Parc national de la Jacques‑Cartier

Park Experience

Explore the Laurentian Massif by Hills and Valleys

Less than 30 minutes from Québec City, Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier offers a magnificent landscape characterized by a stunning contrast: a vast mountainous plateau fractured by steep-sided valleys. The most spectacular, Vallée de la Jacques-Cartier, has a trench of over 550 m deep, through which an alternately calm and wild river flows. In the forest, where yellow birch, sugar maple and black spruce rub shoulders, nature inspires peace and respect. In winter, this panorama’s magnificent charm doesn’t go into hibernation! Clothed in white, it wraps this spot in a magical embrace that will leave you speechless.

Click here to find out about the wide range of discovery activities available in the park!

Discover the Park Through Interpretation

Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier has a rich and diversified natural environment. And the best way to discover it is to participate in our discovery activities (in French only). Through the interpretation of natural and cultural heritage, vyou’ll learn more about the park and the importance of protecting it.

Among the riches we wish to share are:

• Stunning natural architecture: a vast plateau sliced by the majestic Vallée de la Jacques-Cartier, and softened by the last glaciation.
• Layered vegetation: boreal, mixed and deciduous forests live side by side
• Rich and diversified wildlife: moose, grey wolf, osprey, and speckled trout coexist here.

To guide us in developing our discovery activities, all the parks have an education plan. To find out more about the foundations of the interpretation program at Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier, don’t hesitate to question our park-warden naturalists.

Discovery and Visitors Centre

During your time at the park, don’t miss a visit to the Discovery and Visitors Centre. Here you’ll find reception services, a boat rental centre, a general store and a Boutique Nature, which offers a wide variety of clothing, souvenirs, outdoors items and discovery products for kids.

Having a unique experience, an up-close-and-personal contact with nature, is exactly what you’re hoping for when you enter a national park, more often than not through the door of the DVCs. The parks’ true beating heart, these are great places to meet people, have discussions, and learn. Their space has been reinvented to better guide you on what there is “to do” and “to see” when you go out to explore and discover the national parks.