For a few days in early August, the Lower Town of Old Quebec fills with people dressed as if it were 1720. Women in linen caps and striped petticoats sit on the steps of Place Royale, men in tricorne hats and wool waistcoats haggle at a market stall, a drum corps marches down Rue Saint-Paul and a soldier in a white coat explains to a child how a musket is loaded. This is the New France Festival, and for a first time visitor it can feel like walking into a play without the programme. Here is the story it tells, where it happens, and how to enjoy it with children.
The story: from 1608 to the Conquest
The festival covers the roughly 150 years when this city was the capital of a French colony that, on paper, stretched from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. It starts in 1608, when Samuel de Champlain built a fortified trading post, the Habitation, on the narrow strip of shore below the cliff, exactly where Place Royale is now. It ends in 1759 and 1760, when the British took the city after the battle on the Plains of Abraham and New France ceased to exist.
In between are the people the costumes represent: the first families of farmers who cleared the shores of the St. Lawrence and Ile d’Orleans; the Filles du Roi, some 800 young women sent from France between 1663 and 1673 to marry settlers; the coureurs des bois who went inland to trade for furs; the nuns who ran the hospital and the school; the merchants whose stone houses still line the square; and the soldiers of the colonial regiments. The festival is not a re-enactment of one event but a portrait of a society, and each costume is a role in it.
Reading the costumes
Once you know the codes, the crowd becomes legible. A woman in a plain linen cap, a short jacket and an ankle length skirt in undyed wool or a simple stripe is a habitante, a farm wife; she is the most common figure. Silk, lace at the cuffs and a wide skirt over hoops mark a bourgeoise or a noblewoman, a rarer sight, as in the real colony. Men in knee breeches, a long waistcoat and a tricorne are townsmen; a red wool cap, a sash at the waist and a fringed leather coat mean a voyageur or coureur des bois. Soldiers wear the grey white coat of the colonial troops, with blue cuffs and facings. A black robe belongs to a Jesuit or a parish priest, a grey one to a Recollet friar.
Many visitors rent or make a costume and join in, and the festival encourages it; costume rental stands operate on site during the event, with prices set per day. Dressing up is optional, but it changes the experience for children, who stop being spectators and start being characters.
Where it happens
The heart of the festival is the Lower Town, between the cliff and the river. Place Royale, with the stone church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires built in 1688 on one side, is the ceremonial centre, where the opening is held and where the costumed crowd is thickest. Rue Saint-Pierre and Rue Saint-Paul, the old merchant streets, host the period market. The Old Port area toward the Bassin Louise gives the festival its open space for larger shows and the encampment of soldiers and artisans, and the parks along the river, including the small park at the foot of the cliff below the Chateau, fill with demonstrations. Some events climb to Place d’Armes and the Dufferin Terrace, but most of the festival fits in the Lower Town, about 500 m end to end.
Getting there is straightforward: from the Upper Town, take the Breakneck Stairs down from the Dufferin Terrace or the funicular to Rue du Petit-Champlain, and you are in it within two minutes. The streets are pedestrian for the duration, and a stroller with large wheels copes far better with the cobbles.
What to do with children
The festival is built around participation, which suits children better than most adult cultural events. The period market lets them handle tools, taste bread baked in an outdoor oven and watch a blacksmith work iron. The military encampment does drills at set times, and the cannon and musket firings, loud but predictable, are usually announced a few minutes ahead so nervous ears can be covered. Craft stations run through the afternoon: making a paper tricorne, dipping a candle, tying knots the way sailors did. The giant puppets, several metres tall and carried by teams of walkers, parade through the Lower Town and are the most photographed moment of the event.
A workable plan for a family day: arrive at Place Royale by 10 am before the heat and the crowd, spend the morning at the market and the crafts, eat a period lunch of pea soup and bread on the steps, watch the early afternoon parade, and leave the site by 3 pm for the beach at the Bassin Louise or the ice cream shops of the Upper Town. Evenings, with concerts and street theatre, are for adults.
Timing, tickets and heat
The festival takes place over several days in the first half of August, usually running from a Wednesday or Thursday through the following Sunday. Exact dates are announced each spring. Early August is the warmest week of the year in Quebec City, with average highs around 25 C and humid afternoons that can push past 30 C, so the Lower Town, which sits in the lee of the cliff with little breeze, can be uncomfortable after 1 pm. Mornings and evenings are the pleasant hours.
Access is a mix: the streets and the ambiance are free to walk through, while a paid pass gives entry to the enclosed sites, the shows and the encampments, with reduced or free admission for younger children. Buying the pass in advance avoids the queue at the gate on the weekend, when the site is at its busiest.
A few practical things
- Wear closed shoes with a grip: the cobbles of Place Royale and Rue Saint-Pierre are worn smooth and slippery when wet.
- Bring a refillable bottle; drinking fountains exist but are few, and shade is scarce in the square at midday.
- The nearest public toilets are in the Old Port area and at the top of the funicular; plan around them with small children.
- If you dress up, choose linen over wool. The historical accuracy of a wool coat is not worth it at 30 C.
- Keep an eye on the river: the festival sometimes coincides with tall ships or naval visits docking at the Old Port, which adds a free spectacle.
The festival does not pretend the colony was a golden age. What it does well is put you inside the daily life of a small city on the edge of a continent three centuries ago, in the exact streets where it happened. Stand in Place Royale at dusk, with the church lit and a fiddler playing on the steps, and the distance to 1720 feels short.
