Saint Simeon

From the Palissades site all the way to the village on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, where the mountains commonly known as the Caps de Charlevoix plunge one after another, everything bears the mark of the not-so-distant passage of glaciers. Furthermore, the boundaries of a recently established natural conservation park covering a significant portion of the Charlevoix biosphere—which is part of the World Biosphere Reserve—have just been defined there.

Everything is majestic. The pier offers visitors a unique sense of the river’s vastness—which can be crossed aboard the N. M. Trans-Saint-Laurent —as well as its role as a source of sustenance, as evidenced by the locals’ humble smelt fishing.

Drawn for centuries by the richness and diversity of the flora and fauna, the Innu and Wendat Indigenous peoples visited the area regularly during periods of barter among First Nations in Tadoussac. Europeans established a colony there beginning in 1813 with the aim of exploiting the forest and built a sawmill in 1834.

These days, tourism is very high in both winter and summer thanks to the forest trails that are accessible year-round, as well as the spectacular and varied views the village offers. To top it all off, there’s a beach where you can swim, whale watching is available, and you can go canoeing or visit a maple grove.

• Learn more about La Malbaie (see option 2b)

Photo: Thewhite, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons