My sweetheart Marilyn already gave you her view from the Stoker’s seat of our recent biking holiday in Quebec, cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets. Here’s my side of the story:
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day One
Greetings from Peribonka! My sweetheart Marilyn and I ate a marvelous dinner (pork-and-venison pie for me!) and are resting our bike-wearied bodies on very comfortable bed in a cheery yellow room in the Aubergite au petit Bonheur. We pedaled our tandem bicycle 63 kilometers (39 miles) today with our new friend Lysane Fortin. Lysane’s gone home (probably to rest, too; I think we wore her out . . . ). We have only about 200 kilometers to go, and four more days to do it!
In case you don’t know where Peribonka is, get a map and follow along. First, drive north and cross the border into Canada (don’t forget your passport or passport card!), then head northeast to Quebec City, Quebec. At Quebec City, you’ll turn due north on Route 175 and drive an hour or so through some of the emptiest country you can imagine, some of it along the eastern edge of the Parc National de la Jacques Cartier. Then, in the middle of nowhere, you’ll bang a sudden left onto Route 169 and drive through even emptier country until you arrive in bustling Alma not far from the shores of Lac St. Jean, which is ultimately the source of the Saguenay River. Peribonka is on the north shore of the lake, beyond Alma at the mouth of the Peribonka River. . .
Got that? Sounds like it’s a long way, but it really isn’t. It’s a day’s drive from New York City . . . and worth every mile (or kilometer once you cross into Canada).
After our drive, we spent our first night in Alma in the Hôtel Universel in a very nice room with a gorgeous view overlooking a river in Alma. Great dinner (outstanding food is everywhere in Quebec!), friendly service, good, hearty breakfast, and reasonable prices, especially on weekends (this was Labor Day, or, more precisely “Labour Day” in Canada, too.)
This morning, Tuesday, we handed over our luggage to Navette de Baggages, a reliable courier service which will deliver our bags to our lodging each night, locked our car at the Maison de Véloroute, and pedaled away (under sunny skies!) on the 256-kilometer Véloroute des Bleuets, (the Bicycle Route of the Blueberries) which circumnavigates Lac St. Jean. This is one of the most popular bike routes in Quebec, and now we know why.
We won’t see our car again for five days. If the next four days are as good as the first, we won’t miss it at all . . .
We started with a few kilometers of biking through the residential areas of Alma, then found ourselves on a short stretch of highway with wide shoulders to bike on. Huge farm fields on either side opened expansive views away to a ring of low mountains on the horizon. This is beautiful country!
The Veloroute is well-marked at every intersection with big white symbols painted on the path. You really can’t miss it. Sometimes the route is on quiet roads, at other times on the sides of Highway 169, the major road in this region. Much of it (more every year, apparently) is on beautiful paved paths made just for biking.
The highlight of today was the time we spent in Parc National de la Pointe-Taillon. The park is located on a delta of sand (beautiful beach, warm water!) which juts 20 kilometers out into the lake. The sand was carried here by the glaciers and the Peribonka River. Think Cape Cod . . . in miniature, with fresh water, no tides, and lots of moose.
We ate a hearty soup-and-salad lunch at the visitor center, where we spent some time enjoying the displays which show the history of the park. Then we climbed back on the bike to finish our ride. The terrain was mostly flat, with a hard-surfaced stone-dust path (great riding!) through the lovely, quiet pine and aspen forests, with expansive views of water and wetland. Bikes are the only mode of transport allowed on park roads (they rent bikes and even bike trailers for your camping gear). There are four camping areas with over a hundred tent sites and some marvelous “Huttopias” where all you need to bring is food and a sleeping bag. These campsites are very busy through the summer, but on this day-after-Labour-Day, we didn’t see a single camper, and only four other cyclists on the 14 kilometers we rode inside the park. A day earlier, we could have taken a bike ferry across to Peribonka, but we would have missed some lovely riding.
First days are often tough, and this northern end of the lake has the “hilliest” terrain. But our ride seemed easy–in 40 miles today, we did less climbing in total than in either direction of the 5-mile ride from our house to the post office. Tomorrow morning, we’ll jump on the bike and ride 53 kilometers to a housekeeping chalet rented to tourists by the town of Albanel.
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day 2
We awoke this morning to wind-driven rain slashing at the windows of the Aubergite. When we go bike touring, we expect rain, prepare for it, and enjoy ourselves anyway—no whining allowed! But we did linger for a second pot of hot tea (after a marvelous cheese and ham soufflé for breakfast) before heading out into the deluge. And I do mean deluge. We’d have stayed drier if we’d been swimming in the lake.
The village of Albanel, 53 kilometers away, was our destination. We had rented a housekeeping chalet in the municipal camping park (418-279-3374). Roadside camping parks are very popular in Quebec and these little cottages are ubiquitous, cheap and fun if you don’t have your own RV.
The rain continued and each kilometer we pedaled got just a little wetter and a little chillier. Some of the Véloroute was on the main road, where the shoulders were wide enough that we didn’t get splashed by passing cars. More was on quiet country roads where there wasn’t any traffic to splash us. Another section was a paved path just for bikes that wound through miles of spruce forest, lovely even in the pouring rain. We stopped for a snack and a quick photo of the falls at a little path-side shelter in Ste. Jeanne D’Arc, but mostly we just pedaled in the driving rain.
By the time we hit Albanel we were ready to get out of the rain. A little local grocery store supplied the makings for a stay-in dinner so we wouldn’t have to go back out in the still-pouring rain to ride to a restaurant. The chalet was brand-new, spotless and VERY comfy/cozy after a long day in the rain. Once inside, we cranked up the heat, hung our wet gear to dry, then luxuriated in hot showers. Wonderful!
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day 3
On Thursday, it had stopped raining (mostly) and we were off on a flat, fast 36k pedal to the town of St. Félicien where the marvelous Zoo Sauvage de Sainte Félicien serves as a haven for animals of the circumpolar boreal (northern) forest.
We spent several amazing hours at the Zoo. In this safari-style park, you ride in caged carriages (next year they’ll be pulled by little bio-diesel tractors) through hundreds of acres where a host of northern animals including lots of BIG black bears, whitetail and mule deer, elk, moose, caribou, muskox, wild sheep, foxes and even prairie dogs all roam freely. Only the wolves are kept separated—for obvious reasons. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel often in the boreal wilderness and have seen most of these animals (except the muskox) in the wild, but it was still a treat. Marilyn absolutely loved every minute.
Later, we walked on boardwalks over large natural enclosures with northern animals from other parts of the world—snow monkeys, Bactrian camels, Amur tigers, grizzly and polar bears . . . the list went on and on. This is a very cool experience, something to look forward to when you are in the area, and well worth driving there to see if you love seeing wildlife.
That night, we stayed in St. Félicien at the Hôtel du Jardin, enjoyed a relaxing soak in the hot tub before a lovely dinner focused on local specialties. Don’t miss the blueberry pie—this is, after all the Véloroute des Bleuets!
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day 4
Sun pouring through the window of our hotel room woke us early and we quickly rode out into a glorious early-fall day. The 51 kilometers, which simply flew by, brought us back by the lake and spectacular views as we pedaled through both Sainte Prime and the Native community of Mashteuitash. We were too early to visit their respective Perron Cheese Museum and Native Museum, but stopped in the lovely town of Robertval for a few minutes to watch seaplanes take off and land.
That afternoon we toured Val Jalbert, Quebec’s version of an old-west ghost town. Val Jalbert, a paper-mill company town abandoned in the 1920s is being resurrected as a tourist attraction and living museum.
This abandoned mill town is in a beautiful setting beneath a spectacular waterfall. You can sleep in comfortable, modern rooms, eat in the old mill building, watch performances (in French) and multi-media presentations (in French or English).
On a very personal note, my grandfathers both worked in mills much like this at about the same time Val Jalbert was built and both my parents were born in mill-town houses, so the experience really hit home for me. Take some time here to imagine what it would have been like to live and work in a place like this . . . It’s a wonderful bit of living history.
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day 5, early
While Marilyn relaxed this morning, I got up early and climbed the 754 steps (I counted them) to the overlook at the top of Val Jalbert Falls. Most people take the cable car up to see the spectacular view, but I needed the exercise–been sitting too much lately (grin). Besides, the cable car wasn’t running this early.
The view is worth the climb (just so you know, taking the cable car is cheating and the view is sweeter if you hike. . .). You can see forever over the lake with the falls tumbling just below you. Don’t miss it. You can also walk a quarter-mile more on a boardwalk for a long view toward another set of falls and rapids up the valley. Again, well worth it. This place is beautiful!
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Day 5, later
Our last day (53k) of pedaling brought us back to Alma. The hills come closer to the lake here and the views are wonderful. We ate lunch in the Microbrasserie du Lac St. Jean right on the Véloroute (don’t worry, they have sampler glasses that won’t make you dangerous on the bike), and finished our tour in a beautiful condo at Dam-en-Terre, a recreational complex with a marina, beaches, live theater, biking, hiking, kayaking, boating and a campground, all on the edge of Alma. Dinner that night was a celebratory splurge at the Rose & Basilic in Alma. Great food and wine, don’t miss it!
Pedaling 159 miles in five days was perfect. Just enough exercise each day to get our legs and lungs working properly, some time for sightseeing, eating well and sleeping even better.
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: Trip Planning
The Véloroute des Bluets offers easy riding, glorious scenery, good food, friendly people. We rode it in five days, could have easily added a sixth day to allow more time to linger along the route. You can, of course, pedal only a part of it . . . It’s open May through mid-October.
Over 250,000 people rode all or part of this magnificent bike route this season. After Labor Day when we rode, it’s very quiet except on weekends–we saw more cyclists on Saturday than we had all week. But in the summer, you need to plan well ahead to get the accommodations you want. As with any visit to Quebec, start with Quebec Tourism. The Véloroute website will help you with your planning, as will Tourisme Saguenay/Lac St. Jean and Tourisme Alma. Bonne route!
Cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets: An Overview
Strong bikers on fast road bikes could easily ride the entire Veloroute des Bleuets in one or two days (but what would they see?). The roads and paths are mostly smooth enough for fast riding and there aren’t any hills (at least not to someone used to riding in New England).
My recommendation: take your time and savor the experience. Ride a comfy touring hybrid, take some time to stop and enjoy the views, take a swim if the weather’s warm, visit some of the attractions along the way.
We were riding mid-week after Labour Day, which means kids are back in school, the Veloroute is almost deserted, and some of the main “attractions” are closed. One day, for example, we passed the Musée Louis Hemon dedicated to the author of the book Maria Chapdelaine, which is set in this region, but it was closed. We might have stopped . . .
Bonjour Quebec!
In many ways, cycling the Veloroute des Bleuets is like a cycling vacation in Europe that you can drive-to in a few hours. The food is better than most you’ll find in the US, the houses all look very different, and, of course, everything is in French.
If you don’t speak French, don’t worry. Almost everyone you meet speaks at least some English. Smile, learn to say “bonjour” instead of hello, and you won’t have anything to worry about.
The Saguenay/Lac St. Jean area is a world unto itself, far from the city influences of Montreal and Quebec. Everyone we met was just as friendly and helpful as can be, even if we couldn’t speak their language.
In other words, even if you don’t speak French you’ll get by and have a wonderful vacation.