Some like Bieb. Others like Bublé.
But everybody loves Bonhomme.
French, English, young, old, male, female – the excitement is palpable when Bonhomme enters the room.We’re in the lobby of the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac late Friday morning when Bonhomme makes a surprise appearance. Conference-goers and families alike are all atwitter over the presence of such a star, jostling for position for a photograph, gaga over the big guy with the permanent grin.
It’s Quebec City, opening weekend of Carnaval, and I feared my soon-to-be 13-year-old daughter might be too cool for this school. I shouldn’t have worried. Turns out how to greet Bonhomme was a topic of heated debate with her friends: Would she simply stand beside him? Throw a leg around him? Jump into his arms?
When the big moment arrived, she opted for a girly hug, which was posted to Facebook in seconds, proving that even big-city Toronto girls love Bonhomme.
The other thing they love? Shopping. The easiest way to start a holiday with a traveller this age: Let her shop. It surprises me that all the early explorers and conquerors were men, because there is no force as biologically determined to assess and acquire as a 13-year-old girl. Though lower Old Quebec – the Petit Champlain area – has more charm, it also has many of the same shops you’ll find everywhere else. Upper Old Quebec is a better choice for the spend-happy karmic kid (it really is a vicious circle, isn’t it?).
We pop in and out of stores she loves, and into Librairie Pantoute, a French bookstore, for my must-stop in every city: a book conveying a sense of that place. I want to reread Louise Penny’s Bury Your Dead (I can’t seem to hold on to a copy), but the section for “Québecoise literature – mais en anglais, sil vous plait” is very small, and they’re sold out. They direct me to Jacques Poulin’s Autumn Rounds instead. I’m skeptical (I’m judging the book by the cover), but I make the purchase and off we go.
The wind has picked up, though, and the falling snow that has been creating such an idyllic picture is now icy and coming at us vertically off the river, biting our cheeks. We’re literally bowed against the wind and can’t wait to take shelter in the Château – the same fortress that saw U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and Canadian PM Mackenzie King meet in 1943 and 1944 to discuss strategy at the height of the Second World War.
Our room is cozy and inviting and warm, and it takes some courage to head back out for dinner. The opening-night ceremonies have been postponed because of the dangerous driving conditions, so the city is more subdued than we expected. Later, my daughter scares herself silly with definitely-not-bedtime stories of the supernatural kind on Reddit.com – thankfully she doesn’t know about the Château’s resident ghost, Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, a two-time governor of New France whose spirit took up residence in the hotel and has been seen wandering in his 17th-century attire. Poulin’s Autumn Rounds weaves a gently hypnotizing spell and, finally, we’re lost to slumber.
Saturday morning emerges sunny and fresh – a perfect day for Carnaval.
