Saint Sauveur Waterpark

The truly lazy river :)

Some of you may know I’ve never outgrown my fascination w water parks.  I’ve heard several times over the years about a great one in Quebec that’s built into a ski hill,  but never really had time / excuse to come visit (to put in perspective - I expect it’ll be about an 8h drive home tomorrow, so it’s a multi-day commitment to come to the park).  It is, however, only about an hour from Parc Omega, so combining the two seemed a fairly brilliant idea.  Weather forecast for today had been iffy but turned out to be fairly ideal.  Got to the waterpark (Sommet Saint Sauveur) just as it was opening and the parking lot was already fairly full.  However, checkin was smooth and fast (prepurchased tickets).  You’re also allowed to bring food and (non-alcoholic) drinks into the park, so that was civilized.  We snagged a couple beach chairs for the day - there was never any shortage so wasn’t worried about "hogging" them.  And also a locker for the more important stuff.

No real change room (although C mentioned finding one later on the other side of the park).  Not surprising since this was a ski resort first.   However - the washroom was huge w a ton of stalls that were an acceptable size to change in.  Only thing that caught me out - when I first went in, all the doors were closed and another woman was waiting so I also waited in line.   Fairly normal occurrence in women’s washrooms.  Until 2 kids came in who had clearly been here before and just walked down lightly pushing on each door till one opened 🤦‍♀️.  Yup - doors are spring loaded so default is closed rather than open.   The other woman and I quickly found spaces and when moments later a camp load arrived the instruction from the counsellor was “check the doors till you find an open one and then get changed” - so yeah - partially you need to know the system.

All sorted and good to go, we decided we’d do the slides in order from one side to the other.  Except the two furthest weren’t open yet so slight deviation.   Most of the slides were two-person tube rides, with one solo tube, one set of tube-less, and one that actually involved a raft 😂 

This park is hands down the best I’ve ever been to.  And the number of adults there without children attached seems to suggest I’m not the only one who feels that way.   I’ll give you some of the more unique highlights:

A individual-tube ride where you drop down into whirlpool after whirlpool.  There’s an intermediate and an expert version of this one (albeit we only did the expert one, but we did it more than once cause we enjoyed it so much) - the trick is to grab a rope attached to the side of the whirlpool- otherwise you can be stuck in the middle for ages ;)

There was a 2-person tube ride (opened an hour later than the rest of the park) that was through a pitch-black tunnel that basically was just a series of drops.  They were very insistent that the heaviest person being in front.  I'm going w that was a safety issue because if the lighter person had been in front physics suggests the heavier person may well have landed on TOP of the smaller person.  Esp if difference was significant (think large father and small child).  For us though what it meant was extra speed, and I got some air time right before each drop 😂.   This was by far the fastest ride and we did it multiple times.

There was the Colorado River.  Okay so this is on the other side of the park from most stuff (there are two rides all on their own).  We started heading up the long walk up the mountain - questioning if we were doing something wrong since we were the *only* ones not carrying a yellow two-person tube.  And it was a long hike up so it’d be annoying if so.  But we got to a place where the trail split, so we went away from the yellow tube ride, and eventually there were other people behind us, making me think we were maybe going to a real ride.  Then we started to hear the rapids - like white water rapids.  Half way up a mountain?!?!   A little disconcerting but okay.   And then we see the ride hut and realize there are a ton of other people there in line, nobody carrying anything, so clearly an okay place to be.   That line took us an hour to get through.  To put in perspective, we didn’t wait longer than a couple minutes for literally any other ride.

So next to the line was a chair lift - that every few mins was hauling a raft up.  Like an actual raft - not a floaty tube.  There was a warning - in both languages - about it being a high intensity ride, must be in good physical condition, no pregnant women or people w heart conditions, etc.   I completely ignored this exactly as I would at any amusement park - because I have the luxury to do so being generally healthy and fit.  This one?!?!  This one I should’ve respected.  

We waited and waited - you can’t see much from the line and we weren’t hearing the screams you hear from some of the rides (that tunnel drop ride I never made it through without a screech).  Yeah - you know when there’s a small child and they fall and they scream you can pretty much assume they’re fine?  But if they fall and are silent, you know there’s a real issue?   This ride was the grown up version.  

So the staff person was talking quite a bit to everyone before sending them off.  You sit one at either end of the raft, both facing in, with legs stretched out diagonally (I nominated Chris to go backwards 😂).  There was a shift change right before we went though and the staff person didn’t say a word to us.  No instruction, no heads up as to what was coming, nothing.   And from what you can see at this point it looks like all the other rides - a bit of a start to get some speed and then follow the route to the bottom.  

The idea behind this one is that it would mimic white water rafting.  I have been white water rafting, several times; I loved it.  I did not believe for a moment this would mimic that with any degree of success or realism given the whole water-slide concept but still thought it’d be a fun ride.

Dear Reader, let me tell you how much I misinterpreted.  Not only did it 💯 capture the realistic parts of white water rafting, it significantly increased the intensity.   The helmets they give you are neither decorative nor merely to keep the lawyers happy, there is a very real chance your head will be banged off concrete at some point on this ride.   I somehow ended up w road rash on my shoulder blade - still not sure how that happened 😂    Multiple times I would’ve been launched from the raft if not for my death grip on the handles.  Like significant air time and tossed around as though I were in a blender.  More than once I ended up lying flat out, w a good portion of me on Chris’ side of the raft.   Since I was wearing contacts, I couldn’t see for most of it, and more than once caught a  wave in my face.    There were well timed moments when it settled just long enough to reposition myself before kicking in again.  When I say it was intense, I’m not exaggerating.   I’m glad I did it.  It was worth the wait.   I’m not sure I ever need to do it again ;).  

Seriously though - actual white water rafting you’re paddling not holding on - if I hadn’t been holding on w everything I had, I would’ve been out of the raft and floating down the river after the first set of rapids here. 

So yeah, that one was wild.  Although I have to admit, Chris seemed to be having a blast lol.  As a recovery measure we visited the lazy river ;).   This park has two lazy rivers.  Well one lazy and one less so ;).  So the lazy river meanders around mostly near the kids’ section.  It is like every lazy river you’ve ever experienced.  Although the one thing it did better than others I’ve been on is their tubes had head rests!   Beyond civilized.  

The other lazy river is a thing dreams are made of.  It’s basically a combo of lazy river and wave pool - so you move a fair bit faster and can’t quite nap through it, but it’s zero effort.  Win.   And THEN….  They fished all the kids out for high tide!   I was told that this was worth experiencing before I came so when we got there we found out when high tide would be (4:30 for the curious) and were on that river floating our way around well before 4 ;).  High tide they basically significantly increase the volume of water rushing in for the waves so you’re moving faster and with more drama throughout.   At this point, it no longer really resembles a lazy river at all but it was tons of fun, lots of laughs, and in the end only got out cause we got in so early I was freezing!   The water was warmer than the air, as the break in the heat wave finally caught us :)

So yeah - Saint Sauveur waterpark - 5 stars, fully recommend.

Some non-water-related activities we didn't try
but that had cool names :)

Tuesday evening - Saint Sauveur

I loved these signs all around the town with different historic photos of the area

After we finished at the park we headed to Saint Sauveur.  A ski town, north west of Montreal.   The drive over was lovely.  The town is super cute - definitely all tourists which has a bonus that most of the people working speak English (win!)

Pretty enough, but dodgy experience

Alas the “hotel” I booked ended up being somewhat dodgy.  It’s really a condo type situation - so no lounge, common room, ice maker, anything.   Clean enough but super dark, there was a sign saying not to use the bath (not that I was planning to but really???), key code to get in the door, etc.   The pool that was pictured actually belongs to the hotel that this section shares a parking lot with - *that* hotel looks lovely.  Ah well, lesson learned.   At least it is definitely walking distance to everything.  C and I walked around the town, got some dinner, ran a couple errands, and even went out for evening ice cream.   Super lovely.

Fairly perfect evening - this is where we had ice cream

Why are we in a ski town in July?   Well because one of the local ski hills has an amazing (or so I’ve heard) waterpark built into their mountain that we’re going to visit tomorrow.   You know, they day the heat wave breaks and it’s supposed to be only about 20 deg and raining 🤦‍♀️.    But hey - maybe it won’t be too busy!

Parc Omega - Day 2

My early morning wake up was actually fairly ideal as we had tickets for a guided pre-park-opening tour this am that boarded at 7:15 and we needed to check out of our teepee before then.   We ate the cinnamon buns I’d brought for breakfast then packed up and headed down to the shower station and then checked out and just hung out for a bit till the bus was loading.

Deer traffic - not an issue on pre-park tour

This tour - 💯 worth it.  Partially cause the naturalist guide was amazing - tons of knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm.  And partially cause the bus was tall enough for both views and photos often unrestricted by fencing.  And definitely cause there were no other cars on the road ;)

Bison are not allowed to wander wherever.  Probably for the best ;)

The animals that are low-risk of endangering people or other animals are allowed to wander freely - multiple types of deer (squirrel note: we learned the odd-coloured deer, seemingly dark brown or conversely albino - like the pic from last night, are actually all just normal - but because natural selection isn’t at work here, the camouflage colour has no advantage and so more colours appear).  

Boars are amongst those allowed to wander as they see fit

So freely walking deer, boars, ducks, Canada geese (which are wild and not intentionally in the park but come for the easy food), squirrels, chipmunks, etc just wander around.   Feeding the deer carrots is actively encouraged and has made for some very pushy deer and interesting traffic challenges.  But also for some great photo ops.   

I didn't get a great photo of the moose, but I did at least get to see them :)

Also learned moose are actually deer?   The largest species of.  Logically that does make sense but is definitely not a thing I clued into before today.  The moose do not wander freely because apparently they are the opposite of social creatures.  The moose in this park were orphaned as babies that the park was called to rescue and raise, not moose obtained in the wild.   Most of the animals throughout are apparently bred there or rescued as orphans.   All seemed to be in very good condition and not showing signs of stress you so often see at these kinds of places.  So credit to them for doing something right.

Mama with two of her three cubs

Had so much fun taking photos of all the animals - I’m still horrendously bad at finding them (I’d 💯 trip over a bear for sure).  The white wolf was about the only one I found easily 🤦‍♀️.    Loved the wolves and the bears - no surprise there.  Even a mama bear w 3 cubs!    

Wolverine

(Squirrel!   What did surprise me was the Wolverines - which to me seemed like little bears.  Apparently fierce and scrappy little creatures that can take down a moose if they need to?!?!   They’re the Tiny Dog of wild animals.   We didn’t see them till after the tour though so back to that later).

One of the few areas that you can get out of your car and walk around

The park is broken into sections w different animals in different sections.  The areas w mostly “safe” animals you can get out and walk around.  The others are in-vehicle only.  Although windows open and feeding deer highly encouraged.    

We paused to let these guys cross the road

The only area we didn’t see anything was the otters - apparently they’ve only just moved in and are mostly hiding.   The guide did stress at every section that it’s up to the animals if they wish to be seen or not, and some days they choose not to come out.   She did have tasty treats w her though to encourage appearing ;)

 

The deer’s velvety antlers were something to see up close.  That was very cool.  Also enjoyed watching them swim.  And saw at least one nursing.  Boar apparently are not actually native, so the park staff have built them huts so they can stay warm in the winter and not freeze to death.   Those, one species of deer (red = very big, imported originally for hunting), and the Preswalski’s horses (Russian, imported because they were going extinct in the wild and live in a similar climate) were pretty much the only non native animals.  

Red?!?! Fox ;)

The red foxes were actually grey 😂 apparently the same reason as the randomly coloured deer.  I really enjoyed watching them, although we didn’t stay there super long.  Also, I think they were in w either bears or wolves so it was almost an extra rather than the main attraction, but they could’ve rated primary ;)

Lots of goats, ibexes, and various other climbing mountain creatures.  I tend to enjoy them as long as I’m not responsible for caring for them ;)

Seen from the wolf viewing centre;
these guys were quite far away, I was lucky to have a long lens.

There was a whole wolf viewing centre where you could see at ground level behind glass or up on a platform looking down.   A couple wolves came to visit during the guide’s talk, and others were within camera range if you looked away from the primary area.   I really enjoyed that part.   

Some great carvings

After the bus tour we had access to the park, so we drove back up to the top end where the walking trails were - it was there that we found the Wolverine section and stayed to listen to the naturalist talk.   As w the bears last night, this was way better than just looking ourselves.   I’m disappointed we missed the birds of prey both days but at least those we’ve seen before elsewhere.   We took the time to follow most of the walking trails, which was really nice out-of-vehicle break.  Wandering around we also saw prairie dogs (which I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen before?) and walked over to the “old farm” which had more normal farm animals and some random llamas cause why not?

Trying to think of what else we saw today but my phone is about to die, so that'll do for now ;)

Parc Omega - very early Tues am

Wow.  So - the frog serenaded us all night - mildly annoying but credit for commitment lol.  More interesting though is the wolves!   Once in the middle of the night and then starting about 5am they sang the song of their people at top volume.   Some of it was almost…. Musical?    Different tones and pitches and many of them together.   Some of it sounded like what Hollywood has led me to believe ghosts sound like - long, mournful, wailing.   And some of it was just impressive volume - like definitely didn’t feel the need to go for a late night stroll;).  And through all of it, our neighbourhood frog 😂 

No internet or cell service and solar lights that died fairly early encouraged an early bedtime lol. The teepee did cool down significantly.  I suspect not to temps C would be comfortable with - his preferred sleeping temp is roughly igloo ;-P. But I was fine and comfy.   I was surprised that it never got truly dark.  We are in the middle of nowhere w very little light pollution but still every time I woke up I could clearly see the skylight at the top of the teepee and the door to the outside.

So I stand corrected - it is, in fact, two frogs talking to each other in what I can only assume is either a nocturnal courtship or two married frogs bickering ;)

A whole herd of deer just came galloping through!!!   Did not manage to get any good photos but still what an amazing thing to see.  It’s about 5:30 am and I feel like the only human on the planet.

The deer were at our site grazing shortly after sunset as well - I only saw them for the few moments of ambient light before the outhouse light turned out :)

I’m tempted to take my camera for a walk and see if the bears are awake but the boardwalk is closed until 9 😂. Guessing they’re not morning bears.   I can appreciate that.  Def just heard something big go in the water.

Mini-vaca Day 1 - Amazing park experience before ever entering the park!

Dinner view :)

I am currently writing this to the sound of frogs croaking near by, after having dinner on a patio w a view of black bears and an arctic fox.   Not my usual Monday.

Let me back up….  We left the house a little before 8am.  For some reason I had in my head it was supposed to be 5.5h drive.   So I figured we’d get there between 2 and 3.  Theoretically.  😂   Suffice to say it was not.

We detoured the first time - very briefly - to drop Sasha off at my parents’ house since they’re kindly dog sitting while we’re away.

Classic road stop decoration ;)

When we left there, Google was saying arrival time of 3:00.  Okay, fair enough - maybe my original calculations were from my parents' house, not ours ;)  Adding in traffic, that math almost works.   Started on 407 and got redirected down to 401 - no real traffic issues thankfully.  2 short gas and bio break stops on the way.  The 2nd of which was in Kemptville - which turns out was about half an hour from somewhere C had wanted to stop on the way home.  So I did some googling and decided that since the park closed at 5 we may as well take the detour and not pay the park fee for the day; instead we’d spend the whole day there tomorrow and bump the waterpark to the next day.  All good.

Random but entertaining combination

So the detour C was after was to Gather Brewery - a shop that has the unique distinction of being the only glass blowing studio and brewery in the country 😂.  I’m not really sure how it came to be, but we each picked up some glass and C stocked up on some different beers.

The town of Merrickville was super cute and we drove around there for a bit before Google gave us a random but pretty route back to the highway.  We ended up going through Ottawa (somewhat unexpectedly) before crossing into Quebec (where we learned it is now legal to turn right on red as long as you’re not in Montreal or is otherwise signed ;).  Shortly after crossing into Hull we stopped for last gas refill and good to go.

The drive from there was fairly stunning scenery although some sections not safe to pass resulting in trucks w long lines of cars stuck behind them.   Eventually, about 4:30 after leaving shortly before 8am, we arrived at Parc Omega.   

I didn’t really know what to expect tbh.  I knew there was an info session about bears at 5:30 and that we were staying in a teepee w beds.  Beyond that?  🤷‍♀️ 

Signage was a little overwhelming on first entrance but we got sorted pretty quickly and found our way to reception - where we were redirected to another reception just for checkin lol.  All good.   

Only watched a few seconds of this, partially cause we wanted to find our way around
and partially cause the presentation was in French ;)

All the staff seem to be fluently bilingual (win! - for those not from Canada who may be reading this, Quebec is French.  Dramatically so.  And the more rural you go, the less likely you are to find English.  Even road signs are all in French).   And since starting to learn Spanish, all my minimal public-school French has vanished entirely.  So we got checked in, got directions to our teepee and to where the various info sessions were (birds of prey was going on as we were doing this just outside that building).  We also learned there are showers and washrooms - win!  I really wasn’t sure given the whole teepee situation.

Our home for the night - much nicer than I'd expected!

So we find the teepee and then the bear boardwalk - which doesn’t take more than a min or two to walk from one end to the other.  Sat for a few mins waiting for the bear talk to begin - everyone around us was speaking French, so I was thrilled when the guide’s first question was “anybody here prefer English?” ;).  

The Bear Boardwalk
Bears can normally go on both sides of it, but we learned later
the staff can lock them in one section or another if needed

So - it turns out this wasn’t just a conversation- he led us down about half way through the boardwalk and then called the bears!   He also handed out carrots (despite the please don’t feed the bears signs and multiple warnings about getting kicked out if you do lol).   He was giving us lots of info - in both languages - when he realized a tree had fallen onto the boardwalk - providing a handy escape route for the bears should they choose to take it.     

My day was completely made taking pics of the bears.

I was impressed by how he handled it.  He called for backup and then distracted the bears from the opportunity by throwing carrots the opposite direction.   When his backup came, they tried to get the branch down and couldn’t, so they lured the bears into a different area and closed off the section w the escape tree.   All done smoothly and w very little obvious concern.   

Mama Bear and Teenager hanging out

Although the down side is, we never did get the rest of the speech, which I was really enjoying (including that they had black bears and cinnamon bears - black bears with limited melanin).  And the little bear was a “teenager” at two years old - and definitely behaving like one ;).  We did, however, have lots of time to take pics.  I had started w only my phone, but ran back to the car to get my big camera, which took me longer than I like to remember how to use, but then was awesome.   The baby bear swimming w his whole head under water was funnier than I’d expected. 

AND - Chris noticed wolves in an adjacent area.  A mom and her three babies.   Got some good shots there too but also just really enjoyed watching them play.   Extra win.

Not bad for a park we got to after closing time!   We had dinner reservations for 6:45 so we made our way over there - chose to sit on the patio (of course!).  Well the patio was raised over an area that black bears and arctic foxes had access to.  I watched a couple bears, only saw one fox - who appeared older and a little scruffy and who was definitely keeping an eye on the bears.  But still very cool.  Food was pricy (not shocking) but good.

On the way back we stopped by the showers.  lol better than I was afraid they might be but still a bit of an adventure.  The shower didn’t have any temperature controls and only gave short bursts of water at a time.  And, at least the one I was in, the temp varied wildly on those bursts 😂.   But it was well stocked, clean, and efficient so deemed that another win.

Shared shower and toilet space but clean and functional

Heading back to the teepee we met 3 deer, who are clearly very used to collecting carrots from humans (signs everywhere that it’s permissible to feed them carrots) - and then a bit further, one that appeared to be albino of some sort.  That one was alone and not as eager to come visit but def accustomed to people as it didn’t run away and we weren’t being super quiet.

Definitely accustomed to humans

Our teepee setup is lovely but alas while the temp is lovely outside, it is a furnace inside.  So that’s less lovely.  But other than that it’s all good.   We have a “before the park opens” guided tour tomorrow am that I’m really looking forward to.  More tomorrow :)

The teepee came with two beds, a table, and a wood stove