Winter in Quebec — Sandra Herber Photography

I usually take a winter photography trip around the holidays because the college where I’m a librarian is closed and I always have that time off. I have to book months ahead and I don’t always get lucky with snow cover when the time for the trip finally arrives, so I thought I’d try a new location in December, 2022. I did some research on ‘snowiest places in Canada’ where I might also be able to do the kind of minimalist photography that I love and I came up with the area around Quebec City (Quebec City gets over 300 cm/120 inches of snow every year). I thought it would be fun to try a new landscape, dust off my rusty French, search out some great croissants and have a few adventures along the way. In the weeks before the trip, however, the snow they got early melted in heavy rains. I was contemplating cancelling the trip, but then a big storm came in a few days before I left, ensuring that there was at least some snow on the ground. As you’ll see, I also got really lucky in terms of snowfall during the week I was there and it turned out to be a really good trip.

Because the crazy storm that went through a large swath of North America in the few days before I left, and the winds that were raging on the day I left, I thought there was a good chance that my flight would get cancelled, but I got lucky and my flight to Quebec City was only 40 minutes late. I picked up my rental car and headed out south of Quebec City in light snow. A weather watch had been issued for high winds, blowing snow and low visibility, so I had changed my hotel on the first night to be closer to the city, just in case driving was more treacherous than I wanted to face. At first the roads weren’t too bad, but closer to sunset the winds really picked up and I was glad not to have a long drive to get to a hot bath and a cozy bed for the evening. As always, I’d scouted lots of sites online in preparation for the trip and I got to shoot some of them that first day. On this trip I was targeting rural scenes, much like the ones I like to photograph on the Prairies, but was also hoping to create a series of images of croix de chemin (roadside crosses) which can be found all over Quebec, often at rural crossroads. They are such an interesting and unique expression of the Catholicism of Quebec that I wanted to see and photograph as many as I could on this trip.

At one point on that first day, a man came out of his house to question what I was up to photographing his neighbour’s barn. I understood his questions and managed to explain myself, all in French. Although I knew that many people in shops and restaurants in the cities would speak English, I wanted to at least try to speak to people in French, especially in the rural areas where English is much less common, so that felt like a good start. I lived in Montreal from the ages of 11 to 15 and was put in a French immersion program when I arrived. I wouldn’t say that I ever became billingual, but my French was pretty good at that time. The problem was that I hadn’t really used it in any regular way since then. I was about to find out if any of that old French was still there in the back of my head.

The second day of the trip was mostly a travelling day, as I made my way from Levis (south of Quebec City) to Saint-Denis de la Bouteillerie, about a 150kms north and east along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. Temperatures were around -10C with windchills of -20ish, and the light wasn’t my favourite, so it was a good day just to scout sites and travel. After the usual early sunset at this time of year (4pm!), I settled into my gîte (B&B), La Maison de Jean-Baptiste, right next to the large church in town. The gîte is actually the former curate’s house which was built in 1895 and occupied by the local priest until 2014. Saint-Denis is a small town near the tourist centre of Kamouraska and a few years ago the town decided to convert the old curate’s house to a gîte and café (unfortunately closed in the winter off-season) to attract some guests to their town. The conversion was all done by volunteers and the place is staffed by locals. It was a cozy refuge in the winter, but I’d love to see it in the summer when the café is open and the place is probably more bustling.

La Maison de Jean-Baptiste - the gîte is on the right, next the huge church.

The next day, after a yummy breakfast including local beurre d’erable du Kamouraska (maple butter) on my toast I headed out to explore the area north and east of town. There wasn’t much snow at the sites I visited near the St. Lawrence river, but luckily around 11am, it started to snow. At first it was just flurries, enough to nicely soften the background of my images, but then it started to really come down. As I climbed higher into the hills (les Appalaches/Appalachians), further away from the river, everything turned into a winter wonderland. Roads were snowy (over a base of ice), so I took it easy, but within a few hours the snow plows were out, even on back roads. I went through lots of lovely little towns (with huge and beautiful churches) and found lots to photograph, including a few more croix de chemin.

The next day, a full day in the area around Saint-Denis, was another snowy day. The morning was bright and partly sunny, but it quickly clouded over and started snowing. And it snowed all day long. The rest of the day was a winter wonderland, gentle snowfall without much wind, those big, wet flakes you get here in eastern Canada. That made for some tricky driving and lots of ice/snow build up in the wheel wells of the car but once I kicked and hacked that loose, the car seemed much happier. I photographed some very pretty barns and more croix de chemin, so it was another successful day. At one stop to photograph an old barn, the owner, who was shoveling the day’s snow, came over to talk to me. Even though my spoken French isn’t great, I can understand almost everything I hear: however, this fellow’s accent made it so I maybe understood half of what he said. I did hear that during the recent storm (“le grand vent”) he had lost power for four days, but that I wasn’t to worry because he had a nice wood stove to keep him warm. We wished each other a happy new year and off I went, pretty proud that I’d managed the conversation in French.

A croix de chemin in light snow and beautiful silence.

The view from my window each morning. Lovely those swoopy traditional roofs.

I started off my last morning in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region with more fresh snow on the ground and new snow falling. And, to make the start of the day even better, my server at breakfast told me that I had a ‘belle accent’ in French. My grammar and vocabulary might not be great, but apparently, I have a beautiful accent. I’ll take that! As there was fresh snow in the ground, I hit a few nearby sites that I’d already photographed but that looked better with the new snow, then headed back south towards Montmagny to continue the so-far unsuccessful search for my perfect Quebec croissant. I visited the Boulangerie Pâtisserie l'Epi d'Or, where I’d read that the locals get their bread. Turns out they’d got their croissants before I got there, too: they were sold out. No problem: after some quick thinking I got a chocolatine and a reindeer cupcake. I can tell you that both were fantastic – they were my treat at the end of a long and fruitful day of photography. South of Montmagny the snow started coming down really hard, to the point that it was nearly whiteout conditions. To make matters worse, my windscreen wipers couldn’t keep up with the snow and ice. Every 5 minutes or so I had to hop out and scrape the ice off them and when I was driving, I was hunched over the steering wheel like I was 4’8” trying to see through the only clear spot on the windscreen. At some point I thought, “This is nuts” so I pulled off to the side of the road to wait out the storm. That was my best decision of the day (well, except the cupcake and chocolatine). After that, though the roads were slick, at least I could see where I was going. There was more snow in the Beauce region south of Quebec City where I was going to spend the next two nights than in Kamouraska, along with some great barns to photograph and just when I thought the day couldn’t get any better, I hit a big patch of fog. It’s pretty lucky to get both snow and fog on the same day, but little did I know there would be more!

My second-to-last day was a short one. It was already above zero in the morning when I headed out from Gîte Le Roupillon on Scott where I was staying and the snow had started melting. I shot for the morning, running into some lovely fog again, but then the predicted rain arrived. The trip had already been pretty really productive, with some wonderful conditions. There seemed no need to push things on a not-very-pretty day, so I took the afternoon off to rest, relax and plan my last day.

On my last day, I got another foggy day. Wow! The luck! The night before, I’d looked up which of the surrounding areas had the most snow and would, therefore, most likely still have some snow after the rain the day before and I headed there. Even though it rained that whole last day, I was still think I got a few images in the fog with some of the remaining snow on the ground. As well, I stopped by an old friend’s place on my way to the airport, whom I hadn’t seen in years. And, in Levis, at a local bakery, I finally found a fantastic croissant. All in all, a great day to end the trip.

Though I was inland, I could hear the fog horn from the St. Lawrence on this foggy day. The volume on the video is very low, but it’s there - trust me.

Overall, the trip exceeded my expectations. This was a new area for me and I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of photography, especially in terms of minimalist subjects, even though I’d done my usual online scouting. I couldn’t have gotten luckier with the timing – if I’d gone earlier my flights would probably have been cancelled during the big storm, and if I’d stayed longer, the snow would all have melted. And the conditions – I got everything from whiteout snow conditions to fog, and always that lovely soft overcast winter light. A really good trip!

If you’d like to comment, please feel free to leave one below. You don’t need to make an account, just enter a name and click ‘comment as guest’.

Travel Stories

Latest Posts