Buffalos Park

Buffalos Park of the Orleans Island (Parc des Bisons de l’Île d’Orléans), just in face of Quebec City, about 15 minutes from the down-town, is an ideal place for the observation of buffalos. Visitors have many ways to learn more about these animals and their habits.

Guests cans use a 4-km road to drive inside the park to see buffalos closer. Families can also take canoes, kayaks, pedal boats and inflatable rafts for use on three lovely lakes in the Buffalos Park. Kids will be charmed visiting the Little farm with goats, sheep and rabbits. In the Interpretation Center or the park you’ll see a family of naturalized buffalos, and many artefacts associated with buffalos and their history. You can also see a video of 20 minutes about buffalos.

Besides, a hiking trail leads to the highest point of the island and offers an unrestricted view of St-Anne Mount, Cap Tourmente and the Buffalos Park itself (the trail is accessible to the wheelchairs.) Picnic areas along lakeshores, at the highest point on the D’Orléans’s Island and on other sites are available.

Finally, you can buy buffalo meat at the meat counter, where visitors may purchase buffalo meat, in cuts or quarters. Other buffalo products are also available (pies, sausages, smoked buffalo, terrines, pâtés, meat for fondues, spaghetti sauce, etc.)

Buffalo in Quebec

The buffalo is a bovid belonging to the same family as the ox.

Buffalos arrived in North America from Asia about one million years ago. To get to Canada they took the path existing at that time between Russia and Alaska, where the Bering Strait is now located.

Later, unlike most of the big mammals that lived during this era, such as mammoths, wild horses and other, buffalo survived the Ice Age. In Canada, many Native peoples (mostly in Western Canada) depended on the buffalo for subsistence, clothing and shelter.

The Native tribes took everything from the buffalo: meat for food, fur for clothing, skin for the construction of tee-pees and moccasins, as well as the bones to make tools.

In Quebec, about 2500 buffalos live today, mostly in the farms.

Contact the Buffalo Park:

156, chemin Royal St-François, Île d'Orléans Québec G0A 3S0

Telephone: 418 829-1234

Quebec City