For over two decades, the Outdoor Program and the Outing Club have sent trips to the Chic Choc mountain range in Gaspésie National Park. What many backcountry skiers refer to as the hidden gem of Quebec, the Chic Choc Mountains are now exploding in popularity, attracting tourists from all over the world. As social media and other online platforms bring attention to the area, outdoor recreation has begun to fuel the local economy of this previously isolated region.
“We’ve been going most years for the last 20 years [and] I think we’ve been up there a total of 16 times now,” said Phil Royce, director of the SLU Outdoor Program. Royce has been visiting the Chic Chocs since 1987 and has witnessed the region’s growth firsthand. The area used to be unknown, but now a trailhead parking spot can be difficult to come by, he claims.
Maria Leech ’18, a guide for both the Outing Club and the Outdoor Program, recently led a group of students to the Chic Chocs over spring break. “As a leader we take on the responsibility of budgeting for the trip as well as making sure all our participants are capable of doing that caliber of skiing,” she said. While Leech has not personally observed the heavier traffic, she has noticed the increased publicity the region has gotten through popular ski magazines and websites.
The beauty of the Chic Chocs lies in the widespread alpine terrain caused by thousands of years of erosion. These remote, treeless summits give tourists stunning views and, at certain areas, the opportunity to ski with a view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Additionally, the Chic Chocs are home to many wild animals, such as moose, bear, and, most notably, a population of caribou.
“At one point you can’t keep all your treasures stuffed away in a safe; at one point you… need to expose them to the public,” said Gregory Jean Matisse, an administrative worker for the national park.
Matisse works at the Avalanche Center, a central headquarters in the Chic Chocs, and mentioned that the region is now being visited by tourists from places as far as Germany, Japan, and areas of the Middle East. Matisse credited the growth to marketing and personal media outlets, such as YouTube. “Basically, people see a lot of the little films other people have done in the Chic Chocs,” Matisse said.
“It is the beating heart of the region. In 1937, one of the four reasons the national park was created was to increase tourism— and it still does,” said Pierre Pelletier, a guide for Ski Chic Chocs. It is local business designed to do more than bring skiers into the mountains. It provides tourists with a complete experience of the French-Canadian culture, visiting local bakeries and microbreweries. “We try to guide in the global way of the word. For us, it’s more than only skiing the mountains,” said Pelletier.