Big tools first for snow sculptors, hours later using smaller implements for details.

 Don’t talk about weather. That’s my revelation after five January days in Quebec City for the 57th annual Winter Carnival.  I went there for all the wrong reasons.

    My idea was to be cold, to figure out how people cope with really low temps and lots of snow. Expected to find resolute people, plodding through winter, waiting for spring.

    Only saw delight. Happiness. Families together, even tiny babies bundled up on sleds. Don’t stay home because it’s cold. Enjoy.  Everybody seems to get that in 400- year-old Quebec City and I did too, eventually.

    Seventeen days this festival lasts on the snow-covered Plains of Abraham, an easy walk from many hotels or boutique inns. I’d recommend a reservation for Jan. 27 – Feb. 12, 2012.

    Borrowing all the right clothes worked out fine for me.

    I might have been able to play all the games and see all the shows, parades and ice and snow sculptures had I stayed that long. Abundant entertainment, decidedly different from festivals south of Quebec.

    Dog sled races for starters. A long street connecting the old port city to the newer Grand Allee neighborhood transforms magically overnight to a snow-filled track for fast dogs and their drivers.

    Sun starts setting, dogs go home, snow is removed and a busy restaurant scene resumes. Seamless the way this city manages.

      Human foosball goes day and night. Don’t turn levers to move molded figures in the Carnival version of a table game; strap yourself to the rod and coordinate with your teammates to kick the ball.

    Ice sliding’s a steady thrill; just plop a well padded derriere on the top and slide really fast. Everyone’s padded just to stay warm.

    Zoom down snow hills on sleds.

     High adventure, including a zip line above the snowy Plains, isn’t the only allure. I shook my head in amazement hundreds of time, watching teams carve mammoth blocks of snow into intricate dragons, fish, whimsical shapes, portraits.

    They start with ladders, saws, big tools and carve all night, refining their designs with sandpaper, small brushes, kitchen spatulas and small tools by morning.

    I watched amateurs create amazing shapes on opening weekend. Go later in Carnival to see international snow carvers.

    Go any time to the Ice Palace, 6,000 blocks of ice needing 15 men working a month to construct. The contractor for this job is 83 and he’s been leading the team for 53 years.

    100 feet wide and 60 feet deep.  I think that’s about three times bigger than my house of wood and brick.

    Outside the Place is for gazing in astonishment, and for dancing. Fun lovers live in Quebec so DJ music from the stage starts a lot of dances.  Live bands play on another stage.

    Inside the Ice Palace are rooms to stroll, this year’s themes all about the spectacular night parades of Carnival history.  Kind of rivaled my little-girl memories of the windows on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue at Christmas.

    Bonhomme lives in the Ice Palace. Well, sort of. Is Santa at the North Pole? This gigantic snowman is an ambassador for the Festival, and the City and, best I could figure, for the unwavering choice to be happy.

    Real fellow inside the suit, easy to talk to and awkward to hug. Pops up all over the place.

    So do other larger-than-life characters. Quebec City is a mecca for skilled sewing. Costumes play a big role in festivals here, and you’re likely to find one whenever you set up a visit. Characters and festivals.

    Ice in the Palace is big blocks. In the Sculpture Tent on the Plains of Abraham the ice is intricately carved, creating a fairyland of merry-go-rounds, mythical figures, storybook characters.

    I wound through this icy tent slowly, warm in my borrowed duds and slapping my mittened wrists to stop touching before the docent stopped me.

    Next door is the Winter Carnival spot to take off your clothes. Nordic Spa hot tubs are bathing suit mandatory, plus a hat. Really.

    Get out of all those layers and boots in a little private hut and get in the steamy waters.

    Wanted to but didn’t because I planned to head to a Nordic Spa on the Jacques Cartier River the next day.

    Quebec City has interesting neighbors that lured me away from the Carnival. Heat up and chill out Le Nordique Spa in Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury.

    Lockers, towels and serious bathrobes provided; bring your swimsuit. There’s a science to relaxation here and I only strayed once from expert advice.

    Heat up in the dry sauna. 176 degrees Fahrenheit in there. Fifteen minutes is enough. Jump in the patio pool, 55 degrees. I might have lasted an entire minute.

    Then wrap up in that big bathrobe and stretch out in the cozy relaxation room. Chaise lounge type chairs, wall of windows overlooking the river and the snowy forest and not a word spoken.

    Steam room next, temperature a steady 122 degrees. Back in the cold pool, or follow a short path to the river and plunge in. I didn’t see anyone doing that but wanted to give it a try.

    Broke the ice with my heels, sat on the dock and dipped to my knees. That’s it. Couldn’t figure out who’d notice me missing if I fainted in the river.

    Back to the steam and repeat the process; stay all day if you like and I would. $35. One time on the cold cycle I skipped the pool plunge and rolled in the snow, remembering the snow angles of my youth when I wore a snowsuit, not a bathing suit.

    Playing outside and loving winter is the Carnival focus and it takes root all over Quebec.

    Valcartier Vacation Village claims to be North America’s largest winter playground; I certainly couldn’t try every slide, slope and sled in a morning.

    Some I couldn’t try in a week – too steep and fast for me. Everest they call the 110-foot high accelerating slide and Himalaya is the high-speed slope.

    I was more at home on one of the 5,000 inner tubes; hook it to the rope lift and plop down for an easy ride to the top of gentler slopes. 

      Big rubber rafts, some round and some rectangular, holding a dozen people, and propelling down steep and winding slopes struck me as the thrill ride without the fear.

    Ice skating paths with lights and music, ice karting, walking trails and viewing areas also good playgrounds.

Only reason to go inside? The bistro, pub, cafeteria and bar.  Twenty minutes from Quebec City, Valcartier is a year-round place, turning into a water park in the summer.

Snowshoeing I really wanted to try; possible at Winter Carnival on those wide open, well groomed Plains of Abraham, but I headed to Le Manoir du Lac Delage to check out the handsome 97-room hotel on a lake, and a walk in the forest.

 Rand Orientation they call it because randonee means excursion in this French-speaking region.

A brief lesson, loaner compass and off to the woods. I wasn’t graceful but it isn’t hard tromping in deep undisturbed snow. Guess the first people in Canada knew what they were doing.

  I met some modern day First Nation people in Wendake, population 3,000. Skilled people whose ancestors lived in long houses, made their snowshoes and baskets from ash trees, planted corn, beans and squash together calling them three sisters and built a way of life inspired by mythology, history and the natural world.

Today’s Huron-Wendat people fill this community, yearning for more land and housing. Their 55-room hotel with a superb museum shares the rich heritage.

Stay here to see original art and artifacts in the hallways, and to arouse all five senses in the bedrooms: touch, smell, taste, sound, sight.

I loved the restaurant where 95 percent of Executive Chef Martin Gagne’s food is local. Pretty amazing in winter with his spices coming mainly from the boreal forest.

What’s to like? Elk with morels, hare and duck with dried blueberry sauce, pan-seared seal with elderberry jelly and red deer ribs flavored with maple sap. Caribou too.

Sagamite is a must have in my book, a soup made from simmered game.  My meal was a buffet and I tried everything twice. I’d spring for the six-course dinner for $59 if I’m lucky enough to return.

The Huron-Wendat Museum is superb and the town is a living museum too; I could snowshoe here, 45 minutes recreating the tracking of caribou or an hour at sunset with torchlights.  

    Love Quebec City, and reach into its region too.