“Montréal is cool, not cold,” explained a friend a few years back, as the two of us hunched into the boreal wind paring icy corkscrews from snowbanks along the city’s Boulevard de Maisonneuve. She works promoting tourism, so she is vocationally optimistic. The line she was testing on me was a cheerful bit of spin aimed at tempting American tourists away from sunny climes and toward a place whose frigid winters are colder than those of Moscow.
Our boots creaked in the snow. Passersby were made rotund by layers of fur and down, and fairy lights twinkled behind foggy restaurant windows. It was freezing in a distinctly Montréal way. The city seems to specialize in cold snaps audacious enough to sharpen the mind and numb the nose in equal measure. To me, it’s glorious.
Winter trips north of the border might be chilly, but for some travelers, that’s precisely the point. Cold turns Québec’s ice-skating trails into glossy ribbons, brings bundled-up revelers to outdoor dance parties and sends locals to spas whose hot tubs steam among fluffy drifts. Frigid days lend cozy appeal to certain indoor pleasures, as well, from dining to shows. Even poutine, a dish I cannot countenance at temperatures above 20 degrees Fahrenheit, tastes pretty good in midwinter.
And so, each year, I make a ritual of certain Québécois journeys, migrations made sweeter by anticipation: browsing Montréal’s holiday markets, a cross-country ski journey through the Laurentians, ice-skating outings through the forests of Mauricie. But fresh reasons abound to visit before spring thaw, too.
From old favorites to newly opened spots, here are a few to savor while it’s cold.
Québec City: Snow and Lights
The Québec Winter Carnival, which runs from February 6 to 15, cranks the provincial capital’s cold-hardy joie de vivre to 11, with a boost from the party’s signature caribou drink, a blend of whiskey and wine. Highlights of the carnival include a mass snow bath, a delightfully gonzo ice canoe race and ice sculptures crafted by teams from around the globe.
But the winter festivities start well before the actual carnival. The season kicks off with the November 20 opening of the German Christmas Market amid the cobblestones and sloping roofs of the old city, where vendors mingle with alpenhorn music and the scent of glühwein. Next comes the December 5 debut of immersive light show AURA at the 1923 Saint-Roch Church, a project by the same Moment Factory team that created the long-running light show at Montréal’s Notre-Dame Basilica. Open daily starting December 19 is Discoglace — a rebranding of the Icecothèque that debuted last year — in the Port of Québec, a free-to-use outdoor skating rink that will feature DJs and ice concerts through March.
Warm up: Strøm Nordic Spa, which has a beloved riverfront location in Québec City, is launching a sister brand in early 2026 with a Québec City outpost. While existing Strøm spas are all silent, the new AWÜ spas reflect a recent province-wide turn toward “social” wellness. Yes, that means you’re allowed to chat in the sauna.
Trois Rivières: Fresh Winter Fest
For Vermonters who make the seasonal ice-skating pilgrimage to Domaine Enchanteur — a network of forest trails well worth the 3 hour, 35-minute drive from Burlington to rural Mauricie — the history-rich city of Trois Rivières is a pleasant stopover or overnight stay. This year, it’s launching a winterlong event featuring luminous art installations in some of the city’s public spaces. While key details about the event (name, dates) haven’t been announced yet, try to stop by if you’re in the area this season. The flagship art pieces will be in Pierre-Boucher Place and Parc portuaire, steps from downtown restaurants and the 17th-century Rue des Ursulines, the oldest street in Trois Rivières.
While you’re there: Visit the gracefully domed Ursulines Monastery that was founded in 1697 and is now a museum with guided tours.
Montréal: Dining In
From midcentury kitsch and “steamie” hot dogs to a new generation of fine-dining chefs, the culinary heritage of Québec’s most cosmopolitan city is the focus of a new exhibit at the McCord Stewart Museum. “On the Menu — Montréal: A Restaurant Story” debuts Wednesday, November 26, with a trove of images, menus and interviews showcasing how the city’s food scene has evolved — and how it eventually got this good. Starting Saturday, November 29, the museum will also have free, family-friendly holiday programming, including nostalgic window displays once used at Ogilvy’s department store.
The restaurant exhibition lands like a victory lap for Montréal, which had five entries honored this September in the inaugural North America’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards, from the “50 Best” organization whose global restaurant list has gained influence in recent years. (And is arguably a less-fussy retort to the kind of food that tends to win Michelin stars.) The Montréal entries include buzzy fine-dining favorite Mon Lapin, awarded No. 2 in North America, as well as Montréal Plaza (22), Le Violon (29), Alma (43), and the low-key Beba (50), which refracts Spanish and Italian cuisine through the founders’ Argentinean roots.
There’s an abundance of new Montréal restaurants worth checking out this season, too. Across Boulevard Saint Laurent from smoked-meat institution Schwartz’s Deli is the new, family-run Brocard (mains CA$21.50-26), whose homey Syrian dishes, such as a lamb- and tahini yogurt-topped take on the pita salad fatet, are winning raves. In the Old Port, the 28-seat, walk-in-only Motto Handroll Bar (hand rolls CA$8-15) is already sought after for signature cocktails — like the Bonzai (CA$19), made with tequila, Chartreuse and edamame — as well as exquisitely fresh hand-rolled sushi.
Offering a chic and modern twist on the Jewish delicatessen in Mount Royal, Yans Deli (breakfast plates CA$12-34, dinner mains CA$25-220) is outside the typical tourist zone but notably well placed as a stop en route from Burlington to the Montréal airport. The three-course brunch (CA$57 per person) spread featuring chopped liver, Romanian eggplant-and-pepper zacusca dip, pickled salmon, and latke-like kartoffelpuffer looks like a wonderfully over-the-top feast.
Laurentian Mountains: Off Piste
In the Laurentian Mountains northwest of Montréal, a bounty of cross-country and backcountry ski adventures beckon — particularly when Vermont’s trails are grassy and the Laurentians have snow. Highlights include sections of the 145-mile P’tit Train du Nord rail trail that are groomed for skiing, as well as cross-country ski areas such as Val-David-Val-Morin Regional Park.
This year brings some new ways to explore. Organizers behind the Routes Blanches network of backcountry ski routes, which launched last season, are now offering guided, two-night adventures on the intermediate-to-advanced North Route in the woods surrounding Mont-Tremblant. (Two-night trips are CA$1,479.)
Many of the Routes Blanches make use of corridors established in the 1920s and 1930s by pioneering Nordic skier Herman “Jackrabbit” Smith-Johannsen, whose legacy is on display at the small Laurentian Ski Museum in Saint-Sauveur. This summer, the museum opened a new permanent exhibit, “To Your Skis! A History of the Laurentians,” tracing the evolution of skiing in one the first major winter sports destinations in North America.
Located in the low-key regional park Parc Éco-Laurentides, which has a network of cross-country and snowshoeing trails, is a new-this-summer outpost of international glamping chain Huttopia. Winter accommodations at Huttopia Les Deux Lacs – Laurentides include six-person wooden cabins with wood or gas heat available from CA$170 a night.
This article is part of a travel series on Québec. The province’s destination marketing organization, Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, under the Bonjour Québec brand, is a financial underwriter of the project but has no influence over story selection or content. Find the complete series plus travel tips at sevendaysvt.com/quebec.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Cold Calling | Good reasons to dust off your ‘bonjour,’ bundle up and head north to Québec this winter”
This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2025.
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