Scenic Trails and Raging Whitewater in Outaouais, Québec
I recently returned from an absolutely epic 30-day film shoot in the beautiful province of Québec, Canada. I hiked, and backpacked, and mountain biked, and climbed, and ran, and star gazed, and ate, and paddled, and Via Ferrata ’ed my way through six diverse regions in Québec all showcasing mind-blowing fall colors. The Epic Trails episodes that will come out of this adventure will air next year, however I’m excited to share a glimpse into my time in “la belle province” by way of this blog.
After being on the road, and on the trails, for close to a month exploring the vast regions of Québec, it’s safe to say I was losing a bit of steam. You could feel the chills of winter settling in, rain was consistent, and the gorgeous fall leaves were beginning to drop to the forest floor. Enter Outaouais, with its jaw-dropping beauty and heart-pumping adventure. Talk about the perfect ending for this epic 30-day adventure in Québec!
Outaouais is a short drive outside of Ottawa, Canada. It’s often referred to as Ottawa’s playground—and with good reason! The region is blessed with vast and lush forests, and deep blue lakes and rivers. Amongst the nature are these tiny and incredibly charming villages.
Montebello is one such village and where we made base for the first part of our Outaouais adventure. This charming lakefront town has some of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at.
Just North of Montebello, we arrived at Kenauk Nature where I met my guide, Carl Simoncelli, who showed us to our private, lake-side cottage—and by this I mean a cottage on our own private lake. We explored some of the many trails, climbed the 20 meter high fire tower and took in some breathtaking views.
The following day, François Larose, General Manager of Parc régional du lac des 31 Milles, helped outfit me with a canoe, PFD and paddle and then sent me off for an overnight in a yurt on my own private island. Does this sound like the beginning of a psychological thriller, where the protagonist slowly goes insane in isolation? Well it was exactly like that except that everything was beautiful and pleasant and I don’t think I went insane. Otherwise, perfect analogy.
Outaouais is also home to world classwhitewater rafting and kayaking. The Ottawa River, which separates Ontario andQuébec, is a high-volume river that boasts some of the biggest and funnestboat-flippin’-paddle-poundin’ rapids in the world. People flock to the OttawaRiver in the spring, summer and fall for the roller coaster-like rapids.
For our rafting adventure we went to Rafting Momentum in Bryson. I was stoked to face the massive wave trains head on. A little less stoked about the weather, though, as it was pretty damn cold. Our rafting guides made sure we were fully suited up in max-protection before we headed out onto the Ottawa River for the BIG finish to our month long stay in Québec.
The river did not disappoint. Even thoughthe volume of the water is much lower this time of year, the rapids still packeda punch and were more than enough to get the adrenaline going!
I’m pretty sure our guide was intent onflipping the boat, just to make me swim. Luckily, I’m far too strong of apaddler and I powered us swiftly through the worst of the whitewater…at least,that’s what I’m telling myself.
It was a long day on the water (it’s a bigriver). We were still paddling through the last bit of flatwater when the sunwent down. When we got back to the Rafting Momentum bus, we loaded the boats ontop and cracked a beer (or three) to celebrate the day and to officially wrap-upour month-long shoot in la belle province.
Cheers everyone.