You Don't Have to Leave the City for Winter Sports Activities by Various Travel Authors on Creators.com

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You Don't Have to Leave the City for Winter Sports Activities

By Steve Bergsman

For an active winter vacation most folks head to ski resorts, which are generally on isolated mountains away from urbanity. They want to enjoy the great outdoors, the snowy peaks and haunting forests.

Sometimes, however, it is equally interesting to head to a wonderfully urbane location in the non-tourist season, enjoy the restaurants, theaters, museums, winter festivals, high-street shopping — and still be able to dedicate an morning or an afternoon to the great outdoors.

My wife and I recently traveled to the frosty province of Quebec and spent a few days in Quebec City before catching a VIA train to the larger city of Montreal. I had been to both places in the summer and found they provided terrific experiences except that both were overrun by tourists. In the winter they are equally enjoyable as long as visitors bring enough clothes to bundle up when they are out-of-doors.

We like the gastronomic pleasures of Quebec's two largest cities, and there is nothing more romantic than snuggling down in a nice hotel room as the snow blows past the window. Beyond that, my wife's interests and mine go in different directions. She enjoys shopping, but I still like to get a few hours of outdoor activity into my day. Quebec City and Montreal afforded me that luxury.

In 1759, in one of the pivotal battles of the Seven Years War, British troops under Gen. James Wolfe met the French army, led by Louis-Joseph, the Marquis de Montcalm, on a plateau called the Plains of Abraham outside the walls of Quebec City. The British prevailed, and the former colony of New France became a British territory and then part of Canada.

The Plains of Abraham, now parkland between Quebec City and the shores of the St. Lawrence River, were pretty-as-a-picture deep in snow when I met my guide, Luc Nicole-Labrie, for a morning snowshoe romp. Nicole-Labrie, a burly man of surprising nimbleness, heads one of the local snowshoe clubs, and he had agreed to show me about.

There are very sleek, modern snowshoes built for speed and agility, but Nicole-Labrie's snowshoe club, like many others, are traditionalists: Anything not made of a wooden frame and rawhide lacings is not to be spoken of in their presence.

Modern snowshoes are smallish, slim and built for quick stepping. Traditional snowshoes are large, sometimes bulb-shaped and sometimes narrow and long. They were originally designed to walk across deep virgin snows.

The temperature on the Plains of Abraham was a brisk 5 degrees Fahrenheit the morning of our walk — a little nippy for me but barely noticeable to Nicole-Labrie. We strapped on our Huron-style snowshoes with oval fronts and a short tail. There was really nothing to learn except to get used to the odd stepping caused by such a wide thing on my feet. (The front of the foot is laced to the shoe, but the heel lifts.)

We walked for about an hour with Nicole-Labrie either talking about Quebec, the history of snowshoeing or, when he was really stepping out, singing.

The reason was that when snowshoe clubs gather together for their great walkabouts, they like to express themselves loudly in song. I'm not sure what Nicole-Labrie was singing about since he sang in French and my knowledge of the language is minimal, but it sounded very folk-songish.

It was a lovely day for a walk in the snow with the sun shining brightly and the frozen St. Lawrence highlighted in the distance, but at 5 degrees the cold does get to a person after a while. After about an hour of traipsing about the Plains of Abraham, Nicole-Labrie led me back to civilization and a nice cup of hot chocolate - not the modern variety bought in supermarkets but the traditional stuff made by locals.

The weather wasn't so kind when I decided to take the afternoon off from urban activities during our few days in Montreal. The temperature was a moderate 20 to 25 degrees, but snow was falling thickly when I took a taxi to the city's wonderful highland getaway, Parc de Mont-Royal. It's like Manhattan's Central Park but on small mountain. Near the summit is a ski rental and lockers pavilion for ice skaters and cross-country skiers. The skaters enjoy the delights of Lac Aux Castors (Beaver Lake), while the rest take to the trails.

About seven different trails - easy and intermediate — are marked out through the open fields and wooded areas of the park. I didn't know any of them, so when I picked up my rental equipment (boots, skis and poles), I asked the clerk what I should do. He suggested Trail 2, an intermediate run of three miles.

It was a pleasant day with almost no wind, and the snow fell steadily as I took off past the small lake across fields climbing slightly in elevation. There were a few structures and a bridge to pass, and then the path turned into a wooded area, where the trail undulated and turned indiscriminately. It wasn't a difficult path, and although I was a relative novice at cross-country skiing, I handled myself fairly well. For a while I had the trail to myself, but after a short climb a ski slipped away and I fell clumsily to the ground. At that precise moment two other skiers appeared out of nowhere, passing me easily and looking at me with utter disdain.

I recovered, completed my journey and felt pretty good about myself. Back in the hotel room I quickly showered because we had reservations for dinner and then tickets to the theater — a perfect winter day in Montreal.

WHEN YOU GO:

How to travel: VIA Rail Canada will get you from one city to the other: www.viarail.ca.

Where to stay: Hilton Quebec, www.hiltonquebec.com; Hilton Montreal Bonaventure, near a train station: www.hilton.com.

What do to: Snowshoe Quebec: www.ccbn-nbc.gc.ca/_en/sportsloisirs.php#raquetteur

Touring Montreal with a wonderful guide, Annique Dufour: Telephone 514-575-5564.

Parc de Mont-Royal: www.lemontroyal.qc.ca

Centaur Theatre Company English-language theater: www.centaurtheatre.com.

Steve Bergsman is a freelance travel writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.