The Gatineau River was a wilderness thoroughfare through unbroken Laurentian forest.
Before loggers and farmers cleared its banks, the 275-kilometre long waterway served Algonquin hunters as their main route to the game-rich hinterlands. The river was a link in a vast First Nations trade system joining Huron and Nipissing people in the Great Lakes with Montagnais Innu near Lac Saint-Jean.
The Outaouais-Pontiac Heritage Trail leads to pioneer settlements and historic sites on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, from Aylmer to Fort Coulonge.
Missisquoi Bay on Lake Champlain was a haven for refugees during the American Revolution. In the 1770s and 1780s, they came by the thousands into Quebec, mainly from New York’s upper Hudson and Mohawk river valleys.
These migrants reached British soil near a traditional Abenaki village on the mouth of the Missisquoi River, the district then forming a largely unpopulated seigneury called St. Armand.
Quebec’s upper St. Francis River cuts through dense woodland in mountainous backcountry, far from the treeless north Scottish coast. Yet the lilt of Gaelic once rang out in rock-strewn fields and crofters’ cabins.
Highland streams part ways on the slopes of the Quebec-New England border. Some flow north toward the St. Lawrence. Others join the Connecticut River on its way to the sea. The height of land in between marks one of the oldest pioneer gateways in the Eastern Townships.
The border county of Brome in Quebec’s Eastern Townships overspreads a swath of Appalachian country from the Sutton Mountains to Lake Memphremagog. Renowned for its lakes and mountains, the region also has strong historical ties that reach across the international boundary.
The Megantic County Heritage Trail leads to historic settlements and points of interest in rolling Appalachian country west of Quebec’s Chaudière River.
This heritage trail leads to historic settlements and pioneer landmarks between the Ottawa River and the Laurentian highlands.
American settlers founded a colony where the North River joins the Ottawa in about 1785. British homesteaders later put ashore here and walked north to land grants where today we find the communities of Lachute, Harrington, Lakefied, Morin Heights and Arundel.
The Lanaudière Heritage Trail leads to heritage sites and historic settlements in Quebec’s Lanaudière region, between the foothills of the Laurentians and the lowlands of the St. Lawrence River.
The Jacques Cartier Heritage Walk in the City of Gaspé will allow you to better understand and appreciate the history and heritage of the Gaspé Basin, the “Birthplace of Canada”. As the heritage walk passes 15 points of interest, an audio guide player and guidebook will bring the architecture and art to life. Each point of interest is numbered; to hear an audio-commentary, simply key in the number to your audio guide player. In addition, interpretation panels line the walk. The following sites comprise the tour: