Quebec City Winter Carnaval
Gay or straight, a GREAT travel experience (as seen in the Dec/Jan issue of Outlooks)

By the time I leave Québec City after a five-day, dead-of-winter visit, I do love Bonnehomme Carnaval—or rather what he represents: the fact that while the majority of Canadians hunker down and grumble our way through winter, the people of Québec’s capital happily pull on their parkas, toques and mittens, then come outside and play together. Over the last 50+ years, they’ve created the world’s largest winter festival.

The event, held each February, now attracts upward of a million participants to the famous Plains of Abraham—and that includes a fair number of gay visitors. While it’s hard to estimate how many, my gaydar was repeatedly triggered throughout the event.

No surprise: my gaydar sounds loudest while surveying the crowds watching the “ice swimming” event, a challenge where the drunk, the crazy, and those who just can’t resist showing off their winter-white bodies “swim and splash” around in a giant mountain of snow for several minutes—clad in little more than a speedo or bikini. While a few of the participants seem just plain wacko, a surprising number are really attractive. (I had my eye firmly fixed on a bearded muscle-bear type, and hoped I’d bump into him later at Québec City’s only gay bar, le Drague. It didn’t happen, although I certainly managed to bump and grind with plenty of other hotties there—and the advantage of a winter visit means more interaction with friendly locals; less with other tourists).

The other official Carnaval spot where my gaydar goes crazy is, quelle surprise, the ice bar where a hunky bartender pours “caribou,” a regional liquor made by blending port wine, whiskey, and a hint of maple syrup. The bar itself is completely fashioned from ice, the cocktail tables are 100% ice. Even the glasses are le glace, cut in perfect squares, and drilled with a two-inch-round center opening.

Drinking booze from an ice glass has its challenges as my bottom lip struggles to adapt to the perfectly flat, icy surface, and my top lip to the round opening. But mon dieu, caribou is tres, tres bon!

After a good hit of caribou to warm me up, I climb a nearby hill to watch Québec’s version of cowboys as they race in a onehorse-open-sleigh derby. It’s a colourful event with horses and sleighs that look like they stepped off an old-fashioned Christmas card. But when the whistle sounds, each sleigh suddenly becomes a wildly speeding winter blur—racing around a hilly course between pylons and decorative objects. It is fantastically entertaining.

A major highlight for me is twirling maple syrup onto a stick after a terribly Quebecois looking, farmer-type man, complete with red -and-black flannel jacket, ladles syrup onto a bed of snow. Unless you need practice for other activities, there’s nothing terribly gay about licking and chewing on a taffy-like sucker, other than the fact that it fulfills a childhood dream I’ve had about snow and maple ever since reading the Little House books as a boy (to my sister’s incessant teasing).

There are plenty of physical activities at the Carnaval site—zip lining, tubing, dog sled rides—but for me, true celebration of winter happens on the ski slopes—of which Québec City has an abundance.

Having grown up skiing the Rockies, I can’t resist the chance to experience eastern skiing at the capital’s nearest resort: Mont St-Anne. The resort is only a 30 minute drive from downtown, but I’m big on the ski-in, ski-out concept, which the Chateau Mont St-Anne perfectly provides. I have a chance to visit with the hotel’s hip young owner/manager, Sebastian Roy (a name I’ll be jealous of forever). A surprise, perhaps, is how freely Mr. Roy talks about his large number of gay staffers, and tells me of his recent effort—in conjunction with the gay owners of the Chateau’s spa-to create anannual gay November event at the resort.

Mr. Roy excitedly shows me a mockup of renovations presently underway to take the 240-room hotel from tired “country Québec” style to an über-chic slopeside hangout, a la Stephen & Chris. The lobby and bar are already complete, and the vibe is cucumbercool despite most of the guests being families with teenage kids. The food has also undergone a facelift, and my tastebuds enjoy a “pizza of regional specialities” capitalizing on the local penchant for artisan cheeses, veggies, and even duck confit.

The next morning a super-friendly young shop-guy fits me with skis and boots in the resort’s rental centre, and before I know it I’m whisked 625 metres to the top of the mountain. Below me, the St. Lawrence Seaway is jammed full of ice on the northern side of pastoral Isle d’Orleans. In the distanceI can make out the handful of skyscrapers that make up Québec City’s business core.

Mont St-Anne’s slopes, covering the south, north, and west sides of the mountain, are a lot of fun, and offer an excellent variety of difficulties. As I’d been promised, eastern snow conditions are dramatically different from what I’ve skied in the west, but the groomers have done a fantastic job of breaking up the solid parts and the skiing is a enjoyable, if a lot of work.

A big reason for staying at Mont St-Anne, rather than back in the city, is the chance for an hour of après ski bliss under the very talented hands of the spa’s massage staff. Openly gay co-owner Jörg Lachance, a Swedish immigrant to Canada, explains that his European training was substantially more thorough than many North American schools provide—and as a frequent massage client, I can vouch that he is better than most. He magically finds all my classic sore spots, and I nearly melt into stasis as he works my sore ski muscles.

It’s been a cold weekend of festival-going, exploring Québec City, and finally skiing, but Jörg assures me he’s got my blood circulating. He advises that a trip to the hot tub and a bottle of red wine will perfectly wrap up my festive winter experience in Québec.

He’s right. And I realize Jörg is one of several bon homme’s I’ve encountered during a really sublime long weekend of winter celebration. I hope to come back again. And when I do, I won’t be the least bit shy to express my amore for Bonnehomme and his tempting winter ways.

I'm Travel Editor for Outlooks, Canada's G&L national magazine. This story about Quebec City's winter carnaval appeared in the December 2009 / January 2010 combined issue. Since the full magazine is only available by PDF online, I'm giving you the chance to see it here.