Quebec City is the only city north of Mexico still enclosed by its original fortified walls, a distinction that earned its historic district UNESCO World Heritage status in 1985. Founded by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1608, the city’s defensive walls were built and repeatedly reinforced over centuries as control shifted between French and British forces, culminating in the pivotal 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a battle that decided the fate of French colonial rule in North America in under twenty minutes of fighting.
The Chateau Frontenac, the grand castle-like hotel that dominates the city’s skyline, was built in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway as part of a chain of luxury hotels meant to draw tourism along its rail lines, and is now considered one of the most photographed hotels in the world, its copper-topped turrets visible from nearly every part of the old city below.
A French Identity Preserved Deliberately
Quebec City remains overwhelmingly French-speaking, roughly 95% of residents, a linguistic and cultural continuity that has been actively protected through language laws and cultural policy since the mid-20th century, distinguishing it sharply from most of English-speaking Canada. That French character extends beyond language into architecture, cuisine, and civic life, giving the old city a distinctly European atmosphere unusual for North America.
Winters in Quebec City are long and genuinely severe, and rather than simply endure them, the city leans in, its annual Winter Carnival, running since 1894, is among the largest winter festivals in the world, featuring ice sculptures, a giant snow slide, and a beloved snowman mascot, Bonhomme, presiding over it all.
Painting Stone Walls in Winter Light
Quebec City’s fortified stone walls and steep copper rooftops under winter light give a watercolourist rich texture and historic atmosphere to work with. We’ve captured that old-world character in our own Quebec Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of French Canada for a wall at home.
The last walled city of its kind on the continent, Quebec City remains a small, stubborn pocket of 17th-century France still standing in modern North America.