Tadoussac, Quebec - Whale Watching & Montmorency Falls

We spent 5 days, this summer, traveling through northern Ontario and Quebec to go whale watching. Let's talk about it!

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Day 1 - To Ingleside

Day 1, a Friday, started late since I had to work that day. Because of this, we set out to drive only 5 hours on the first day to a town called Ingleside. My grandmother's 93 year old cousin, Martha, lives there and she was willing to let us set up camp, for free, for the night in her driveway. Because we left later and with pit stops and traffic, we didn't arrive until a little after 10pm.

We'd called prior and Martha, my gram's cousin, had invited us to tea once we arrived. A super sweet and kind gesture, but after 10pm, I am a terrible conversationalist. I'm definitely a morning person, especially since starting summer camp. I'm usually up by 5 or 6am each morning and in bed by 9:30-10 most nights. So, arriving at 10, having to socialize over tea, then setting the camper up at 11, was definitely a change.

Out of all the camping trips thus far, this was definitely the latest we've ever set up the camper. There were a few nights last year where we arrived at 9pm, but none when we were setting up at nearly 11pm.

The morning was definitely better. Once everyone was awake, we all piled into Martha's kitchen for some breakfast. It was nice getting to chat over some coffee and eggs. I was too young to remember, but apparently Martha met as as a baby and again when I was 9 or 10.

After breakfast, we closed up the trailer. After how many times we've done it up to this point, we've got it down to a science. Set up and tear down, separately, only take sus about 20 minutes or so.

We'll be back to crash at Martha's on the way back too, so hopefully we'll be arriving at a better time that way we can spend more time with her without having to rush or being exhausting. Maybe play some card games. As a non-math minded person, I've been trying to learn how to play Cribbage, a game my grandparents seem to be amazing at.

Day 2 - Ingleside to Tadoussac

For day 2, our goal was to get to our campground in Tadoussac, about a 7 hour drive. During the drive, we drove through part of Montreal, and from the bits and pieces I saw, it seems like such a pretty, European-esk city. The murals on the buildings were so eccentric.

On one of our rest stops just outside of Quebec city, we stopped in a town called Boischalet. We stopped at an Ultramar and the one we happened to stop at had this gorgeous municipal garden area overlooking the water.

This town screams little European mountain village. It's surrounded by deep forests and mountain tops. Many of the mountain towns we passed reminded me so much of Hann Münden, being so close to the water and swallowed by mountains.

I find a lot of the east coast is endless water front views and rolling mountain hills, unlike Ontario, which, in my experience, is mostly flat and dry.

In this town is also where you can find Montmorency falls. We drove passed it and oh my God is it a beautiful sight to see. You can walk up the mountain side, there is a bridge across the falls, a zip line, and a cable car. It's so beautiful, we decided we had to visit it on the drive back, but more on that later.

If you follow me on Insta, you know I've had a goal of reading through all the books in my home library before I move to Germany in January. Since we had a trillion hours in the car and I wasn't the one who was going to be driving, I had so much time to read. I find I always read best when I'm commuting. I'm someone who needs their senses constantly engaged to be able to focus, so to sit just to read can be a challenge. But, when I'm commuting, my sitting has more of a purpose, so I find it easier to read.

I had already started Wuthering Heights and brought along Frankenstein (I have a lot of old English literature for some reason). I read Frankenstein already, back in high school, but I definitely didn't pay attention to it all, so I brought it along incase I finished Wuthering Heights over this adventure.

Spoiler, I didn't. I spent most of the drives typing actually.

We got to the campground at around 7:30pm, and had about 20 minutes of sunlight to get the camper all set up for the night. It was supposed to be raining all weekend, so we also set up a giant tarp above the camper to try to keep the canvas dry, as well as us. We had a quick dinner of sandwiches, ramen noodles, and oatmeal before calling it a night.

Let's use this section to chat about the campground we were at. The campground was called Domaine des Dunes and was about 2km outside of the city centre of Tadoussac. The site we had was similar to the one we had in Massachusetts in that it was a rock ground and rather small regarding space. We were also right across from the washrooms.

Unlike Massachusetts though, we had all 3 resources; water, electric, and sewage. We only really use the sewage part of drain water from the sink since we still have yet to use the built in bathroom, but still nice to have. When we were setting up the electric initially, it wasn't working and we had quite the time figuring out why. At first we thought we flipped the wrong switch, then we though it was the voltage, then we checked the cables and adaptors, only for us to learn once more that the electric doesn't work in the camper until the sink is lifted so that it presses down on the switch underneath it that activates the electricity.

I almost had to go talk to the woman working in the office, who didn't speak a lick of English by the way, and trouble shoot the electrical issue. Thankfully, it was just our own ignorance.

Our site also had a picnic table, standard for most campgrounds, and a fire pit, also standard, This fire pit however, was the first one that came with a BBQ grate. A small, but helpful detail for those of us who don't have a BBQ. Thankfully for us, our camper has an outdoor attachment for our BBQ that came with the camper. We just mount it to the exterior wall, then hook it up to a valve which connects to the propane tanks that power the furnace, water heater, and stove.

Let's talk amenities! This campground had some interesting amenities. There was this insane, up hill, forest staircase hike that had few railings and led to a sensory path. In this sensory path, you were meant walk barefoot across a variety of different terrain, such as wood, sand, water, sawdust, etc., so that you could ground with nature. At the end of this trail, there was a meditation area where you could wash off your feet, sit in a lawn chair or hammock, grab a book from their little library, and use the washroom as well.

This was definitely a first. I've never seen an amenity like this before, but it definitely added to the overall appeal of this campground. I took the roadway back down, while the others took the forest path. I would've gone with them, but it started to pour rain and I didn't trust my own ability to not slip down the steep, muddy forest hill.

There was also a few playgrounds for the kiddos and a tennis court not far from our site. There was also, apparently, a Finnish rope obstacle course with suspended rope bridges, but it's closed on rainy and windy days for safety reasons. We didn't get to experience this, but I also think we wouldn't have had time to anyway. If you go, let me know what it's like!

Overall, it was a nice campground. Quiet when it needed to be, had all the resources we needed and more, as well as some really interesting amenities. When we come back this way, I'd definitely stay here again.

Day 3 - Whale Watching

Whale watching was happening on the Sunday - day 3 - around 10am, and it was about a 3 hour boat trip. I wasn't super sure what to expected because it's only when I started writing this blog post that I realized I knew next to nothing about this trip. I knew what we were doing and the general destination, but the finer details of how we're watching whales and when, never crossed my mind to ask. I'm pretty much always down for an adventure, so I'll happily say yes without asking many questions. It's more fun when things are spontaneous!

The boat trip was definitely that. All I knew going into it was that there were going to be whales and a boat at 10am. The experience that followed had many, many more unforeseen details.

The day we went, it was lightly raining in the morning, so we had already dressed somewhat warm and gotten a bit soaked - definite foreshowing.

I knew prior that it would be cold on the boat because being on the water usually is, but I didn't realize just how cold and wet it would be. Luckily, and of course, the workers did, and so they had everyone dress in these waterproof orange suits that made us all look like fishermen before getting on the boat.

It was a pair of orange wadders, held on using suspender, and a giant waterproof coat with hoods that had drawstrings to tighten it around your face - definitely needed in the strong wind. The suit went over top of the clothes we already had on, and had pockets that did a decent job at keeping my phone dry.

Once we were all dressed, we waddled on down to the pier to start boarding our boat. The last boat ride I was on was in Tobermory on the Chicheemaun (hyperlink), but that was a proper ship. This was definitely just a boat. There were seats on the deck, and the captain in his quarters behind us, as well as our guide, but that was it.

As we got on the boat, the captain sat us by the number of people in our group numbers, so we had a 3-seater. We were talking about who should sit where and decided the best seat was the one on the outer edge because you could get the best pictures.

However, we learned the hard way that the closer you were to the boat's edge, the more of the splash back you got from the waves. If you sat there, it was no question of getting completely drenched. I was in the middle seated, but that didn't save me. I still got absolutely pelted in the face with 4 degree celsius salt water.

I'm, unfortunately, a glasses wearer too, as you know, so every time the water splashed over me, I couldn't see anything beyond the giant water droplets sliding down my lenses. Trying to wipe them off only made the sweater underneath my fishermen suit even wetter and left salty residue on the lenses. I eventually resolved to just take them off and worked with the unassisted vision God gave me.

The icy cold water, coupled with the fast paced, freezing breeze made all of our fingers go completely numb. My ankles and feet were numb too because, sadly, I wore ankle socks. If you go on this boat trip, wear extra sweaters, long socks, a toque or baseball cap to keep the hood out of your eyes, and maybe even mittens. I made a joke about swimming goggles, but they may actually help.

Our guide however, let us know that being cold and wet was going to happen on this boat trip and so it was all expected. While it was absolutely freezing, it was also exhilarating to be surprised by the ice water, to taste the salt streaming down your face, and to share in the excitement with the strangers around you.

In the salt water section, we had the absolute pleasure of seeing a sleeping humpback whale, watch her breath through her blow hole, wake up, and dive into the water, completely showing off her tail fins!

When we left the salt water section and sailed into the freshwater, the sun came out and the breeze warmed up a ton. This was a very welcome change after 45 minutes straight of freezing winds and the surprising, salty projectile cold plunges.

It's here in the freshwater where we saw beluga whales and seals! Legally, we couldn't get close to the belugas, so we just saw white balloons, as they say, in the distance every so often as they surfaced. The seals however, were happily napping in the sun on the mountain side, and so we could see them completely.

After 3 hours at sea and once we were back on land, we decided to visit the museum they had. The museum was called Le Centre d’interprétation des Mammifères Marins and it displayed various different species of whales at all different stages in life. While the entire museum was in French, they offered English visitors a booklet that detailed all the same information as all the exhibits.

As you enter the museum, you walk through 2 bones from a blue whales jaw - absolutely massive pillars! From there, they have a variety of whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling that you are allowed to touch. I took a picture inside the mouth and rib cage of one of the really giant ones. They also had, on display, the fetus of a whale, which are no bigger than a new born puppy.

There was an exhibit in the museum that display a narwhal horn, which was really fascinating and interactive. This displayed said that a narwhal horn is actually a tooth, specifically a canine. The only have 2 teeth, and one of the develops into their 'horn'. Their horn is also used as sensory tool that helps them to sense the temperature and pressure in the water. This display let you touch and try to lift the horn and it was surprisingly really heavy. I'm amazed that these animals can lift their heads!

While we were in the middle of reading through the display cases, the lights suddenly shut off and the skeletons began to light up while they played a variety of whale sounds. It was an amazing sensory experience; it made you feel as though you were under the water listening to these gentle giants communicating with each other.

In another section of the museum, they had a presentation about the beluga whales here in Tadoussac. The presentation was completely in French, but the presentation did have some English subtitles. During the presentation, the audience would periodically ask some questions about the whales, which the speaker would answer throughout the presentation.

From there, we moved onto exploring the town of Tadoussac. We stopped at this little cafe - Café Bohème - for some lunch.

I got an americano, which was nice after the chilly salty boat ride, while the others got a croquette and a salad with some cocktails.

Then, we explored the grocery store, a few souvenir shops, grabbed some goodies at this little cafe, and grabbed a poutine, of course, to-go before heading back to the campground.

Lucky me found a gluten free, vegan lemon poopy seed cookie at the bakery - Boulangerie À l'emportée coop | Tadoussac QC - that we went to, which I enjoyed after dinner, and I was told the poutine, that we got from this little shack just outside of Chez Mathilde Bistro, was quite good.

It was a day full of new experiences, yummy foods, and linguistic stimulation!

You know me, I love anything to do with foreign languages, and even though I'm Canadian, French still counts for me. You'd think, since Canada is a bilingual French-English country, that after years of studying French in elementary school, I'd be able to speak it, but sadly no. I read it well, but I have next to no speaking practice, which is even more reason for me to speak while in Quebec, and I did just that...kind of.

I had a goal of properly speaking French while I was in Quebec this year. Last year, when we were passing through on our eastern road trip across Canada and the US, we stopped at a Starbucks in Quebec, so that I could add to my mug collection. I went in with the goal of speaking French, but chickened out last minute and spoke English instead. This time though, I'm sticking to my goal! I gonna speak French and do it scared!

I had the opportunity once we got to the campground since I needed to exchange a bill for change for the showers. I googled how to say coins, I worked up the courage, we drove down to the office aaaaaand they were closed for the day.

When we went into town, I had more chances to speak French and I did a very small amount. When we went whale watching, I answered trois when we were asked how many were in our group. I answered ca va bien when asked how I was by the boat captain, and said merci to a bunch of people, but I didn't speak full sentences really.

I did however, read tons of French and translate a bunch of it for the peeps I was traveling with. It was really fun to try and work out what the signs on the roadside said, and I had a lot of fun at this one bakery in Tadoussac reading through their gluten free section. The lady at the counter confirmed for me that pavot meant poppy seed when I was looking at getting a Galette Citron Pavot - a lemon poopy seed cookie - and it was such an affirming experience for me.

I've always been a visual learner, so when it comes to foreign languages, I'm always better at reading than speaking or listening. When I speak, I often visualize how the words are spelled to string together coherent sentences.

Day 4 - Montmorency Falls & Martha

Our day started out early, like most of the days have been. We got up around 6:30, had some quick breakfast, and got to closing down the trailer. Unfortunately for us however, we were met with a 3 hour rain storm, and so we had to close up in the pouring rain. It wasn't that bad thanks to the tree cover of our site, but still not the most fun experience. We got on the road around 9, grabbed the ferry back across the St. Lawrence, and set off towards Boischalet, Quebec - about a 3 hour drive - to visit Montmorency Falls.

As I said, we weren't planning on visiting the falls, we just happened to stumble across it on the drive to Tadoussac. While exploring Tadoussac, we talked about whether we were going to walk up the mountain or use another means of transport.

We decided, day of, in the interest of time, we would use the cable car. I was bummed about this because I really wanted to walk up and down, but you gotta compromise when traveling with others.

The only other waterfall I've seen is Niagara and in comparison, Montmorency is far more interesting. Montmorency Falls is a huge waterfall just outside of Quebec City and stands 83m tall, which, apparently, is 30m taller than Niagara. Both falls have a section for ziplining, but unlike in Niagara, Montmorency has walkways, a bridge above the falls, a cable car, Montmorency Manor, hiking trails, and bouldering. Both waterfalls are beautiful, but Montmorency definitely tops Niagara in my opinion.

We hopped on the cable car, which was only about a 3 minute ride before we got to the top. Once we were at the top, our first sight was Montmorency Manior; an estate from the 1800's with a gorgeous and absolutely massive garden in the back. It's now a gift shop, restaurant, and tourist centre, but in it's prime it was home to Mary Jane Patterson, heiress to the Patterson Empire, and her husband George Benson Hall, a lumber merchant. The manor had other owners such as the Duke of Kent, Prince Edward Augustus and German princess, Princess Victoria Mary Louisa. Quite the royal history.

Side note; On the trip was the first time I saw that Canadian coins had changed. For my whole lifetime up to this point, it has been Queen Elizabeth's portrait on our coins, but I only just noticed that it changed to Charles the 3rd. It makes sense why, I just don't carry change ever, so I never noticed before now.

While up here, learning about the history of the Manor, I thought to myself, how did the homeowners get around without a cable car or staircase? To our surprise, there are about 4 or 5 different parking lots all around the falls, both below the falls, and level with the falls. These road ways must've been how they got around.

After a short walk through the garden, we arrived at the bridge suspended over the falls. The bridge itself is not very long, but it offers absolutely magnificent views. It's terrifying and exhilarating to be walking across the insane natural powerhouse that is Montmorency falls. The sheer noise it creates is enough to need to yell to one another even if you're standing next to each other. The royals must have enjoyed the noise, like rain on a roof top to lull you to sleep.

After the bridge, there was a section which looked like it used to be trenches. Apparently, back in 1759, the French and English armies fought over Montmorency. I know natural structures like this have been around for centuries, but seeing that really put it into perspective for me; we were not just walking through a natural wonder, but also walking through history. I've said it before, but I love to learn while I travel; traveling and academia are both so heavily steeped into the foundation of my soul. They are both core pieces within me that make up the person I am today.

Over here is where you find the start to the staircase down the mountain, and we did take the massive 487 steps long staircase on the edge of the mountain for the way down thankfully. They had a few different platforms spread out on the stairway and the views were unreal! The different angels you can get of the falls is breathtaking in some sections.

The staircase leads into a cement platform directly in front of the falls. The feeling of getting absolutely drenched by the mist of a powerful waterfall, is a feeling unlike any other. You get some of this in Niagara, as the falls there also mist you, but, even on their platform, you don't get nearly as close as you do to Montmorency. The view is incredible, or as the French would say incroyable, and the way the falls wash over you is unlike any other.

Like in Niagara, they were rainbows at the base, created due to the light from the sun refracting off the constant misting. A magical experience for sure.

On the ground, there was a section about the history on Montmorency. Like in Niagara, Montmorency was once used for hydro power. This was actually the first hydro power station in Quebec, created in 1885. The power of the falls would turn a series of turbines to generate energy that could be used to power homes within Quebec City. While it's now just a beautiful tourist attraction, you can see the remains of the power station that used to be here when crossing the bridge.

Because of the schedule we were on, we only spent about 2 hours at the falls, but we got to see everything. Once back on the road, we had a 4 1/2 hour drive ahead of us till we arrived back in Ingleside.

This time we arrived at about 7:30 and, thankfully, not 10pm, so we had much more time to spend with Martha. Once we got the trailer all set up, we spent a few hours chatting away while we played cribbage (confusing game). We also brought Martha some olive bread and Brei cheese from Tadoussac, which everyone thought would be nice, but seemed to be unsure of the taste. We played about 4 rounds - my team won - before calling it a night around 10pm.

Martha is such a sweet person, I'd love to come back and visit her the next time my grandmother is going up.

Day 5 - Homebound

It was time for us all to go home.

The day started at the ripe hour of 5am so that we could get on the road and home before the evening. The 3 of us on this trip all live in different cities, with mine being the closest, so naturally I was the first to be dropped off. But before that, we stopped at an OnRoute for some breakfast.

While at the OnRoute, I saw some trailers parked in the parking lot. I always wondered if they were places you could set up at for the night. I've seen so many videos online about stealth camping or van-lifers sleeping in a Walmart parking lot and I always wondered how safe that actually is. I think if we had a hard top camper, I'd be open to trying it, but with a tent trailer, we have canvas walls that aren't quite safe enough for a parking lot off the highway. Maybe if we nestled in between the truckers, hidden away?

There was also a farmer's market going on that say at the OnRoute. Such a cute idea; getting fresh, farm grown produce and baked goods while traveling on the highway.

We had about 5 hours of driving before reaching my city and it went pretty smoothly thankfully. I got back home around noon and was definitely happy to be back in my own space.

Overall, it was a really nice trip. I really enjoyed all the new and exciting experiences we had and my traveling companions were wonderful.

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I'm not sure what the next adventure is going to be yet, but I already can't wait to share it with you all!