Long ago, in a galaxy far away (translation: pre-Pandemic), a dear friend sent us a newspaper clipping about a "rails to trails" cycle route in French-speaking Canada, just north of Montreal in the Provence of Quebec, called Le P'Tit Train du Nord. The Little Train of the North. I saved the clipping, tucking it into my "One Day We Will..." folder. About a month ago, while cleaning off my desk, the now-yellowed clipping fell from the folder, and I read it again. And remembered why I had saved it.
I called upstairs to my husband, Ron. As luck would have it, he was watching the mountains segment of the Tour de France bicycle race. "Do you want to go for a bike ride in Canada?" I asked. "Sure" came the absent-minded reply. Ron would not later recall this conversation. It would not matter.
The New York Times Article which had inspired me (by Jake Halpern, which can be found at
contained a cartoon-style map. I spread it out on my desk and got to work.
The plan was to drive to Sainte-Jérôme (about 1000 miles from our home in Winston Salem NC), take the Le P'Tit Train du Nord Autobus shuttle up to Mount-Laurier, and bike the 200 km back down to Sainte-Jérôme, where our car would be waiting. We called the autobus to make a reservation. It was July, the height of the very short cycling season. Fortunately, there was room for two on a Sunday shuttle in mid-August. Yes, we'll take it!
Young people may be wondering why we called the shuttle company and didn't just jump on their website and book with a few keystrokes. We very quickly learned that the World Wide Web has not yet quite reached the Laurentian Mountains. As a matter of fact, we were unable to locate a single website to secure lodging along the entire bike route!
We would have to use landlines. We would have to telephone. And speak French. I solicited the only French speaker I know: my husband. Granted, his French is quite limited ("Pouvons- nous parler anglais, s'il vous plaît?" Can we please speak English?), but he spoke with an impressive, if slightly southern, accent! Ron made phone call after phone call, as we worked our way down the trail. We had hoped to break the trip into manageable chunks, but it was B&B availability that ultimately dictated how far we would cycle each day. When we were finished planning, we had five days of cycling, and four overnights at Nominingue, Mont-Tremblant, Sainte-Faustine-Lac-Carré, and Sainte-Adèle.
We took two days to drive, north on I-81 almost the entire way. We crossed into Canada on the afternoon of the second day, at the New York/Ontario border near Lake Ontario. Once across the border, we turned east. Other than signs appearing in both English and French, not much changed. Tall evergreen forests lined the highway, the azure blue sky stretched in all directions, and the cars and their polite drivers all rolled along quite nicely. When we crossed into Quebec, the English disappeared, and it would not reappear until our return. The nav system worked great, although the pronunciation of the French by our English-speaking computer made for some comical dialogue.
We arrived in Sainte-Jérôme late in the evening and walked its tiny downtown. There was a single street with a row of cafés that led to the park with the old train caboose that was now the home of the autobus shuttle we would ride in the morning.
The enormous Cathedral de Sainte-Jérôme dominated the town.
It was here, in Sainte-Jérôme, that an influential priest saw an opportunity to capitalize on the railway boom of the second half of the nineteenth century as a means of populating the north with French-Canadian Catholics. Curé Antoine Labelle was instrumental in the construction of the railway line from Saint-Jérome northwards. In 1891, the line reached Mont-Rolland. By 1892, it had reached Sainte-Agathe; by 1909, Mont-Laurier. The heyday of Le P’tit Train du Nord was from about 1920 to 1940, when skiers by the trainload would travel north on special “snow trains” to enjoy the snow and trails of the Laurentians. In 1935, 40,000 skiers visited the Laurentians in this fashion. By about the 1950s, however, railway service had begun to decline, due largely to improvements in the road network between the 1950s and 1970s. Passenger service on the P’tit Train du Nord was interrupted in the early 1960s, was revived in the 1970s, and finally ceased for good in 1981.
But wait - there's more! Thanks in large part to local preservationists, a number of historic train stations have been preserved and restored to their former grandeur. The rail line was ultimately purchased by the Canadian government, and in 1996 Le P’tit Train came back to life – sans train. The steel tracks were removed and a 200 km (124 mile) linear park opened where the trains once rolled. The little stations and villages are dotted (albeit sparingly!) with "Epicure" styled grocery stores and ecotourist-friendly Bed & Breakfasts, catering to cyclists in the summer and cross-country skiers in the winter.
On a va! Let's go!
Canada is such a beautiful country! Hope you had a great trip!