Quebec to celebrate 400 years with year-long fete

QUEBEC -- Danny Pelchat bounds across the square in front of Quebec's century-old parliament building, bubbling with excitement as he points to the boulevards at either end.

"There will be a parade coming in over here, another parade coming in over there. There will be acrobats coming down the buildings. There will be street performers. You can be anywhere and there will be something happening," says the famed event planner, who is in charge of throwing the biggest party this city has ever seen.

Indeed, Pelchat plans to hire more than 1,000 entertainers for the day-long outdoor "urban opera" that he is creating to mark the 400th anniversary of Quebec's founding on July 3, 1608 — the biggest event of its kind in the world, he says. And it's just one of several over-the-top celebratory events that he and others in the city are planning for the coming year.

Kicking off on New Year's Eve with Olympics-like opening ceremonies, Quebec's 400th-anniversary celebration will stretch for nearly 10 months, culminating in a Cirque du Soleil-produced extravaganza in October 2008. Geared as much to tourists as to locals, it's already propelled a wave of improvements for visitors, from spruced-up hotels to new attractions. And tourism officials hope it'll bring a surge in visitation for next year and beyond — particularly from the USA.

"Some people say that Americans take us for granted. They know we're here and they say they'll come someday, but they put it off," says Pierre Labrie, the head of Quebec's tourism office. "The 400th (celebration) is an argument for them to finally do it."

Even before planning began several years ago, the history-steeped, French-speaking provincial capital — the oldest city in Canada — was in the midst of a renaissance.

Sitting in a bistro along the rue Sault-au-Matelot, one of the many scenic cobblestone streets for which Quebec is famous, Labrie points to the Place Royale, just a short walk away. Now one of Quebec's most-visited sites, the historic 17th-century square near the St. Lawrence riverfront was virtually abandoned and in disrepair as recently as the 1970s, despite the fact that it stands on the hallowed ground where the city's founders first landed. It was only in 1999 that restoration work on the stone houses around the square was finished and an interpretive museum opened.