‘Pain de sucre’ is a sight to behold
An ice cone forms at Montmorency Falls. Even on occasions when you can’t traverse it, the sight is still awe-inspiring
The oldest tourist destinations in the world are natural attractions — mountains, hot springs, waterfalls. One of the oldest in Quebec is Montmorency Falls east of Quebec City, which attracted sightseers from among Canada’s aboriginal nations long before the first European explorer, Jacques Cartier, arrived in 1534.
At 82 metres in height, the falls are 30 metres taller than Niagara Falls, although they are much narrower and therefore don’t have the same panoramic quality. But the remarkable thing about them is that they give birth every winter to an offspring natural attraction — a little mountain of snow and ice at the base of the falls known as the Pain de sucre, or Sugar Loaf. Cornelius
At 82 metres in height, the falls are 30 metres taller than Niagara Falls.
Krieghoff and other prominent painters of the 19th century paid homage to it, Krieghoff most notably in 1853 with his oil painting The Ice Cone at the Falls at Montmorency near Quebec.
The little mountain takes shape every winter as mist f rom the crashing waterfall rises up into the air, crystallizes and then falls back down again as ice or snow on the bay of ice at the base of the falls. Provided temperatures remain consistently below zero (as is normally the case in winter in Quebec City, unlike balmy Niagara, Ont.), the little mountain rises steadily in height throughout January and February — and is made even bigger every time there’s a fresh snowfall.
Eventually, it comes to resemble a giant “sugar loaf,” the name derived from the conical shape of the loaf form in which sugar was sold until the late 19th century (before it was sold in granular form, or in small cubes).
Krieghoff ’s tribute to the Pain de sucre shows happy habitants playing on it in winter, and riding around the frozen St. Lawrence River bay in horse-drawn carriages. With global warming, though, dangers have set in. Six years ago, a woman fell into a small crevice near the top of the cone and broke her leg. Access was shut down completely after that, opening up once again only three years ago on a more restricted basis. As a general rule, people are only allowed now to walk around the base of the ice cone.
There is one exception — the weekend when Montmorency Falls holds its annual Féerie hivernale, which this year falls on this very weekend.
When I visited with my family Feb. 1, there was no access allowed to the base of the sugar loaf at all. An exceptional warm spell in January meant there had been no significant growth in the little mountain, for one thing. For another, the bay itself had not entirely frozen over, which was unusual. Conditions have since changed, and full access to the Pain de sucre and tobogganing will be permitted today and tomorrow.
On winter weekends other than the Féerie hivernale one, access to the base of the sugar loaf is only permitted when ice thickness exceeds a certain threshold; testing is carefully done to ensure that walking to and around the cone is safe. But even when ice thickness is insufficient, Montmorency is still worth a visit in winter. The pedestrian suspension bridge that runs over the top of the falls, linking the west bank of the Montmorency River to the east bank, is open all year around. By comparison, there is no bridge over the top of Niagara Falls.
Standing in the middle of the suspension bridge, looking directly down on the cascading waters of the Montmorency River, visitors can sense the enormous power of these falls. Canada’s first electricity-generating station was built at the falls in 1886 — and once opened, powered the first place with electrical lighting in this country: Dufferin Terrace behind the Château Frontenac.
Although the generating station closed in 1964, there’s another historic building on the top of the cliff beside the falls — Kent House, originally known as Haldimand House, built in 1780 for Frederick Haldimand, who was governor of Quebec during the American Revolution. I had the Sunday brunch at Kent House a couple of years ago. Like Montmorency Falls in general, I cannot recommend it highly enough.