This is sort of directed toward Kayaking Loon, but is open to everyone. (I'm just sort of assuming she knows) I'm staying at Cathedral Pines the first week in August. I want to save the caches in the Stratton area for the event in September and was thinking of taking the wife/kids to Quebec for a day or two of caching.

I have the travel cards, so that is not an issue. I shall display my ignorance (:rolleyes::D) and let it be known that I do not speak a lick of French. I cannot even pronounce thank you correctly. In fact I have only been in Quebec once, 19 years ago when I drove through from Michigan to Vermont. (New Brunswick was my choice for Cuban Cigars and Camping ) :o:D Looking at GC.com however, it seems like there is a boatload of caches between Coburn Gore and Sherbrooke. So my question is threefold: #1 Will my lack of language skills be an obstacle? #2 Will my turn by turn Magellan work? #3 Is there a website that can translate the French speaking GC pages to English for me? (#4 do I sound like a complete fool?:):confused:)


I'm kind of excited and my wife/kids are as well. Any advice?


P.S. I just got off the phone with the campground and they now have a lot of openings for the event weekend!!!

Oui.....Merci ;) What he said......I 2nd that request for info./experiences

Mon tabacknac! (That's bad if you're a true Quebecois! No star on your license, right? My stuff worked fine in Canada. And you say "Tanks for da cache! I didn't take a ting!" Now don't get the ethnic police on me, I'm 100% Franco and have made a career poking fun of myself and my relatives. Au revoir!:)

I don't think the language part is really too much of a problem. You will find most people in Quebec are very understanding of your english. I did some caching in Old Quebec City. I am thinking some of them were listed in English anyway. You will see that cachers in the logs respond in both English and French when they find the cache. Quebec City is loads of fun. Ride the tram down to the old city..its glass and the kids would love it. You will find it at the boardwalk area. There are many street vendors, and things happening in the old city. Ride out to the Falls area, there is a cache here but the name escapes me...not to be missed though. You can drive to the top area, or take the tram car up on the wire. You can walk across the bridge over the falls. At some times of the year there are spectacular fireworks there, but at night it is also lit in colored lights. That is just a few miles out of the city...maybe 10?? Have fun.

I have found my map...Park de la chute Montmorency is the one, on Route 40. We stayed last time at the Marriot ( courtyard) right at the gate of the old city, which is very close. The rates rise and fall, so may be high this time of year. We went during winter carnival. That is a great time to visit, but brutally cold. You need to bring all of your woolies with you:-)

I realize now that you may not even be going to that area...if not....forget the last two posts....ha

We've been caching in Quebec many times - as recently as yesterday, as a matter of fact! LOL! And I wouldn't even go as far as Sherbrooke. Cross the border at Colburn Gore, and head straight ahead to Megantic. Very nice area! Or, instead of going that way, you could go straight up Route 201, through Jackman, to St. George. Another very nice area with lots of caches.

Sometimes, not being able to understand the cache description/hint will make the difference between finding a cache and not finding one, but usually it won't. The type of cache is in English, and that is the main thing for us: What are we looking for?

If your maps cover Canada, routing will work (at least, it does on our Garmin).

And as many times as we've been to Quebec, only one time have we ever met someone who spoke NO English. Pointing and using fingers (counting) work great.

Mon tabacknac! (That's bad if you're a true Quebecois! No star on your license, right? My stuff worked fine in Canada. And you say "Tanks for da cache! I didn't take a ting!" Now don't get the ethnic police on me, I'm 100% Franco and have made a career poking fun of myself and my relatives. Au revoir!:)

I know.........right !? :D It's a process(Proh-cess)! Eh!?

I realize now that you may not even be going to that area...if not....forget the last two posts....ha


I will be, but that's another trip :D

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

It works ok, but does not translate exactly as we would like it. A lot of the caches are listed in both french and english, I would stick to them. Waterski was correct. The Falls are not to be missed.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=2288f660-1fdd-4bb6-ac91-d11bcc62c53a

This is the cache at the falls.

Have a good trip, you will enjoy all that Quebec has to offer.

We went to the Mega Event in Quebec last year and had a blast. We toured and cached in the old city with T2H and Kayakerinme, Saw the fire works at the falls. A lot of fun to be sure. I think the fire works stat in August and are every Saturday night.
Quebec would be a long ride for a day of caching, the loop around lake Megantic that Bruce spoke of, is a great day trip. There is a cache with a huge tower that you can go up. there is a ferry of sorts that you can ride on the lake, we haven't done that but we can seen it.
You guys will have a blast

Went up for the mega and my son & d-i-l went ahead. They camped. I hoteled with Cache Maine. Language face to face - minimal issue. Translation of pages (babelfish)......might want to do ahead and print.....but we did fairly well right off the coords. Ah - Quebec City - do consider Morancy Falls and any fireworks show - awesome.

I missed going into the older city and some of those caches. Get your maps on the way up through Eustis to the border...........38...as the weekend of being Useless you might want to fan out differently.

Enjoy the journey - bring back not fruit or food.

I just saw this thread so will weigh in. I'll start off negative because that's my first reaction. I don't like caching in Quebec. Of course, I've only cached there twice, once when I took a TB across the border and dumped it in the very first cache. The second time was a couple of months ago with IAMPAW who seems to like caching there, at least she's done it more than once. The territory from Eustis to Coburn Gore is "my kind of country", lakes, woods, mountains. Once you cross the border all that changes, fields, farms, towns, and Lac Megantic which although it is a small city, it's still a city. And I don't like cities of any size, especially for caching.

I spent an all-expense paid week in Quebec City once (had to attend a meeting there) and I liked it. But you have already said that's not where you're headed so glowing reports about that don't count in this years plans.

And we RVd through a small part of Quebec once, on our way across Canada. And we have been to Lac Megantic many times. Locals here go there for the dentist, although I don't, but I have gone with friends. The dollar store is a big attraction for some people. And going to the sugar camp in the spring is almost a must-do. There they boil maple syrup, serve meals cooked entirely in maple syrup including frying eggs in it (and everything is very good), and if you're lucky they will have French-Canadian music, live. But that's in the spring, not August.

IAMPAW and I found caches around Lac-Megantic and one cacher had a lot of them. And although some of the places were not too bad, he/she placed the actual caches in mud and trash. And one, at a very beautiful place, was missing. Not a DNF, it wasn't there. Nobody could find it after us either.

Language. It can be a problem. The clerks will probably speak some English in the bigger stores. We stopped at a small store to get some more batteries and although the owner was very nice he didn't seem to speak a word of English. We conducted our business by pointing. And he seemed very relieved when I counted out the exact amount in Canadian money.

So my advice? Go. It's a different country in more ways than one. All the signs are in French. Take a small English-French dictionary with you and point at words if you have to. If you don't have one or want to buy one, stop by the house and borrow one of mine. Take the kids to the dollar store and buy some swag. Try poutine (ugh). Find some caches but don't plan on a lot. Take time to enjoy the different atmosphere. And take Canadian money if you plan to buy things. The dollar store can handle the exchange rate, the smaller places you need to use your credit card or Canadian money. You can get Canadian money at the bank in Stratton.

I'd go for just one day and see if you like it. Then next year plan on an overnight. But that's up to you.

I took two years of high school French, a year of advanced French in college (no speaking, just reading books in French, many, many books). I took a class in conversational French in adult ed. I have a Quebec friend who tried to teach me to speak Quebecois . None of it helped much. I can read the cache sheets a bit if I try hard. I can't speak any. Sigh.

Getting out of this country is easy. Show your card, tell them where you're going and what you're doing. Getting back in can be hard. IAMPAW went caching with her nephew and they stopped her, took everything out of her vehicle, even shook out all the pages in her notebooks to see if anything would fall out. When we went, we heading from Lac Megantic to NH and I loved the country out that way. Looked like Europe. And they let us into NH but the guy wasn't very pleasant. He wanted to know where we came in, what we had been doing, how long we'd been in, where we were going, where were we spending the night, what did we plan to do the next day etc. But he let us go. And I loved caching in upstate NH!

So that's my opinion (and just mine). I might like caching in northern Quebec, haven't tried that. Bonne chance!

PS And TFTC is MPLC there.