Matapédia Valley

Most people who drive the Gaspé peninsula do the coastal loop and never dip inland, which I understand — the cliffs and fishing towns are the obvious draw — but cutting through the Matapédia Valley on the way back toward Rivière-du-Loup gave me a different, and in some ways more restful, version of the region. The valley follows the Matapédia River as it winds south from Amqui toward the Restigouche, through farmland and forested hills, past a scattering of red-painted covered bridges that Quebec’s Ministry of Transport has kept in careful repair specifically because they’ve become minor local landmarks.

The valley’s real claim to fame among people who know it is the fishing. The Matapédia and its tributary the Causapscal are considered among the best Atlantic salmon rivers in eastern Canada, storied enough that fishing lodges here have hosted anglers for well over a century — the Matapédia was already famous for salmon in the 1800s, when wealthy sportsmen from Montreal and the northeastern United States began building private fishing camps along its banks. We stopped at the Site d’interprétation Matamajaw in Causapscal, a preserved historic salmon club, and watched from a viewing platform as a salmon actually cleared a small falls mid-river, which Lia declared the most purely satisfying thing she’d seen all trip, camera aside.

The pace of the valley is markedly slower than the coast — small dairy farms, church spires in every village, the road tracing the river rather than the sea. We stayed a night in Amqui and ate at a diner that served a version of poutine with a local cheese curd distinct from the ones we’d had in Percé, sharper and saltier, which the owner attributed with visible pride to her cousin’s dairy up the valley.

When to go: June through September for the salmon run and warmest weather; fall brings good colour along the river without the coastal crowds. The valley makes a natural, quieter alternative route back from the peninsula if you’ve done the coast road on the way out.