Île d'Orléans

A few kilometers downstream from Québec the Île d'Orléans splits the St Lawrence waterway into two. 35 km (22 mi.) long and 9 km (6 mi.) wide the island has kept its rural character almost intact. Despite a recent influx of prosperous Québécois in search of their own small haven of peace, life on the island still evokes something of the pioneering spirit of the earliest colonists of New France.

Jacques Cartier originally christened the island the "Isle of Bacchus" (having found wild grapes there, so the story goes). Later it was renamed in honor of the Duke of Orléans. The Marquis de Roberval visited the island in 1542, and Samuel de Champlain in 1608, but the first settlement by Europeans only began after 1648. Colonization was