For Those Who Come Next: Itinerary for Walking the Trans Canada Trail in Quebec

“Walking takes longer… than any other known form of locomotion except crawling.”

 Edward Abbey

 

How long does it take to hike across Quebec on the Trans Canada Trail?

 

There are moments within a long journey where it becomes necessary to step slightly outside of the day-to-day routine of walking and reflect on what the path has actually required.   Our goal is that as we walk from coast to coast to coast on the Trans Canada Trail – or Sentier transcanadien as it is known in Quebec - that we will be able to continue sharing each day of the journey and in the process help those who might have an interest in something similar.  To this end, this entry is about sharing our itinerary for hiking across Quebec from Edmundston, NB, to Gatineau, QC.  

In the process, we hope to answer questions that anyone might have about the province that we have recently concluded, such as:

 

What is it like to hike across Quebec on the Trans Canada Trail?

If you want to hike across Quebec, how long might it take?

If you want to hike across Quebec, what might the daily stages look like?

 

Understanding the Hike Across Quebec  

 

Quebec, our fifth province to trek, was also the first province on our #Hike4Birds across the Trans Canada Trail that refused to fit neatly into a single season. In Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, the route had been hard at times and occasionally improvised, but the trek across Atlantic Canada itself had remained fundamentally continuous. Quebec changed that. It was here that the journey first became visibly subject to interruption, not because we had stopped wanting to walk, but because long-distance hiking is always shaped by circumstances more than will. Seasons change. A global pandemic gives way to provincial-wide lockdowns.  And plans that seemed reasonable from a map or a spreadsheet collapse when they meet actual conditions on the ground. In Quebec, that truth became impossible to ignore.

 

Quebec was the first province on our east-to-west crossing that truly broke the illusion of a single continuous push. The first section came in November 2019, when we crossed from New Brunswick onto the Petit Témis and continued to Rivière-du-Loup before winter conditions forced the end of our first season. The second came in fall 2021, when we returned and walked from Baie-Saint-Paul through to Quebec City, and onwards along the Route Verte as well as various other local trails to Montreal. The final section came in spring 2022, at the outset of our fourth year on the TCT, walking from Montreal, followed the P’tit Train du Nord north and west, and then turned south through the Gatineau region to Ottawa.

 

That fractured timeline and approach to Quebec matters in this presentation of information and our interpretation of the route in this province.  It is not just background information. It changes the meaning of the walk. Quebec became a province completed in different seasons, under varied conditions, and informed by the evolving sense of the Trans Canada Trail that we had as we continued across the country. 

 

Amid it all, what defined Quebec most strongly was contrast: the agricultural regions bordering New Brunswick and the Gaspé, the mountainous ridges of Charlevoix and the Sentier des Caps, the urban multi-use pathways through major cities, and the forested approach through Gatineau.   In addition, the province’s trails were one of the few where the trail itself felt intentional, continuously maintained and beloved.  In Quebec, the TCT felt like a network designed to be used and which was widely valued.  For two hikers moving across the country on a national trail system of wildly varying quality, that mattered a great deal.

 

The greatest challenge in Quebec was not any single day’s distance or the physical difficulty of the terrain, but the discontinuity we experienced across the province. Quebec was beautiful, well-maintained, and in many places wonderfully set up for trail users, yet it was not always simple to cross as a thru-hike. We had to bypass the Charlevoix section of the TCT because of the costs involved in gaining access, the requirement to purchase meals and accommodation as part of the route, and the expectation that the section be walked west to east rather than in the east-to-west direction of our national trek. Elsewhere, the province’s excellent cycling infrastructure meant that some pathways were extremely busy with cyclists, and from time to time it was clear that pedestrians - let alone long-distance hikers with backpacks- were not always expected or accommodated. 

Quebec was also where we began to understand that crossing larger metropolitan centres would be more complicated than we had first imagined. Our experience in Quebec City, including a difficult encounter with hostile police that resulted in damaged gear, changed how we approached urban sections of the TCT from that point forward.

 

Yet, even with those challenges, Quebec remains one of the most impressive provincial sections of trail that we crossed. Its pathways were often beautiful, well signed, carefully maintained, and largely off-road. For hikers, the province offered long stretches of rewarding walking; for cyclists, it is undoubtedly one of the strongest sections of the entire national trail. The fact that we did not cross Quebec continuously, cleanly, or exactly as we had hoped does not make the province unsuccessful in our memory. In many ways, the opposite is true. Quebec offered some of the most developed and rewarding trail infrastructure we encountered from coast to coast, while also showing us that even an excellent trail can be difficult to thru-hike when access, reservations, costs, regional expectations, urban pressures, seasonal realities, and the direction of travel interrupt forward progress. Quebec was where that tension became fully visible.

 

Guide to the TCT in the province of Quebec

 

This information is not a guide in the traditional sense. It is not prescriptive, nor is it intended to suggest that this is how the route must be walked. It is instead a record of how we crossed Quebec - drawn from our journals, our daily shared blog entries, and the lived experience of our trek. 

 

We offer this information as a means to plan and ground your own trek – to have the same type of insights based on experience that we would have loved when we set out on the Great Trail.  

 

However, at the time of writing this (2023), the existing guidebooks for the Great Trail are incomplete, and most are more than a decade old.  In some cases, the TCT has moved its route or expanded the trail system significantly.  Moreover, the fact remains that some provinces (Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta) don’t even have a guidebook, which means for those who come next, there is a huge absence of information about the national pathway.

 

This record exists for those who are considering a Trans Canada journey, whether on foot or by bike.  It is not meant as a template, and certainly not a promise that this is how your journey will turn out.  The information here – and in our daily blogs – is a glimpse of what one passage across the province from east to west looked like, for two particular people, in one particular year.

 

It must always be remembered that routes change, conditions vary, and circumstances are never the same twice – day to day, year to year, and hiker to hiker.

 

With that said, sometimes knowing where someone once walked, struggled and succeeded can make things easier at the end of a hard day on the trail.  Knowing that you are standing and walking where others once also did can make a world of difference in moments of doubt.  We certainly took faith in knowing that Dana Meise, Sara Jackson, Dianne Whelan and Mel Vogel had come before us.

 

The Trans Canada Trail in Quebec

 

The Trans Canada Trail in Quebec is stunningly well developed and incredibly interconnected pathways – a reflection of the province’s outdoor and cycling cultures.  Indeed, the Sentier Transcanadien in Quebec was among the most developed, signed, and varied sections of the national trail that we encountered between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

 

In late 2019, when we entered the province on the Petit Témis, a former rail line running through the Témiscouata region from the New Brunswick border toward Rivière-du-Loup. It was immediately striking how much infrastructure had been built into the trail itself. Picnic shelters, outhouses, benches, camp areas, and signage appeared at regular intervals, and after some of the rougher and more improvised sections farther east, that level of investment felt both luxurious and completely practical.

 

Later hiking here revealed just how varied Quebec’s contribution to the trail system really is. Beyond the Petit Témis came the rugged footpaths of Charlevoix and the Sentier des Caps, then the maintained multiuse corridors and cycling routes of the Route Verte through southern Quebec, then Montreal and the Lachine Canal, and finally the P’tit Train du Nord and the approach south toward Gatineau Park and Ottawa. The province contains rail trails, pilgrimage routes, urban promenades, canal paths, mountain footpaths, and cycling infrastructure of a quality not easily found elsewhere on the route. Quebec did not offer one kind of experience, but offered many – each of which was highly refined.

 

That variety was part of what made the province so memorable, but it also made Quebec one of the easiest and most enjoyable sections to navigate as a hiker, as an almost completely cohesive stretch of trail across the region.

 

Stages and Itinerary for Hiking Across Quebec

 

Remembering that our trek on the Trans Canada Trail across Quebec took place in 2019, 2021, and 2022, following our hike across almost every other province in the country.

Taken together, Quebec took 46 hiking days to venture across, which was completed over a span of 55 days in the province.  The larger number reflects days off trail, rest days, resupply days, and days we spent navigating to and off the trail about our #Hike4Birds citizen science outreach.

 

Itinerary for the Trans Canada Trail in Quebec

 

November 4, 2019 – Edmundston, NB to Degelis, QC

November 5, 2019 – Degelis to Cabano

November 6, 2019 – Cabano to Parc du Mont-Citadelle

November 7, 2019 – extra day at Parc du Mont Citadelle

November 8, 2019 – Parc du Mont Citadelle to Riviere Vert

November 9, 2019 – Riviere Vert to Riviere du Loup

November 10, 2019 – Exploring Riviere du Loup – End of Year 1 on TCT

 

2020 – Covid Closures in the Province of Quebec

 

October 14, 2021 – Baie St Paul – return to hiking the TCT

October 15, 2021 – Baie to Rue Principale

October 16, 2021 – Extreme Storm - Day Off Trail

October 17, 2021 – Rue Principale to Camp Liguori

October 18, 2021 – Camp Liguori to Refuge Vache

October 19, 2021 – Refuge Vache to Camp Faille

October 20, 2021 – Camp Faille to Sainte Anne Beaupre

October 21, 2021 – a day in Saint Anne Beaupre

October 22, 2021 – Ste Anne Beaupre to Montmorency Falls

October 23, 2021 – Montmorency Falls in Quebec City

October 24, 2021 – Quebec City to Charny

October 25, 2021 – Charny to Dosquet

October 26, 2021 – Dosquet to Plessisville

October 27, 2021 – Plessisville to Victoriaville

October 28, 2021 – Victoriaville – Day off / Resupply

October 29, 2021 – Victoriaville to Danville

October 30, 2021 – Danville to Richmond

October 31, 2021 – Richmond – Day off

November 1, 2021 – Richmond to Bromptonville

November 2, 2021 – Bromptonville to Sherbrooke

November 3, 2021 – Sherbrooke to Magog

November 4, 2021 – Magog to Orford Center

November 5, 2021 – Orford Center – Day off

November 6, 2021 – Eastman to Granby

November 7, 2021 – Granby to Saint-Gregoire

November 8, 2021 – Saint-Gregoire to Chambly

November 9, 2021 – Chambly to Longueuil

November 10, 2021 – Longueuil into Downtown Montreal

November 11, 2021 – Exploring Montreal – Lachine Canal TCT - End of Year 3 on TCT

 

May 27, 2022 – Montreal to Laval / Beginning of Year 4 on TCT

May 28, 2022 – Laval to St Jerome

May 29, 2022 – St. Jerome to Sainte-Adele

May 30, 2022 – Sainte-Adele to Saint-Agathe

May 31, 2022 – Saint-Agathe – Day off

June 1, 2022 – Saint-Agathe to Saint-Faustin

June 2, 2022 – Saint Faustine to Labelle

June 3, 2022 – Labelle to Rouge River

June 4, 2022 – Rouge River to Nominingue

June 5, 2022 – Nominingue to Val Barrette

June 6, 2022 – Val Barrette to Mont Laurier

June 7, 2022 – Mont Laurier to Grand Remous

June 8, 2022 – Grand Ramous to Maniwaki

June 9, 2022 – Maniwaki – Day off

June 10, 2022 – Maniwaki to Gracefield

June 11, 2022 – Gracefield to Low to Wakefield

June 12, 2022 – Crossing Wakefield

June 13, 2022 – Wakefield to Chelsea

June 14, 2022 – Chelsea to Ottawa

 

Position Within the Larger Journey

 

Quebec changed the terms of the national walk. Up to that point, even when the route was inconsistent, the larger narrative still felt like one of continuous forward motion. Quebec complicated that story. It was the first province to show us clearly that long-distance hiking is not simply about endurance, planning, or desire. It is also about timing, systems, access, and the humility to accept that some places will not be crossed cleanly the first time you reach them. That truth remained with us long after we left the province.

 

Because Quebec was completed over three separate seasons, the province holds a unique position within our larger journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic.

The first stretch on the Petit Temis in eastern Quebec, covering about 134 km from the New Brunswick border toward Rivière-du-Loup, was completed at the end of more than 3500 km of hiking beforehand and the conclusion of our first year on the national pathway.  It was a time when we were just figuring out what the Trans Canada Trail was, how it worked as a system, and how we would navigate what was still to come.

 

Our second stretch came two years later in 2021, when we hiked 605 km from Baie-Saint-Paul to Montreal at the end of our third year on the TCT after we had completed Manitoba and Saskatchewan and gotten our first sense of Alberta.

 

Our final venture in the province took place in the spring of 2022, when we hiked more than 500 km from Montreal through the Laurentians, Mont-Laurier, to Gatineau and into Ontario (which we had already completed).   This was done at the outset of our fourth year on the Trans Canada Trail and before we took a train back to Alberta to continue here across the west coast to the Pacific Ocean.

 

The result being that Quebec became the province where the Sentier transcanadien ceased being a direct line across the map and began to reveal itself as an undertaking that was more fragmented and complicated than we had ever anticipated.  Each return to the province is completed at a different point in our journey with a different sense of the trail itself.  Because of this, Quebec became a province of interruption, adaptation and completion – serving as the fullest reminder that crossing Canada was never only about moving forward but about learning patience, and how to keep the larger undertaking intact even when the plan, the path, and life fail to unfold neatly.

 

For those looking to explore more, this entry connects directly with our broader series:

 

• Come Walk With Us along the Trans Canada Trail

• The Trans Canada Trail In Quebec

• Reflections on Hiking the Trans Canada Trail in Quebec

• Cycling the Trans Canada Trail in Quebec

 

Each offers a different perspective on exploring the TCT.

 

For Those Who Come Next

 

In total, it took us 46 hiking days – over the course of three years - to walk approximately 1268 kilometres along the Trans Canada Trail / Sentier transcanadien from Edmundston, NB to Gatineau QC – which is not the entirety of the national pathway in the province, but which for us allowed us to visit the capital city and connect the route we were following between provinces.

 

These sections of the TCT represent the completion of one of the largest provinces in the TCT system – along river ways, regional rail trails and velo routes spanning from the Atlantic Ocean to the capital city to the bridge that leads to Canada’s national capital.

 

If you are considering walking across Quebec, know that it is possible to do so within a defined period of time. The route exists, the connections are there, and the province can be crossed in a continuous line from North to South before turning westward again.   Which makes it a great hike in a beautiful region. 

 

If you are reading this because you are considering hiking across Quebec on the TCT whether for a weekend or weeks at a time – we hope this listing helps in some small way.

 

Not because it tells you what to do, but because it shows what was possible under a specific set of circumstances, at a particular moment in time.  Your journey will not look exactly like this. It shouldn’t. Weather, wildlife, wildfires, construction, health, timing, and luck all shape how the TCT, each province and Canada as whole reveal themselves. Some days will go farther than planned. Others will end early. Some will feel almost effortless; others will ask more than you expected to give.  Some will end in the joy of that day’s achievements, others will end in doubt and tears. 

 

What matters, in the end, is not matching someone else’s itinerary, but learning how to move through this landscape with the willingness to be adaptable, leaving no trace and with care.  If this record helps you plan, adjust, or simply imagine your own path, then it has done what it was meant to do.

 

We wish you safe walking, open eyes, and the grace to take each day as it comes.

See you on the trail!