Qualla: Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve

Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve: Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Félix Mathieu-Bégin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Appalachian Mountains do not end where most people expect. They push northeast through Maine, cross into New Brunswick, and make one last dramatic stand on Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula, where the Chic-Choc range rises to nearly 1,270 meters -- high enough to create alpine tundra in a province most people associate with river valleys and farmland. The Reserve faunique des Chic-Chocs sprawls across this highland backbone east of Gaspe National Park, a territory of boreal forest, wind-scoured ridges, and cold lakes where brook trout still run thick and the endangered Gaspe caribou clings to survival in one of its last refuges south of the St. Lawrence.

Image: Félix Mathieu-Bégin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve: Appalachia's Northern Rampart

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emmanuel Milou, CC BY-SA 2.0. The reserve is defined by two mountain groups: the Chic-Chocs and the McGerrigle Mountains. Mont Jacques-Cartier, the highest summit in southern Quebec at 1,268 metres, anchors the massif, surrounded by peaks like Blanche-Lamontagne at 930 meters and Brown at 855 meters. These al...

Image: Emmanuel Milou | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve: The Caribou's Last Southern Stand

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit jockrutherford from Owen Sound, ON, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Gaspe caribou is a woodland caribou population that once ranged widely across the peninsula. By 2004, it occupied approximately 802 square kilometers in Gaspesie National Park and 290 square kilometers in the surrounding area, including much of the Chic-Chocs reserve. COSEWIC...

Image: jockrutherford from Owen Sound, ON | CC BY-SA 2.0

Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve: Where Hunters and Anglers Come to Test Themselves

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit J-A Béland, CC BY-SA 4.0. For all its conservation significance, the Chic-Chocs reserve is also a working landscape managed by SEPAQ, Quebec's outdoor recreation network. Moose density here is high compared to other reserves in the region, and the annual moose hunt -- running from early September through ...

Image: J-A Béland | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chic-Chocs Wildlife Reserve: Into the High Country

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peupleloup, FAL. Beyond the hunting and fishing, the reserve offers something harder to quantify: the experience of genuine remoteness in eastern Canada. Viewing towers scattered through the territory provide chances to spot moose and bears without leaving marked trails. A four-kilometer hiking r...

Image: Peupleloup | FAL