This Trail leads to two distinct regions -- Abitibi and Témiscamingue. Together they form Quebec's northwest frontier, and both are still frontier regions today. Ancient home of prehistoric peoples now represented by the Algonquin and James Bay Cree, this vast territory was among the first inland areas of North America to be explored by Europeans and one of the last to be permanently occupied.
Peace between the Iroquois and New France cleared the way for the colony’s westward growth.
In the early 1700s, French colonists left fortified settlements near Montreal to clear new farms on the east tip of the land wedge between the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers.
Lore in the Saguenay runs deep. From fabled kingdom to royal monopoly to realm of industry, four centuries of Quebec history unfold along its shores. Though never large in number, English Quebecers helped shape a big part of that history.
The bedrock of Canada’s industrial heritage runs through the valley of the Saint Maurice River.
Iron pots and stoves cast on its banks by French metalworkers in the early 18th century were the first fruits of this legacy. Water-driven turbines spinning in the current have yielded many more.
In 1534 Jacques Cartier called it the land God gave to Cain. The French explorer couldn’t have dreamed that a string of towns would one day dot Quebec’s North Shore.
The cod banks of the Gaspé coast were crowded waters on the fringe of an unknown land.
The Châteauguay Valley Heritage Trail leads to rural communities, pioneer townsites and landmarks in Southwest Quebec.
Old Quebec is bound to the sea by the St. Lawrence River and four centuries of trade at the gateway to a continent.
In 1608, French explorer Samuel de Champlain built a fort and storehouse here, adopting its Algonquin name kebec, meaning place where the river narrows. The settlement was the early hub of Canada’s fur industry and the capital of France’s colonial empire in North America.
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.