Quebec City in Winter: Carnaval de Québec (Bonhomme), the Ice Hotel (Hôtel de Glace) & Christmas

In most northern cities, winter is a season to endure indoors; in Quebec City, winter is a four-month celebration that turns the 17th-century stone streets into a real-life snow globe. Receiving over 300 centimetres of snow every winter, the city embraces the cold with three world-famous spectacles between late November and late March.

1. The German Christmas Market & Petit-Champlain Holiday Lights (Late Nov to Late Dec)

From the fourth week of November until Christmas Eve, five squares in Upper Town Old Quebec (around City Hall Gardens, Place d'Armes and Rue Sainte-Anne) transform into the Marché de Noël allemand de Québec (German Christmas Market), with over 90 wooden alpine chalets serving spiced mulled wine (Glühwein), grilled bratwurst, gingerbread and Québécois maple treats under twinkling lights, while down in Quartier Petit-Champlain every stone cottage is wrapped in evergreen garlands and lit snow-trees through March.

2. The Carnaval de Québec (Every February, Largest Winter Carnival on Earth)

For ten days every February, the city hands its keys to Bonhomme Carnaval, a seven-foot-tall dancing snowman wearing a red tuque and traditional woven ceinture fléchée sash. Buy the collectible Carnaval Effigy badge to enter:

• Bonhomme's Ice Palace (Opposite the Parliament Building): a multi-room castle built of solid blocks of St. Lawrence ice, surrounded by international snow sculptures on the Plains of Abraham.
• The Ice Canoe Race Across the Frozen St. Lawrence River (Course en Canot à Glace): watch 5-person teams paddle and haul fibreglass canoes across shifting giant ice floes and freezing river currents between Quebec and Lévis.

3. Touring or Sleeping in the Hôtel de Glace (Jan to Mid-March)

Located 35 minutes north-west of Old Quebec at Village Vacances Valcartier, the Hôtel de Glace is sculpted every December from 30,000 tons of snow and 500 tons of crystal ice. Visitors can sleep overnight in an arctic sleeping bag or buy a daytime tour ticket to walk through the 40 themed ice suites, the Ice Chapel and the Grand Ice Slide, and sip a cranberry cocktail in a glass carved of pure ice at the Ice Bar.