Jacques Cartier National Park was created in 1981. Like other national parks around the world, its raison d’être (we’re in Quebec…) was to protect the natural resources of the region while balancing access and recreation. Although the entirety of the river is over 160 km/100 mi long, the area protected by the national park features a 54-km /34-mi stretch of a magnificent glacial gorge that is 550 m /1,800 feet deep. Water sports – canoeing, kayaking, tubing, and fishing – are top of mind at Jacques Cartier. There are also 100 km/ 62 mi of hiking trails throughout the park.
We’ve been confused before about national parks in Canada, particularly in the province of Quebec, because all but 2 of the national parks in Quebec are under the umbrella of SÉPAQ, a provincial organization that operates 23 national parks in Quebec, including Parc National du Jacques-Cartier and Parc National de la Gaspésie, among others. Huh? Inquiring minds…
What we learned is that the word ‘nation’ (in both English and French) defines a large group of people united by shared identity, culture, language, history, or ethnicity, often living in the same region. The federal government of Canada uses the word ‘national’ to mean country-wide, whereas within Quebec the word ‘national‘ retains more its cultural roots – in essence, Quebec views itself as a French-speaking society and culture, a nation within the the country of Canada. Both governments (federal and provincial) accept and are comfortable with this idea. In 1999, Quebec created SÉPAQ (Société des établissements de plein air du Quebec/Quebec Outdoor Establishments Company) to manage the national parks in Quebec. Mystery solved! (For the curious, the 2 Parks Canada national parks in Quebec are Forillon in Gaspé and La Mauricie, our next stop as we write this.)
On our first day in the park, we hiked L’Escarpment trail (no translation needed). The trail slowly wound its way around the shoulder of an escarpment, past little sneak peeks of the river below, to the top of the ridge. A steep climb toward the end rewarded us with a platform from which we had a panoramic view the Jacques Cartier Valley. We returned via a different trail, where we had fun with a few rock scrambles on the descending route.
Chemin de la Vallée/Valley Road runs through the national park from the entrance at 0 km to the 33 km / 21 mi endpoint. On a day with an off-and-on weather forecast, we thought we’d check it out, do some recon on trailhead parking along the road, and get some views of the river. The Jacques Cartier River is absolutely beautiful, alternating still waters with relatively gentle rapids. It was fun to see others enjoying the river in different ways – canoes, tubes, swimming, and fishing. The road was narrow in spots, and unpaved from about km 15, but we’ve seen far worse and, yes, there was plenty of space for our rig at all the major trailheads, so we could choose whichever trail we wished.
We chose to hike Le Scotora, which promised to take us to different views of the Jacques Cartier Valley from the summit of Mont Andante – about 20 km / 12 mi north of our vantage point on L’Escarpment. The first third of the trail featured a long series of little waterfalls and endless moss within a forest of deciduous trees. The middle third of the trail took us up a steeper section along a wall of cliffs. Also more moss, and hints at a mixed forest. The top third of the trail, on the high plateau, treated us to a whole bunch of beaver ponds, past dams and lodges, clearly within a boreal forest dominated by black spruce. And suddenly the flat trail opened up to the huge view of the Jacques Cartier River at the bottom of the glacial gorge. After our famous nut butter and fruit sandwiches and a break, we started the return trip back the way we came for a totally satisfying hike.
We’re glad we got to spend time in this small and wonderful national park. We’ve got a short list of trails we’d like to try should we get a chance to come back.
And those chances are pretty good…
For anyone interested, more L’Escarpment, Le Scotora and Jacques Cartier pix…
