Montmorency Falls

Interesting facts

In winter the frozen spray builds an ice cone at the foot of the falls, and since the 19th century people have climbed it and slid down it on sleds.

Quebec's first hydroelectric power station opened at the foot of a smaller fall here on 7 October 1885, lighting the city's main streets and later powering its tramways.

A suspension bridge built across the river beside the falls in 1855 collapsed in April 1856, just days after it opened, killing three people.

The falls drop along a geological fault where the ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield meet the younger sedimentary layers of the St. Lawrence Lowlands.

British redoubts from General Wolfe's 1759 encampment still survive as earthworks in the eastern part of the park.

In 1780 Governor Frederick Haldimand built a summer villa above the falls, later used for several years by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria.

John Keats invoked the falls in his 1816 poem Sleep and Poetry, comparing human life to a boat drifting towards the monstrous steep of Montmorency.

According to local legend, a young woman whose fiancé died in the 1759 battle threw herself into the falls in her wedding dress, and her white figure haunts the falls.

Quebec's famous Ice Hotel spent its very first winter, in 2001, at the foot of Montmorency Falls.

Besides the main fall, there is a small unnamed cascade created by the penstock of the old hydroelectric plant, whose ruins still stand at its base.

Why it is worth it

Just before the Montmorency River meets the St. Lawrence it drops over a cliff in a single white curtain 83 metres high, some 30 metres taller than Niagara. It is not a wide fall, and that is part of its drama: the whole river is squeezed into a narrow chute and thrown down a dark cliff into a basin about 17 metres deep, with a thinner cascade at one side known as the Bride's Veil. On average around 130 cubic metres of water pass every second, and in the warm months the iron in the river tints the spray a faint yellow. It is the highest waterfall in Quebec, and it sits almost at the gates of Quebec City.

The falls were named by Samuel de Champlain in honour of Charles de Montmorency-Damville, admiral of France, and they entered history during the Seven Years' War. In the summer of 1759, while besieging Quebec, the British general James Wolfe tried to break the French lines on the Beauport shore beside the falls and was driven back by Montcalm's troops; only later, by landing at the Anse au Foulon, did he reach the Plains of Abraham. The cliffs where that first assault failed are the same ones visitors now walk along.

Today the falls are the centrepiece of Montmorency Falls Park, run by the Quebec parks agency Sépaq, and the site is built for looking from every angle. A suspension bridge spans the crest, so you can stand directly above the point where the river pours over; a long panoramic staircase of 487 steps descends the cliff face beside the fall, and a cable car links the base with the top. In summer the basin fills with spray and the park hosts an international fireworks competition. Winter is the stranger season: the mist freezes onto everything around the falls and builds a great cone of ice at the foot, the pain de sucre or sugarloaf, while ice climbers work the frozen walls nearby.

Getting there

The falls lie on the boundary between the Beauport borough of Quebec City and Boischatel, about 12 km from the historic centre of Quebec City and about 5 km from central Beauport. Quebec City Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB) is about 22 km away. The park has access points at both the top and the base of the falls.

Montmorency Falls

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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