The most scenic aspect of the peninsula’s nominal capital is its view of Forillon, across the sweep of the Baie de Gaspé. This was where Jacques Cartier first landed in July 1534. After meeting the Mi’kmaq of the region, he ignored their settlements, planted a wooden cross and claimed the land for the king of France.
There’s nowhere quite like La Gaspésie, a peninsula of pine forests and looming cliffs that pokes into the chilly Gulf of St Lawrence. Somewhere on the road east of Matane, the landscape becomes wilder, the cottages more colorful and precariously positioned along rockier promontories, the winds sharper and more scented with salt, and you realize you have entered, effectively, a Francophone version of the maritime provinces.