CELEBRATE WINTER

“Dive in, I’ll follow you,” someone joked. We had paused briefly on the ice to admire again the Gaspésie’s magnificent coastline and realized the temperature had risen to five degrees. I noticed mist was eerily rising off the open water across the bay at Barachois. I looked down at my feet. Apparently seven cm of ice is considered safe for cross-country skiers in Québec. Attending the Traversée de la Gaspésie festival means joining an annual winter celebration of hardy French-Canadian joie de vivre with music, gastronomy, unintelligible chitter-chatter—and all the Nordic skiing and snowshoeing my heart, lungs and legs could handle. (Or at least until one of the roaming buses can collect the frozen and fallen.) This winter’s Traversée glides down the peninsula February 20-27. tdlg.qc.ca, tourisme-gaspesie.com