By Ines Keane
Twenty-eight people. That was the population of Québec City in 1608, the year Samuel de Champlain set up a trading post on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, where it meets the Rivière Saint-Charles. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives that figure. It also gives the one for 2021: 549,459 in the city, 839,311 in the metropolitan area. The old part, the part you come to walk, covers 135 hectares.
What the listing says
UNESCO inscribed the Historic District of Old Québec in 1985, under criteria (iv) and (vi). Its own summary calls it “an exceptional example of a fortified colonial town and by far the most complete north of Mexico.” A second line goes further: it is “the only North American city to have preserved its ramparts, together with the numerous bastions, gates and defensive works.” The Canadian Encyclopedia puts the same idea in plainer words and calls Québec City “the only walled city in North America.” The wording differs a little. The point holds across both. The walls are still there.
Two towns on one rock
The city grew in two pieces. Cap-Diamant, a promontory the Canadian Encyclopedia says rises 98 metres, dominates the setting. Lower Town took “the narrow strip of land between the promontory and the port,” in the Encyclopedia’s phrase. Upper Town went on top of the rock. UNESCO describes it as the religious and administrative centre, with its churches, convents and monuments such as the Dauphine Redoubt, the Citadel and Château Frontenac. Lower Town, UNESCO says, “grew up around Place Royale and the harbour.”
The two levels are part of the walking: expect to climb.
Place Royale, in dates
The square sits beside Champlain’s second habitation, built between 1623 and 1626 according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. A 1660 plan shows it as a parade ground. It took its name in 1686, when the intendant Champigny erected a bust of Louis XIV; the king had asked his intendants the year before to create “places royales.” The small church on the square went up in 1688. It was renamed Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire in 1690 and Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in 1711. A new façade was completed in 1723, there were major reconstructions in 1762–1766 and 1816, and the belfry and parvis were finished in 1861.
Then came the long work of putting the district back. The Encyclopedia says preservation began in the 1960s, that several buildings were renovated between 1970 and 1979, that France donated a new bust of the king in 1931, and that the Place Royale Interpretation Centre was built in 1997–1999.
The big hotel
Château Frontenac is the building everyone photographs. The Canadian Encyclopedia says Bruce Price, a New York designer, drew it for the Canadian Pacific Railway under William Van Horne, that construction began in 1892 and that it opened in 1893. It stands on the archaeological site of the Saint-Louis forts and châteaux. Wings followed in 1899 and 1908. A central tower came in 1926, set with a stone the article calls 350 years old and marked with a Maltese cross. It became a National Historic Site in 1981. In August 1943 and September 1944 it hosted the two Québec Conferences, where Mackenzie King, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met to talk Allied strategy.
The walls
Parks Canada runs the Fortifications of Québec National Historic Site, based at 2 D’Auteuil Street. The agency says it tells the military history of Québec City “over three centuries.” Its page names Casemate 24, the Dauphine redoubt, the Esplanade powder magazine and Saint-Louis Gate. Season dates and tour schedules change, so check the Parks Canada page before you go.
Dates in the city’s story
The Canadian Encyclopedia gives slightly over 8,000 people in 1759, the year of the battle on the Plains of Abraham, and nearly 60,000 in 1861. The Séminaire de Québec dates from 1668. Université Laval was established in 1852. Québec City has been the provincial capital since 1867.
How we would read it
This is a place for people who like to see how a town is built. Rock, river, wall, square: each decision shows. For the goods side, the district is a reminder that a city made things to sell and to defend, and that the harbour came first. That last line is our reading, not a sourced claim.
Roam first. Shop later.