What a Frigid Sleep!

    In February, 2022 we flew from Ottawa to Quebec City to experience the famous Quebec Winter Carnival . When we arranged our transportation to Quebec City we looked at the forecast and saw that the weather conditions may not be ideal with travelling by car so we opted to fly. By car it takes 4.22 hours to travel 445.11 km. By air it was a lot less however the wait time in the airports, etc increased that time to more than it would have taken if we had driven. Oh well, we got there safe and sound.

Bev with Bonhomme, the Carnival's Mascot,

at the airport.

    The Quebec Winter Carnival (Carnaval de Quebec) is a big annual event in Quebec City. Since 1894, it has been intermittent until 1955 after which it has been celebrated annually. Bonhomme, the mascot of the festival, made his first appearance that same year. It is the largest winter festival in the Western Hemisphere. There are so many activities to participate in from Canoe racing to Axe throwing. We only had time to do a few. I am sure during non-pandemic times there were many more activities. We had fun with the activities available.

The Winter Carnival is so big that it has its own Headquarters.

The ceiling of the Headquarters lobby sports a huge French sash.

Need a washroom? Follow the "cute" symbols.

    We are staying at the Val Cartier hotel during our time in Quebec City. It is about a 30 minute drive from the City Centre. We had our hotel room at the hotel but also for the first night we were booked to stay in l'Hotel de Glace (the Ice Hotel). Upon arrival to the Val Cartier we walked the two minute walk to the Ice Hotel. We took a self-guided tour of the hotel and chalet.

For the past 20 years, hundreds of couples from all around the world have celebrated their marriage in this unique Hotel de Glace chapel. Since it is not an actual church the chapel only hosts civil celebrations thus making it possible for all to get married here.

The inside of the chapel

Intricately sculpted walls are the main feature of both the chapel and the hotel itself.

Fur covered benches made of ice are set up for all those witnessing the ceremony.

Looking through the doors of the chapel past the bench to the front of the chapel.

There is only one Ice Hotel in North America. This unique Hotel de Glace is reincarnated under a new theme each winter in order to give clients a new experience each year. The first Hotel de Glace in the Quebec City area was bult in 2001.

The theme for this year is "worldwide travels". Each room is carved with this theme

in mind. Engineering and architectural plans are required and must be approved by the Regie du batiment du Quebec each year. The 2022 edition of Hotel de Glace consists of approximately 2,000 blocks of ice and 15,000 tons of snow. Its surface area is 35.00 square feet.

Outside you can enjoy the warmth from a fire pit. L'Hotel de Glace 

is in the background with the chapel on the right of the photo.

Here is Al warming up his hands.

    L'Hotel de Glace is beautifully carved highlighting this year's theme, "worldwide travels". Here are some of the suites and other areas in the hotel.

Al and I sitting on a bench in the room where all the sponsors are featured

Most of the walls are carved with travel related images...

...Including space travel.

An astronaut peeking out a port hole. 

One room was all about space and aliens.

Here I am going down an ice slide in one of the rooms.

Peace and meditation

One of the suites. A hiker is carved in the wall.

Some of the suites have a fireplace with the collaboration of Foyer Dan Bar, a fireplace was modified to meet the needs of the Ice Hotel that provides light but does not raise the room temperature beyond the point of melting the compacted snow structure.

What is a hotel without a bar? The hotel had its own however due to Covid restrictions

it was not open but we got to tour through it.

Ice benches at the table were covered with fur blankets

Al standing at the bar looking natural. No service though!

Inside the bar were many ice sculptures of musicians playing.

The fireplace in the bar modified to put out more heat than

the ones in some of the suites.

Musicians carved into the walls

Bar stools at a small bar. Dancers on the wall.

Everything decorated to show fun during an evening out at the bar.

You may wonder, where are the bathrooms? That was

my first question. The hotel did not have any bathrooms, it has no 

running water. If you needed to use the facilities during your stay

toilets were available outside the hotel. Just follow the signs like

the one above outside...

...a "Johnny on the Spot". Open 24/7. The good thing 

about this toilet facility was that it was heated for your comfort 

with a small space heater. The warmest place at the hotel.

The suites: There are 24 themed rooms and suites. All the suites have a red curtain (no doors here) and are decorated in this year's theme. The 6 rooms with a blue curtain are purer and more natural. Here are some of the suites

The bed is a wooden plank surrounded by ice and a queen-sized sized mattress is placed on top. A bed spread completes the furnishing and sleeping bags are added before bedtime.

There is electricity throughout the hotel. There are 6 km of electrical wires. They are either in the ground, buried in the snow floor or embedded in the walls. A waterproof membrane is used to protect them from humidity. You will notice that light is used to highlight certain ice sculptures.

Australia was my favourite suite to view.

A special light was used to emulate a pushpin

holding up a photo on the wall. Very clever.

    Our suite: We were in suite 16, Le Survol de Java. It had an bed, bench and table all made of ice. You are not allowed in your room until after 9:00 p.m. and you had to be out by 8:00 a.m. which is more than long enough to stay in that environment. 

The temperature of the rooms is set between 0 degrees C

and -8 degrees C so we were prepared for a "cold" night.

The carvings on the wall were beautifully done.

The sleeping bags could protect us against temperatures as low as -30 degrees C. Thankfully it did not get that cold.

Here we are ready to get into our sleeping bags and sleep. 

Sliding over the ice on the side of the bed was quite tricky and cold. 

Yes, we are wearing a onesie. They were purchased especially for this photo op.

Al, all warm and cozy. He slept well. How did I know. I could hear all his ZZzzz!

We both slept with a hat on and I had mitts on as well.

Sleeping was comfortable, it was just getting to sleep that was the problem.

As you can imagine breathing in and out cold air leaves moisture around the 

opening of the sleeping bag. That was not so great but... what can you do?

In the middle of the night with all the lights off this is how dark it got. Not much! The security guard

walked the halls on a regular basis making sure everyone was doing well.

Getting up in the morning was tough but just thinking

about the warm room we were going back to was comforting.

Al closing our red curtain ready for a new day.

    We were in the Ice Hotel a total of 8 hours. I thought that we did very well but it was nice to get back to a warm room and bed. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am glad to have experienced it. That was just our first night. There is more to come of our time in Quebec City....

Playing on hills: We spend a morning tubing on the hill outside the Valcartier Hotel.

Waiting for Al to go down the "Everest" slide.

Here he comes. There are three tubes tied together.

A long and bumpy ride. Whee! I can just hear the squeal of the pre-teen girls.

Al is in the front with two girls behind.

The smaller hills that I went down

Going up the hill was the difficult part. The tow rope has tubes attached to it and as the tube come around you are supposed to drop down into the tube while it is moving and still holding onto your own tube. Well, I missed the tube several times. I was having a great time, once on I was taken to the top of the hill. Now the task is to get off the tow tube. Me, I just flopped off and crawled out of the way. Great fun! It did not take long to get tuckered out.

The Aquarium: We have been to several aquariums but it is always nice to see the fish that we normally would not see in our Canadian waters. Here are my favourites.

    The carnival activities:

The City is decked out with horns and French Sashes

Al with Bonhomme

Bev and Bonhomme are ready to celebrate winter!

    Snow and ice sculptures are everywhere. Along the street and in the Carnival grounds. We were there for the first weekend of the Carnival so the snow sculptures were not complete but the ice sculptures were. The artists are very talented. Here are some of them

Each year an Ice Palace is built in a different style. Here is this year's.

Bonhomme has been residing in the palace since the first carnaval.

During the evening it is lit up.

Bonhomme's Palace was inspired this year by the architecture of the great Californian villas.

I am not sure if it was finished at the time the photo was taken but looking at photos of past palaces this one is not as impressive. Notice the long line of people waiting to view the interior of the palace.

"The Return"

"Caravan Passing Through"

Snow sculpture made from this model.

"Balneum" means bath in Latin. What could be better than using a small incident to make it positive. "Before I turn over onto my feet let's take the time for a little sunbath in the snow." said the turtle.

"Factual Voyage"

It's PUGsational it doesn't matter what they look like!"

"The Fjord Deer has a lot to say"

Sculptures working on "Woolly Mammoth"

"The Hunt"

Even the outdoor bar was made of ice.

We stood in line for over an hour just to have the opportunity to throw a hatchet a few times. I carefully watched the people before us. When it was our turn we were not given any instructions due to the fact that the instructor could not speak English. I was glad to have watched others while moving along the line. It was fun and we were very good at it. We at least had the hatchet stick in the board more times than the other young ones (under 40 year crowd).

With the proper stance and two hands on the hatchet 

the throw can be quite powerful.

Almost ready to release the hatchet.

Al's first throw was a bull's eye.

My first throw was not as successful. Notice

it is on the ground by the board.

Ice Sculptures were everywhere along the main street

Several restaurants had small dome structures on the patio for groups of customers.

A very clever idea especially during a pandemic.

The notorious "Freedom Convoy" of truckers that paralyzed the area around Parliament Hill in Ottawa spawned similar events in other parts of Canada.  Unluckily for us, the same weekend that we went to enjoy Carnaval was when protestors chose to descend on the Quebec Legislature which happened to be across the street from one of the main Carnaval sites.  However, the police learned from experience of the Ottawa police and did not allow trucks into the downtown core.  So we only had to deal with a lot of noisy people yelling into loudspeakers and we could easily walk into and out of the area although you never really knew who was walking beside you. 

    On our last day in the Quebec City area we went dog sledding. What a thrill! Al did the driving. It was hard work because when going up hill you had to get off the back and push in order to help the dogs pull up hill. The dogs are so eager to run that you really have to stand on the brakes to get them to stop. The dogs were beautiful, well trained and friendly. They just wanted to run.

Ready to go! Snow sprays back to the people on the sled.

Off we go!

Each guest sled was accompanied by a guide who had his own sled in front.

    We had a wonderful time in Quebec City. We certainly checked off a few things from our "Bucket List". Lots of walking, exercise, outdoor fun and food. Winter can be a time to explore new things in the outdoors. Many communities have their own winter festival. Does yours? Have you participated in any winter activities?