Winter at Wagner Lake

Hi Everyone,

No doubt you have been busy reading our latest blog on Quebec, its been pretty hectic here so I am rather behind with my postings.The last few weeks have seen James start school finally and he is loving it makes it easy when you are the most popular kid in the school because you have a cool accent. He has a girlfriend already and has met lots of nice guys, he has joined the rugby team at school (not normal in a Canadian school) but they are very good and have a really good Coach all done inside of course. He does weights in the afternoons and seems to be keeping out of trouble. He has also met some really nice kids around the area and he has been lucky enough to borrow a sled from a friend which he can ride around with the other kids. Sleds or snow mobiles are the preferred method of transport here everyone has one and they are lots of fun, they sled around on the lake and through the forest each afternoon I guess its the equivalent of the of road motor bike. He is also going to venturers with his mate so he has really settled in well.

Steph is doing very well at school she seems to have found her niche, took a while but she seems happy now, she is well we have an appointment at the Sick childrens hospital for her next week she has grown and put on weight which is very pleasing. She has found a good ballet school which she loves and also does ski club on Wednesday arvos.

Kevin is still looking for work he has a few things coming up which look promising but times are hard here and there is a lot of unemployment in the province, hopefully he can get some teaching work soon this would be good. He is enjoying himself with the local lads though goes down to the skating rink on the lake and helps clear it, enjoys beers with the lads usual boy stuff.

I am finding school remarkably easy compared to home I only teach yr 10 and 11 and they are very polite and friendly, the school is more like a private school in Aus so I am very comfortable.

I have made some lovely friends around the Lake and we are continually invited out for drinks and parties its very overwhelming but fun.

The weather got quite warm and melted a lot of the ice and snow in February and they called it the February thaw everything was flooding, then it got cold again and iced up and lots of accidents occured, very fickle weather they have here. Anyway we are still surrounded by a good metre of snow its very pretty, when it all melted it was very messy and slushy.

These are photos around our house after the latest snow storm.

This is our front drive This is the view over the back yard

Winter February

Ice Festival Quebec

Ice Hotel Quebec

Quebec

Montmorency Falls

Basilica St Anne De Beaupre

Quebec February 09

Things have been busy here in Canada, we have been busy with the winter chores and some of us have caught the dreaded colds that seem to float around here forever and we have been busy travelling.
We recently went to Quebec for a long weekend with the other exchangees from Australia, we caught a bus from Toronto and travelled all night to arrive in Quebec city at 7.00am in the morning for Breakfast in this very quant old restaurant that reminded me a lot of England. Quebec is a very old city first settled by Europeans so it has a very Old English style of Architecture and feel about it. It is divided into the old Quebec city and the new City and it is nestled on the banks of the St Lawrences river.
It is about 8 hours nrth East of us and because of the water it is very cold with a fierce wind chill factor always evident, needless to say the first day we got there is was -17 but with the windchill felt like -28 it was very cold which made it very hard to walk around outside.
When we arrived we first went to see the Basilica of Sainte-Anne Beaupre a huge church that was built in 1876, it reminded me of Westminster Abbey was very huge but was a working Catholic Church with all the usual beautiful frescos, amazing shrines and artwork. (see first photos below). Quebec was very Catholic so it had huge amounts of Cathedrals and churchs everywhere.
We then went to Montmorency Falls a waterfall higher than Niagara Falls and with all the ice and snow a very Spectacular sight. You can walk up to the draw bridge and walk over the top of them it was absolutely freezing on the day we went there, but very beautiful they look over the River and the amazing bridge to Quebec city.
We left there and went onto our hotel which was the Hilton in the middle of town opposite the Parliament buildings and across fromn the Winter Festival which is what we came to see along with thousands of other visitors, it was like Sydney during the Olympics very crowded, which was weird all these people out on the streets at night and during the day and it was freezing, nothing fazes these Canadians. We went to lunch in the old Quebec city at this beautiful little cafe and unbeknown to us no English is spoken and no english on the Menus, very strange. On all labels and signs and everything in Canada is second labelled french but in Quebec its not it was very odd. Anyway we had a very quant cultural experience the kids loved it thought it was very cool. That evening we went up to the winter Festival and looked around at all the Snow sculptures which were pretty amazing, Steph climbed to the top of the Ice Castle and slid down an ice slippery dip, I had some Cariboo Like (port) in an ice glass served from an Ice bar in Ice glasses which was very cool. We then went for rides on these rafters and tubes down large snow banks a bit like riding a water slide except on snow, very fun and very cold. We had dinner at a restaurant that did Crepes and Fondues and Steph and I shared a 3 course fondue, Cheese, Beef then Chocolate it was lovely. The boys had crepes.
We also walked around the old city and looked at some beautiful shops went the the Chateau Frontignac which is a very old Castle now a hotel in the Old Quebec city. We went for a ride on the tobogan outside the hotel a very fun thing to do and rode on the Furnicula down to the waters edge.
The next day we visited the Ice Hotel which was a bit out of Quebec, it was truly a freak of Architecture. They ship in all these ice bricks from Montreal to build and sculpt amazing walls and structures in the hotel, the actual walls and ceiling are made from packed snow. They build the hotel every year around December when it gets cold enough and it lasts till around the end of March, it costs about $500 to stay the night and you can even get married in the ice Chapel. They had a club inside a bar where they served drink from ice glasses, and you sat and stood on ice chairs and tables. The rooms were small with an ice bed, bedhead, side table and mattress in them. Some of them had carved frescos on the walls and bedheads, it was truly amazing, but sooooo incredibly cold I would never be able to stay there.
So that was our amazing trip to Quebec. Check out the photos below.