Visited each year by nearly 300,000 tourists and 125,000 excursionists, the Gatineau Valley is the best year-round tourist destination on the Québec side of the Ottawa Valley.

For over half a century, a multitude of fish-rich lakes (walleye, pike, lake trout, bass) and abundant game (moose, bear, deer, grouse, hare, woodcock) has been the basis of tourism development in the Gatineau Valley.

Indeed, for a long time, tourism in the Gatineau Valley essentially developed around hunting and fishing activities. And it is not without reason that the 55 outfitting operations in the region still constitute today the highest concentration of this type of establishment in Québec.

For decades, these forest inns have welcomed hunting and fishing enthusiasts from Québec, Ontario and many areas of north-eastern United States. In the past few years, the region has become the new year-round outdoors vacation destination for a growing number of European tourists.

In line with the global trend, the region initiated an important shift in the past years with a view to diversifying its tourist supply in order to offer to a larger number of people the opportunity to enjoy the exceptional quality of the region’s natural environment.

While hunting and fishing remain the main activities for remote outfitters, the more easily accessible resorts are now taking advantage of the numerous opportunities provided by the natural environment and water bodies along which they are located. So there is an increasing number of urban families choosing the Gatineau Valley as their preferred summer vacation destination.

At the same time, in the past decade, resorts have known an unprecedented expansion to such an extent that the vacationing population now equals the resident population.

This dazzling development has lead since the early nineties to a diversification of the activities and services available to the clientele. Still in its early age, the tourist industry in the Gatineau Valley has a huge potential and offers numerous business opportunities for the coming years. Tourism development will happen along several axes already identified by the territorial development planners.