Hidden Gems in Alma: Parc Falaise's Belvédère, the Isle-Maligne Sector & the Second Library

Illustration of evening light over Lac Saint-Jean and the Grande Décharge at Alma, drawn for this page — Hidden gems
Alma's hidden gems: the lookout, the island sector, the far library
The places a first visit drives past, on both shores of the Décharge.

Hidden gems in Alma: the belvédère, the island sector, and the second library

Alma's gems are structural, the kind a first visit drives past: a belvédère on the downtown shore where the town watches its own river, a whole sector across the Décharge that reads like a village inside the ville, and a second library point most directories file under the wrong town. None of them needs a ticket. All of them are Alma's.

The first gem is the ground itself: Alma is a francophone ville of 30,331 people (Statistics Canada 2021 Census, the Ville d'Alma census subdivision) in the Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, the chef-lieu of the MRC de Lac-Saint-Jean-Est, built on both shores of the Grande Décharge where Lac Saint-Jean drains east toward the Saguenay River. The current ville dates from the 21 February 2001 fusion with Delisle; its sectors carry the older names -- Isle-Maligne, Riverbend and Naudville (fused 1962, across the Grande Décharge), Saint-Joseph-d'Alma (1976) and Saint-Cœur-de-Marie (2001). Every official surface publishes in French only, and this guide keeps venue and event names in French, exactly as their operators print them.

The gems

Parc Falaise and its belvédère

Centre-ville, on the Grande Décharge shore

The downtown shore park is the town's lookout and its gathering ground: the belvédère over the Grande Décharge, the Festirame closing-fireworks tradition in July, and the start line of the town's running memory -- the Jogging du Père Noël's 13th edition ran from here on Sun Dec 14, 2025 for Moisson Alma (historic, carried as such; no 2026 edition is asserted, because none appeared on an organizer surface). Come at dusk in any season.

The Isle-Maligne sector

Across the Grande Décharge -- in town since 1962

The north-shore sector keeps its village grain inside the ville: the curling club's street (rue de la Gare Ouest), the old car expo's ground (the Exposition de vieilles voitures au Saint-Crème ran here Sat Aug 15, 2026, 10 h-16 h, PAST, sector-calendar grade), and the shore the 1962 fusion made Alma's. Cross the river for it -- the crossing is the gem's first half.

The second library point

Bibliothèque Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, 72 rue Mistouk

the Bibliothèque d'Alma, 500 rue Collard Ouest -- the Ville's OWN library, autonomous, NOT a Réseau BIBLIO point -- with a second in-town point, the Bibliothèque Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, 72 rue Mistouk (Réseau-affiliated), in the town's northern sector. Membership is free to Alma citizens on the Ville's own tarification grid, and the libraries double as points of sale for the diffuseur's tickets. The northern point is the one directories misfile: it sits in Alma's secteur Saint-Cœur-de-Marie, 72 rue Mistouk, beside the Centre sportif Mistouk -- a small, real, in-town reading room at the far end of the ville's elongated territory.

The planned thing, and the place that is not a market

Two insider notes, both printed with their grades. The Terrasses des Cascades (525 rue Sacré-Cœur) is an outdoor stage and venue on the Ville's calendar -- the ground a gazetteer describes as a planned marché public project; the venue is real today, the market is a plan, and this guide keeps the two apart. And Place Cogeco (595 rue Collard Ouest) is the downtown stage ground where the town's gatherings land -- the 2022 Fête nationale show played here, in the years when the production was Alma's; the 2026 edition was Saguenay's by mandate, and the festivals page carries that negative in full.

Common questions

What is Alma's most overlooked place?

Parc Falaise's belvédère on the downtown Grande Décharge shore -- the town's lookout and fireworks ground -- and the Isle-Maligne sector across the river, a village-grained shore inside the ville since 1962.

Is the Bibliothèque Saint-Cœur-de-Marie in Alma?

Yes -- 72 rue Mistouk, in Alma's northern secteur Saint-Cœur-de-Marie (fused into the ville in 2001). It is the Bibliothèque d'Alma's second in-town point, Réseau BIBLIO-affiliated; the main library at 500 rue Collard Ouest is the Ville's own and autonomous.

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Alma's hidden gems: the lookout, the island sector, the far library