The Hôtel de Glace takes visitors on a frozen adventure Cassandra Kerwin cassandra@qctonline.com The weather outside is frightful … which can mean only one thing at Village Vacances Valcartier: time…
Sculptors and carvers are hard at work putting the finishing touches on the Hôtel de Glace. It was scheduled to open for visits between Christmas and New Year’s Day and welcome its first overnight guests on Jan. 4.
heart of the hotel, surrounded by sculptures that will delight children. For adults, the bar will be serving drinks in ice shot glasses once again.
For more information and
to book a room, visit valcartier. com/en/accommodations/ hotel-de-glace-ice-hotel. The hotel will close for the season on March 19. (Photo by Cassandra Kerwin) 
For millennia, the Irish have been celebrating the Winter Solstice. In December 2022, the Irish Embassy in Ottawa reached out to Irish cultural organizations across Canada to hold solstice vigils to honour the victims of the Irish Potato Famine. (Photo by Cassandra Kerwin) 
The L’Etoile Filante gondola lift at Mont Sainte-Anne has experienced two accidents in recent years. (Photo from Mont-Sainte-Anne website) 
Cartoon by Patrick LaMontagne 
Rue des Anciens-Canadiens is a residential street in the Charlesbourg borough of Quebec City between Rue de l’Héritage and Rue des Acadiens. (Screenshot from Google Maps) 
This middle section
of Jean-Paul Riopelle’s triptych L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg, with an arrow through the heart, is said to represent the artist’s love
for his former companion,
the American painter Joan Mitchell (1926-1992). The narrative sequence of
30 paintings, measuring
more than 40 metres long,
will be housed in the new extension to the Musée national des Beaux-Arts du Québec, which will display
the largest public collection
of works by Riopelle in the world. (Photo by Shirley Nadeau) 
A sizable crowd gathered in the Jardins de L’Hôtel-de-Ville for a wide-ranging program of free concerts. Craft beers from microbreweries around the region and other local delicacies were on offer.