Destination Grand Nord - Montreal: a winter city camp in Quebec

A supervised winter stay in Montreal for teenagers aged fourteen to seventeen, run by the French operator Temps Jeunes. The group travels together from France with its leaders and spends the stay discovering the city and the Quebec winter. The working language of the group is French; the stay is a travel and discovery programme, not a language course, and there are no lessons or levels.

The package covers the accompanied journey by plane, accommodation, all meals, the activity and excursion programme and the supervising team. The headline price is the package leaving from Paris: travel is part of the package for everyone, and each of the other departure cities costs a set amount more, shown one by one in Extras. A departure city is only operated with a minimum of three participants. Compulsory travel documents — passport valid to the return date, the Canadian eTA, parental authorisation to leave the territory — are the family’s responsibility and are not part of the package.

The group stays in a youth hostel or a hotel close to the city centre, with public transport nearby.

Meals are prepared on the spot by the leaders together with the young people, and some are eaten in local restaurants depending on the programme. Quebec specialities are part of the stay: poutine, maple syrup, pancakes and bannock bread.

The RESO underground city is explored as a photo rally, with challenges to complete across the largest underground network in the world. The group walks the neighbourhoods — the French quarter, the Quartier des Spectacles, Chinatown and others. A full-day excursion outside Montreal brings dog sledding, time with the mushers and their dogs, and a forest survival workshop: lighting an emergency fire, building a temporary shelter and finding your way without electronics. Skating takes place on a frozen lake or on one of the city rinks, where meeting Montrealers and catching a game of hockey is part of the point. A walk up Mont Royal gives the city from above. Big games and evening activities are set by the leaders to suit the group, the weather and what is possible on the day.

The accommodation sits close to the centre of Montreal with public transport within reach.

This is a city stay with a wilderness day inside it. Teenagers get the run of a bilingual North American metropolis — underground, on the ice and on the mountain — and one day out in the snow with sled dogs. Supervision is one adult for every eight participants, with a qualified director and a first-aid trained leader in the team, and the whole group travels and lives together from departure to return.