Date ideas
Dates in Mont-Laurier: the valley by day, the theatre by night
A Mont-Laurier date assembles the way the town does: something on the river or the trail in daylight, something warm and professional after dark. Here are the combinations that work.
The arc of a Mont-Laurier date
the town's own walking and riding spine is the Parc lineaire Le P'tit Train du Nord -- the Route verte corridor on the old railway, anchored at the gare patrimoniale and running the Lievre valley through town. Around it: the Parc ecologique Le Renouveau (162 hectares of town green), the parc Toussaint-Lachapelle by the Rapide de l'Orignal, whose falls and the cathedrale facade the Ville illuminates as its downtown cultural pole, the parc Ernest-Leonard and the parc Rosina-Aubin with its jeux d'eau, and the plage municipale on the Lac des Sources out boul. des Ruisseaux, in the Des Ruisseaux sector. The region's marquee mountain terrain -- the Parc regional Montagne du Diable -- is seated in Ferme-Neuve and is a getaway FROM here, labelled as such on this guide's day-trips pages, never an in-town facility That is the daylight half. The evening half is the strongest small-town card in the Hautes-Laurentides: a 700-seat professional theatre with a 65-show season, in a town where the drive home is ten minutes of dark valley road.
The pattern is deliberate: outdoors first, indoors after, everything read at its organizer before you dress for it.
The date, in three movements
The classic
The P'tit Train du Nord or the Parc Le Renouveau in the afternoon, dinner in the core, a bill at the Espace Theatre at night. The town's signature date, any season.
The winter one
A swim at the Piscine municipale, then the Draveurs at the Jacques-Lesage next door -- the Alix pole is a whole date in two buildings.
The market one
The artisan markets are built for two: the Marché d'automne's October day at the parc Toussaint-Lachapelle, or the Christmas market's December Saturday inside the theatre itself.
The getaway date, labelled as one
The big-day version leaves town on purpose: the Parc regional Montagne du Diable -- its accueil is a short run of 14 km straight-line (computed), about 18 km by road and 20 minutes' estimated driving from the hotel de ville -- is seated in FERME-NEUVE and is a getaway FROM Mont-Laurier, booked with the park, in its own name. The drive back down the Lievre at dusk is part of the date; the park is never printed as this town's facility.
The quiet date
The Centre d'exposition's free ateliers (residents 14+, registration via Amilia) make an unlikely, excellent date -- pastel, vitrail, linogravure, textile arts, Wednesday and Friday evenings through the autumn at 300, boul. Albiny-Paquette. Free, local, and better conversation than a screen.
Common questions
What is a good first date in Mont-Laurier?
Theatre night, plain and simple: the Espace Theatre's season means there is almost always a real bill, and the town's core gives you dinner and a river walk around it. In summer, a Concerts du parc evening at the gloriette.
What is a romantic walk in Mont-Laurier?
The P'tit Train du Nord by the Lievre, the Rapide de l'Orignal sector by the cocathédrale -- whose falls and facade the Ville illuminates -- and the Parc Le Renouveau's woods for the longer version.
What is there for a date in winter?
A Draveurs game and a warm table after, a pool-and-arena evening at the Alix pole, or a library-week or atelier evening. Dress for a Laurentides winter between the buildings.
More to explore in Mont-Laurier
The header images on this page are illustrations drawn for Dayfari, not photographs. No verified photograph of the Mont-Laurier places named here (licence and subject checked) could be attested for this version, so those places are illustrated or described in text only, rather than borrowed from another town.
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