Who we are
Mont Blanc is a ski and lodging resort located 1h30 north of Montreal. We are the 2nd highest summit in the Laurentians. With over 300 employees, Mont Blanc in a nutshell is :
43 trails ▪ 3 slopes ▪ 2 snow parks ▪ 18 rooms ▪ 19 condos
Mont Blanc is now open 4 seasons!
With a summer offer including the MBpark Zone with its giant water games and mountain bike trails designed by Gravity Logic.
History This mountain
A billion years old, it was once transformed into ski slopes and christened "Mont Blanc", a nod to Europe's highest mountain. It's part of a group of mountains called "La Repousse" by the first settlers, who had to painstakingly negotiate this passage as they progressed towards the good lands bordering the Rouge and Diable rivers.
Gustave-Maurice ("Maurice") Paquin, founder of Mont Blanc, was a great sportsman. As a law student at Laval University, he was already giving ski lessons to wealthy Americans visiting Quebec City in the early '40s. This took him to the United States for 10 years after his studies. He built ski lifts in Utah, Colorado and California.
History of the ski resort
Prior to its purchase by Maurice Paquin in 1957, the Dufour family of Saint-Faustin had operated a cable lift at this location for several years. It was an activity for guests of the Hôtel Le Montagnard. A slope was also built at Lac-Carré, but its southern exposure doomed the venture to failure because the snow melted too quickly. However, the real beginning of the resort dates back to 1976, when the mountain was purchased by a group of American investors. In 1981, the owners annexed the adjacent Mont-Faustin, and in 1991, a third summit, Mont-Blanc Nord, was added with ten new trails.
In the early days, the trails were groomed with snowshoes. One trail was named in honor of one of the snowshoers: the Robert. When areas were too icy, employees and instructors would shovel snow onto metal sheets and transport it to the trails using these sleds. Snowshoeing over the snow gave an exceptional glide. An innovation was the installation of the new "Poma lift", a much faster lift than the "T-bar Mueller".
If the skiers don't come to the mountain, the mountain comes to the skiers. At Mont Blanc, a Bedford van was used to pick up employees and skiers, among others, from the P'tit Bonheur outdoor base founded in 1962 by Father Marcel de la Sablonnière S.J.
