Action Pants in La Belle Province with Lumière as Our Tour Guide
In Quebec—La Belle Province, if you’re feeling fancy—my mother and I joined a Backroads “Easygoing Walking Tour.” Backroads calls it Dolce Tempo, which translates to “sweet time.” Personally, I’d translate it as “just enough walking to justify a second dessert,” but that doesn’t look as good on a glossy brochure.
Chad flew us up on Sunday in the Vision Jet, our first international trip in the plane. He handled all the CanPass paperwork, making the whole process look effortless. I’m sure it wasn’t. Behind every seamless travel experience is a man with 43 tabs open on his browser and a spreadsheet no one else could possibly understand. Still, I was grateful. We touched down in Quebec just as a thunderstorm cleared, which meant I could smugly claim I’d “ordered up good weather.” Locals were still fanning themselves from last week’s heatwave, but we stepped out into crisp air, as if the whole province had been freshly laundered.
Monday morning we met our group at the train station. It wasn’t hard to spot the Dolce Tempo crowd, the demographic leans heavily toward “older white people in action pants.” (If you’ve ever appeared in an Orvis catalog, you’d fit right in.) Backroads had the snack table waiting, because nothing bonds strangers faster than trail mix and tiny wrapped cheeses.
Our guides, two leaders and a support person, herded the fifteen of us onto a shuttle for the hour-long ride to our first trail. As tradition dictates, there was the ceremonial distribution of water bottles, followed by polite jostling for seats that wouldn’t guarantee motion sickness.
Each hike comes with two options: the Dolce (sweet and gentle) or the “slightly more ambitious” route, which is code for “you may sweat through your action pants.” Our group split about half and half, then reunited later over lunch or an activity. This particular group is highly seasoned, most have been on ten or more Backroads trips. By day two, one traveler had already announced that Africa was his favorite, which of course planted the seed that I must go to Africa, too.
So far, it’s been delightful: beautiful trails, good company, and just enough structure that you don’t have to make any real decisions beyond “do I want the easier walk, or do I want to feel virtuous at dinner?”
After our first day of hiking, on paths generously stitched together by private landowners for the greater good, we ended at a lavender farm, Azulee Lavande. The owner, Louise, greeted us with lavender lemonade (the kind of refreshment that makes you wonder why you’ve ever settled for plain water) and shared both her knowledge of the region and a tour of her farm. She’s also restoring her farm home, which is old (really old) the sort of place where you half-expect to see people washing their clothes in a bucket on the porch. Afterward, we shuttled off to the Fairmont, the hotel we’d be calling home for the next couple of nights.
Our first two nights were at Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu, a traditional Canadian Fairmont with the grandeur of a château and views of the St. Lawrence that made you want to lean on a balcony and make sweeping declarations about life.
On day two, we shuttled by van and ferry to the village of Tadoussac, perched where the Saguenay Fjord meets the St. Lawrence. (If you need to know what a fjord is: it’s a long, narrow inlet of water carved by glaciers, with cliffs on either side. Yes, I had to look it up.)
As usual, there were two route options: one climb to a lookout over the fjord, or one descent down to the shoreline. Afterward, we regrouped for a picnic lunch before suiting up in bright orange slickers for whale watching. If you’ve never donned one of these slickers, picture yourself as both a traffic cone and a high-visibility marshmallow.
We soon learned that whale watching is mostly whale searching. Our captain explained that as the first boat out, we had to scout different quadrants. Other boats would eventually radio in sightings, and then everyone would swarm like bargain hunters at a sample sale. At first, I doubted we’d find anything. We circled one quadrant, moved on, only to be called back when someone spotted a whale where we’d just been. The suspense was heightened by the rocking boat, my full stomach, and the lull of the waves. I confess I may have dozed off, only to snap awake at the sound of collective “oohs” and “aahs,” just in time to catch a gray hump breaking the gray water.
Still, it was exhilarating. The zodiac boats fly across the water, and the wind is bracing enough to remind you that yes, you’re alive. Fortunately, it was overcast. I image on a hot day, in those slickers, we’d have been slow-baked.
Back on shore, our guides greeted us with coffee, tea, and pastries, plus a splash of Canadian maple liqueur. Because nothing says “welcome back” quite like spiking your caffeine.
I should give our guides Stephanie and Camille a proper shout-out. They’ve been delightful, with charming French accents. Camille, in particular, reminds me of Lumière from Beauty and the Beast. All elegance, rolling Rs, and a smile that could probably convince you to waltz with a candelabra. Now I can’t hear him without picturing a cartoon chandelier, which makes me giggle at inopportune moments.
