Falls a sweet winter treat

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This article was published 22/01/2011 (5341 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Montmorency Falls is one of the most spectacular natural attractions in Canada. Taller but narrower than the more famous Niagara Falls, Quebec’s Montmorency Falls are situated just downstream from Quebec City, where water from the Montmorency River flows over a steep cliff into the St. Lawrence River.

At a height of 83 metres, the falls are 30 metres higher than Niagara Falls. But as they are only about a tenth as wide, they don’t have the same panoramic impact — unless it happens to be winter, when the area around the base of the falls freezes over.

Winter has always been special at Montmorency Falls. The main attraction is the famous sugarloaf, the large loaf-shaped ice cone that forms near the base of the falls every winter. It is created as a result of spray rising from the bottom, freezing, and falling back down again as a solid. As winter progresses, the sugarloaf gets bigger and bigger, and people come to toboggan on it. (Monitors are always on the site to make sure conditions are safe for winter activities on the ice.)

Cornelius Kreighoff, James Peachy and many of the great artists in Canadian history have featured the sugarloaf in paintings depicting winter merriment at the base of Montmorency Falls in winter.

For although the waterfall itself does not freeze in winter, the area set back from the base does freeze, making it safe for walking, sleigh rides and tobogganing. There is also an ice-climbing school in the cove just west of the falls and snowshoeing trails at the top of the falls.

There is also one special indoor attraction. You can sit down every Sunday morning to a fantastic brunch.

Recently, the Sunday brunch at the Manoir Montmorency, a restaurant at the top of the falls, was named the best brunch in Quebec City region by an area restaurant group. It’s got all of the usual brunch staples as well as the French-Canadian classics: baked beans, bread pudding, old-fashioned meat pie with stewed beef instead of hamburger meat inside, and a superior assortment of cheeses and deserts, most notably sugar pie.

New at the falls since Quebec City’s 400th birthday celebrations in 2008 is the night lighting. Every night, the falls are illuminated with soft white lighting. Yves Juneau, general manager of the Parc de la Chute-Montmorency, told me during my family’s visit there on Dec. 5 that the park is considering installation of new coloured lights. The new system, he said, would allow for lighting to mark special occasions – red for St. Valentine’s Day, green for St. Patrick’s Day, blue for St. Jean Baptiste Day.

Manoir Montmorency is a replica of a building that burned down in 1993. The old building, although it had been renovated and expanded through the years, dated to 1780, when it was built as the summer home for Sir Frederick Haldimand, then the governor of the province of Quebec, which in those days included much of what is now Ontario.

 

It was explorer Samuel de Champlain, founder of Quebec City in 1608, who named the falls after the Duc de Montmorency, who as an early viceroy of New France was Champlain’s boss.

In the summer before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on Sept. 13, 1759, British General James Wolfe set up a military camp on the east side of Montmorency Falls. From there, Wolfe launched an attack but was beaten back by the French, resulting in 440 British deaths. That sent Wolfe back to the drawing board, after which he came up with a Plan B — to scale the cliffs of the Plains of Abraham upriver from Quebec in September. That plan led to the eventual fall of New France.

Through the 1800s, the falls became a recognized tourist attraction, and in 1855 and 1856 a fancy suspension pedestrian bridge was built at the top of the falls. But the bridge collapsed in April 1856, five days after it opened, and it was not rebuilt. That changed after the 1993 fire, when a new pedestrian suspension bridge was built along with the new Manoir Montmorency.

Standing on the bridge three weekends ago, looking straight down at the waterfall, I was amazed by the ferocious energy in the cascading waters. Juneau told me he has a software program in his office that monitors the water flow over the falls, and that day it measured 50 cubic metres per second. That’s like a square metre of water 50 metres deep. Every second. The wetter the weather, the heavier the flow. In one day in September, Juneau said, the flow measured 400 cubic metres a second.

From Feb. 10 to 13, Parc de la Chute-Montmorency will host its second annual Quebec Ice Festival. Sleigh rides and other special activities will be offered during the four days.

 

— Postmedia News