indd 26 >> ©MTOQ/Yves Tessier winter, to Quebec City residents is disappointingly mediocre. It was usual when I lived in Quebec for locals to tell me that their favourite season was winter, a point I'm reminded of as we stroll the Winter Carnival grounds later that day. The double-digit below-zero temperatures have done little to deter more than 10,000 visitors from swarming the Plains of Abraham to raft downhill on inner tubes, browse the ice sculptures, take sleigh rides and eat maple syrup chilled to taffy on snow, among dozens of other activities in Quebec's own version of Mardi Gras. Perusing another significant ice structure, the palace of the event's jubilant snowman mascot, Bonhomme Carnaval, we take in some footage of an annual carnival tradition: the course en canot. In the five-km race that is part paddle, part ice climb and part survival, teams of canoers take to the ice-jammed waters of the St. Lawrence River. If that isn't dangerous enough, the Crashed Ice competition a month later sees skaters in hockey gear race down the steep, winding, ice-covered road (turned closed-off obstacle course) that connects the upper and lower city. Still another daring event greets us later that afternoon: the Snow Bath, in which celebrants clad only in bathing suits dance atop a large pile of snow. The following day we learn more about the relationship that Quebecers have with winter. Strolling the cobblestone streets of the 400-year-old city with tour guide Estelle Boisvert, we marvel at how everything has remained so wonderfully intact. The A canoe race in the ice-jammed waters of the St. Lawrence River. multi-storey row houses with their little panes of imperfect, handcrafted glass and low doorways were historically whitewashed, but now exist in their natural stone. And though one might describe the WINTER 2012 12-10-19 9:52 AM