Canada Guide
Québec City
Battlefields Park
The rolling grasslands of the Battlefields Park (Parc des Champs-de-Bataille) take up a sizeable chunk of land stretching along the cliffs above the St Lawrence. The park encompasses the historic Plains of Abraham, which were named after Abraham Martin, the first pilot of the St Lawrence River in 1620. The Plains were to become the site on which Canada's history was rewritten. In June 1759 a large British force led by General Wolfe sailed up the St Lawrence to besiege General Montcalm in Québec City. From the end of July until early September the British forces shuttled up and down the south side of the river, raking the city with cannon fire. Montcalm and the governor, Vaudreuil, became convinced that Wolfe planned a direct assault on the citadel from Anse de Foulon (Wolf's Cove), the only handy break in the cliff face – opinion confirmed when lookouts observed a British detachment surveying Cap Diamant from across the river in Lévis. Montcalm thus strengthened the defences above Anse de Foulon, but made the mistake of withdrawing the regiment stationed on the Plains themselves. The following night the British performed the extraordinary feat, which even Wolfe had considered "a desperate plan", of scaling the cliff below the Plains via Anse de Foulon, and on the morning of September 16 Montcalm awoke to find the British drawn up a couple of kilometres from the city's gate. The hastily assembled French battalions, flanked by aboriginal warriors, were badly organized and rushed headlong at the British, whose volleys of gunfire mortally wounded Montcalm. On his deathbed Montcalm wrote a chivalrous note of congratulations to Wolfe, not knowing that he was dead. Québec City surrendered four days later.
Orient yourself at the Discovery Pavilion. The dead of 1759 are commemorated by a statue of Joan of Arc in a beautifully maintained sunken garden just off av Wilfrid-Laurier at Place Montcalm by the Ministry of Justice. More conspicuous, standing out amid the wooded parklands, scenic drives, jogging paths and landscaped gardens, are two Martello towers, built between 1805 and 1812 for protection against the Americans. There's also monument to General Wolfe, whose body was shipped back to England for burial, pickled in a barrel of rum. Beyond the park's western peripheries, cannons ring the perimeter of a large playing field and there's another lookout point above where Côte Gilmour winds down the cliffs at Anse de Foulon.