St Lawrence, Saguenay Fjord and Lac Saint-Jean - CanaDream

Fifteen nights and 1,620 kilometres in a loop from Montreal in a motorhome, up the St Lawrence to the Saguenay and round Lac Saint-Jean.

Trois-Rivieres comes first, then Quebec City with a stay day, where the old town is the only walled city north of Mexico, and La Malbaie in Charlevoix, where the hills come down to the river and the whole region sits inside a meteorite crater some fifty-six kilometres across.

Tadoussac follows at the mouth of the Saguenay and gets its own stay day: beluga are resident in the fjord year round and the summer brings minke, fin and blue whales to feed where the fresh water meets the salt. Sainte-Monique, Saint-Felicien, Roberval and Chambord ring Lac Saint-Jean, with a stay day at Pointe-Taillon on its northern shore, then La Baie on the fjord, Saint-Simeon, Drummondville and Chambly on the way home.

The motorhome and the day-by-day plan come from CanaDream, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with insurance options priced at booking. Sixteen days for 1,620 kilometres is a slow pace with three stay days in it, which suits a route where the whale watching and the fjord are weather dependent. The season runs roughly June to September, with the whales best from July onward. Quebec outside Montreal is largely French-speaking, which is part of the point. The blueberries around Lac Saint-Jean in August are a local institution rather than a tourist one.