Quebec is Canada's largest province with a territory 3 times as large as the Texas Lone Star state.
Almost all of
the 8 million Quebecers live around the lower reaches of the mighty St Lawrence River, leaving the rest of the lands
mostly to indigenous peoples with the Unuit in the cold high north and First Nation peoples below the Arctic. They had
been living here for millennia before the first Basque mariners explored the St Lawrence in the early 1500's,
soon to be followed by French trappers and settlers.
Quebec became part of New France but after the Seven Year's War France ceded
its Canadian possessions to Britain. There have been tensions between the English and French speaking population groups
ever since, resulting in the Conscription Crisis of 1917 and the nearly successful referendum for independence of 1995.
Today
Quebec is the only Canadian province where French is the official language.
During the last Ice Age all of Quebec was covered
by the massive 2 km thick Laurentide Ice Sheet that created the zillions of large and small lakes that today dot the forrested
lands of the Canadian Shield.
Quebec sports a varied wildlife with polar bears along the northern shores, moose and
black bear everywhere else and abundant marine wildlife in the St Lawrence.
Climate
ranges from cold to very cold in the north to warm in summer and cold in winter for the southern regions, so tourists have a
clear preference to visit in summer.
