Around the Gaspé Peninsula on Route 132

Route 132 around the peninsula

From Quebec City, Route 132 follows the south shore of the St Lawrence. After Kamouraska and its low houses, Bic National Park lines up coves and wooded headlands; at low tide, seals rest on the rocks. The Gaspé loop starts at Sainte-Flavie: about 885 kilometres around the peninsula.

On the north coast, the road runs between the cliff and the sea. It drops down into each village, Mont-Saint-Pierre, Grande-Vallée, Petite-Vallée, then climbs back up steep hills. Inland, the Chic-Chocs rise above 1,000 metres. You walk there on treeless plateaus.

At the tip of the peninsula, Forillon National Park ends in cliffs over the gulf. From June to October, whale-watching cruises leave from there. Then the road reaches Percé by the Pic de l’Aurore: Percé Rock and Bonaventure Island appear all at once, just below the road. The way back follows Chaleur Bay, which is calmer, and crosses the forests of the Matapédia Valley.

Further east, the Cap-des-Rosiers lighthouse, completed in 1858, stands 34 metres tall: it is the tallest in Canada. At La Martre, the wooden lighthouse from 1906 has kept its original clockwork mechanism, a cable and weights that turned the light.

These lighthouses did not prevent every shipwreck. On the night of 29 May 1914, the Empress of Ireland sank off Rimouski in fourteen minutes, after a collision in the fog. 1,012 people died. The Pointe-au-Père Maritime Historic Site tells the story of the wreck, next to a concrete lighthouse from 1909. You can also visit a submarine there, the Onondaga, set up on dry land.

Gaspé, cod and the Acadians

The name Gaspé comes from the Mi’gmaq word Gespeg, “land’s end”. The Mi’gmaq fished and hunted on the peninsula long before the Europeans arrived. On 24 July 1534, Jacques Cartier had a wooden cross raised at Gaspé and took possession of the land in the name of the King of France.

For centuries, the coast lived off cod. From 1766, the merchant Charles Robin, from the island of Jersey, made the Paspébiac sandbar his base: the cod was salted, dried and then shipped to Europe. The fishermen bought everything on credit at the company store and often stayed in debt. Further west, on Chaleur Bay, Acadians fleeing the Expulsion founded Bonaventure in 1760. The Musée acadien du Québec there tells their story.

What not to miss

1. 1Bic National ParkCoves, seals and the view from Pic Champlain, at 346 metres.
2. 2The Reford GardensThe garden created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, with its Himalayan blue poppy.
3. 3Mont AlbertA serpentine plateau above the treeline, for a long day’s walk.
4. 4Cap GaspéThe Forillon trail that leads to the tip of the peninsula, above the cliffs.
5. 5Bonaventure IslandBy boat from Percé, one of the largest northern gannet colonies in the world.
6. 6Miguasha National ParkFossil fish about 380 million years old, on the World Heritage List since 1999.

The Gaspé Peninsula in pictures

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The Cap-des-Rosiers lighthouse at the end of a shingle beach.

The Gaspé table

On the Gaspé Peninsula, people eat what comes from the sea first. Matane is known for its northern shrimp, served as a guédille, in a small hot dog bun. Cod, halibut and lobster arrive fresh at the fishmongers, and the smokehouses along the coast prepare salmon and other smoked fish.

The peninsula has its own beers too. Pit Caribou brews at L’Anse-à-Beaufils and runs a pub in Percé. In Carleton-sur-Mer, Le Naufrageur serves beers brewed on site in its pub, facing Chaleur Bay.