5 Best Sights in Quebec, Canada

Named for Québec's patron saint (the mother of the Virgin Mary), the small town of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré is on Route 138, east of Québec City. It attracts more than a million pilgrims each year who come to visit the region's most famous religious site.

The French brought their devotion to St. Anne (also the patron saint of shipwrecked sailors) when they sailed across the Atlantic to New France. According to local legend, St. Anne was responsible for saving voyagers from shipwrecks in the harsh waters of the St. Lawrence. In 1650, Breton sailors caught in a storm vowed to erect a chapel in honor of this patron saint at the exact spot where they landed.

The present neo-Roman basilica, constructed in 1923, is the fifth to be built on the site where the sailors first touched ground. The original 17th-century wood chapel was built too close to the St. Lawrence and was swept away by river flooding.

The gigantic structure is in the shape of a Latin cross and has two imposing granite steeples. The interior has 22 chapels and 18 altars, as well as rounded arches and numerous ornaments in the Romanesque style. The 214 stained-glass windows, completed in 1949, are by Frenchmen Auguste Labouret and Pierre Chaudière.

Tributes to St. Anne can be seen in the shrine's mosaics, murals, altars, and ceilings. A bas-relief at the entrance depicts St. Anne welcoming her pilgrims, and ceiling mosaics represent her life. Numerous crutches and braces posted on the back pillars have been left by those who have felt the saint's healing powers.

In 1639, Augustinian nuns arrived from Dieppe, France, tasked with caring for the sick in the new colony. They established North America's first hospital north of Mexico, the Hôtel-Dieu. The complex underwent a full renovation and expansion in 2015 and now includes a quiet, health-conscious restaurant (with silent breakfast!), a holistic spa, and accommodations ranging from contemporary en suite rooms to dorm-like rooms with antique furniture—the perfect canvas for a calm retreat. The museum showcases an extensive collection of liturgical and medical artifacts, while the richly decorated chapel (by Thomas Baillairgé) and the 1659 vaults, used by nuns as shelter from bombardments, are also worth visiting. A small order of nuns continues to reside within the monastery, truly making it a place of living memory.

Each year some 2 million people from all over North America and beyond visit St. Joseph's Oratory. The most devout Catholics climb the 99 steps to its front door on their knees. It is the world's largest and most popular shrine dedicated to the earthly father of Jesus (Canada's patron saint), and it's all the work of a man named Brother André Besette (1845–1937).

By worldly standards Brother André didn't have much going for him, but he had a deep devotion to St. Joseph and an iron will. In 1870 he joined the Holy Cross religious order and was assigned to work as a doorkeeper at the college the order operated just north of Mont-Royal. In 1904 he began building a chapel on the mountainside across the road to honor his favorite saint, and the rest is history. Thanks to reports of miraculous cures attributed to St. Joseph's intercession, donations started to pour in, and Brother André was able to start work replacing his modest shrine with something more substantial. The result, which wasn't completed until after his death, is one of the most triumphal pieces of church architecture in North America.

The oratory and its gardens dominate Mont-Royal's northwestern slope. Its copper dome—one of the largest in the world—can be seen from miles away. The interior of the main church is equally grand, although it's also quite austere. The best time to visit it is on Sunday for the 11 am solemn mass, when the sanctuary is brightly lit and the sweet voices of Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal—the city's best boys' choir—fill the nave with music.

The crypt is shabbier than its big brother upstairs but more welcoming. In a long, narrow room behind the crypt, 10,000 votive candles glitter before a dozen carved murals extolling the virtues of St. Joseph; the walls are hung with crutches discarded by those said to have been cured. Just beyond is the simple tomb of Brother André, who was canonized a saint in 2010. His preserved heart is displayed in a glass case in one of several galleries between the crypt and the main church.

High on the mountain, east of the main church, is a garden commemorating the Passion of Christ, with life-size representations of the 14 stations of the cross. On the west side of the church is Brother André's original chapel, with pressed-tin ceilings and plaster saints that is, in many ways, more moving than the church that overshadows it.

As of February 2025, visitors enter the oratory from the parking lot via a new, ultra-modern four-story reception pavilion boasting a boutique, meeting rooms, and a glass-walled cafeteria with views of the city. The new building, most of it hidden underground, links the welcome center to the the religious site via escalators and elevators.

Across from Basilique Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, this chapel was designed by Claude Bailiff and built in 1878. It was constructed on the transept of a church built in 1676, and Bailiff made use of the old stones and foundation. Among the remnants is a white-and-gold-trimmed pulpit designed by François Baillargé in 1807 and adorned with a sculpture depicting Moses and the 10 Commandments.

Scala Santa, a smaller chapel next to this one, resembles a wedding cake. On bended knees, pilgrims climb its replica of the Holy Stairs, representing the steps Jesus climbed to meet Pontius Pilate.

Built in 1955, on the site of earlier churches dating back to 1659, this is Canada's national shrine to Notre Dame (Our Blessed Mother) and an important pilgrimage site. As impressive as the great European cathedrals, this white granite, octagonal building hosts up to 1,660 people, and its lofty dome is topped by a pyramid and cross 258 feet above the ground. Reinforced concrete arches outline the building. Five bells ring A, Bb, D, F, and G notes, and the sanctuary's organ has 5,425 pipes. Inside, the altar is a single block of marble, and nary a pillar blocks views of magnificent architecture and stained-glass masterpieces.