• Sasha Goldstein ©️ Seven Days
• A Vermont vanity license plate

I've got plenty of reasons to love the Canadian province of Québec.

My dad grew up in Montréal, and we visited regularly when I was a kid, including a mind-blowing trip to Expo 67. During college, I had an outdoorsy boyfriend at McGill University who took me rock climbing and cross-country skiing in the Laurentian Mountains. Later, honeymooning with a different guy, I rode my bike from Vermont to Québec City through the rolling hills of the Eastern Townships. Good friends, who own a sweet apartment on Montréal's rue Saint-Hubert, recently bought and started working a sugar bush northeast of the city. Seven Days is printed in the suburb of Mirabel, just a few exits away from where my aunt and uncle once lived. One of their sons, my cousin, still resides there.

Once upon a time, I could speak French.

In short, I've experienced enough of la belle province to know that it is beautiful indeed, as well as sophisticated and vast.

Still, something holds me back. Whenever my partner, Tim, and I go north for a concert, meal, soccer game or bike ride — in 2019, we took a road trip along the mighty Saint Lawrence River to the whale-filled Saguenay Fjord — it almost always concludes with one of us asking: Why in the world don't we come up here more often?

That's a question for every Vermonter. It's also the motivation behind this week's first-ever special issue on Québec. For almost two years during the pandemic, Americans couldn't go to Canada. When the border reopened, crossing it was complicated by a variety of COVID-19-related requirements.

Now that those restrictions have been lifted, isn't it time we got reacquainted with our northern neighbor? One hour away is an international wonderland that most of us barely know. Plus, the currency exchange rate is amazing.

I have some theories about why we take Québec for granted, and they predate the recent big news about wildfires burning out of control there. Unlike the smoke from those blazes that travels unimpeded across international borders, the line between the U.S. and Canada is real — a physical and psychological barrier. Documentation is required. Stories circulate about people being searched, detained or delayed. There always seems to be confusion about which items are allowed in and out.

In his article "Bienvenue au Québec," deputy news editor Sasha Goldstein clarifies post-pandemic border rules, including how Canada treats Americans with prior drunk-driving convictions. To test his colleague's reporting, culture coeditor Dan Bolles screwed up his courage and confessed to a border agent that he had a DUI in 2009.

For other people, language is the barrier. Being surrounded by French signs and menus can be a little scary — a linguistic humiliation to which Americans aren't accustomed. But that's part of what makes Québec feel so exotic, like a different world, and a small American effort goes a long way; we provide a list of handy French Canadian terms that will help.

Also in the news section, reporter Derek Brouwer explains the politics around a new, stricter set of language laws that went into effect three weeks ago in the province. Tourists should be unaffected, though. At the end of the day, Québec is surrounded on all sides by anglophone neighbors, and its denizens have more facility with English than most of us do with French. Make a respectful effort and ça va bien aller.

Traffic? People? Fast drivers? Boston is way worse. Another option, closer and quieter than Montréal, is the all-season vacationland of biking and breweries known as the Eastern Townships. Quaint burg after quainter hamlet await right across the Vermont border. In recent years, I've discovered Ayer's Cliff, Granby, Bromont, Dunham and Frelighsburg — for R&R, biking, soaking, eating and drinking.

In this week's issue, proofreader Angela Simpson investigates the area around Knowlton, home of Canadian author Louise Penny and the real-life setting for her popular mystery novels featuring francophone detective Armand Gamache. Angela, who has read all of Penny's books, happily took a daylong tour of the writer's local haunts.

Similarly, music editor Chris Farnsworth, art editor Pamela Polston and food assignment editor Melissa Pasanen went north in search of inspiration in their areas of expertise and found plenty. Chris survived a night on the town. Pamela marveled at Montréal's growing collection of street murals. Melissa spent two days eating her way across the city and chronicled the marathon in a cover-length story. The overstuffed food section also features a north-of-the-border cheese store, the origins of Montréal bagels and the No. 1 restaurant in all of Canada, Mon Lapin.

Former Seven Days food writer Alice Levitt weighs in, too. Now a Virginia-based freelancer, she visited Montréal while we were planning this issue and reprised her popular feature "Alice Eats." Turns out some of her French-flavored faves are in Chinatown.

The point is: Knowing where to go and what to do in Québec makes it a whole lot easier to plan any trip to the province, Canada's largest. We limited our coverage to places within easy striking distance of Vermont. Though it's well worth a visit, Québec City is barely mentioned. But you can see it on the map we made here.

In search of an experienced guide to this foreign land, I hired a Richmond-based international travel writer, Jen Rose Smith, to wrangle, write and edit the centerpiece of the issue: a roundup of activities in Québec. She tapped a combination of staffers and freelancers, some of whom are based in Canada, to curate suggestions according to theme: biking, hiking, camping, family-friendly adventure, etc.

• Rev. Diane Sullivan | Julia Vallera

Jen's myriad contributions to this project proved invaluable. In addition to catching errors — inevitable when covering another country and language — she connected us with illustrator Julia Vallera, who drew the cover.

Jen's second story in this issue, about Montréal's circus arts, stretches far beyond Cirque du Soleil, which is presenting its first new show since the pandemic forced the Canadian company into bankruptcy.

Of course, there's an 11-day festival dedicated to the art form, Montréal Complètement Circus, starting on July 6. Look for other amazing events — celebrating everything from Japanese anime to Canadian cowboy culture — in our summer festival guide.

We hope Jen becomes a regular contributor to Seven Days. An intrepid adventurer who cares deeply about the planet and climate change, she recognizes that jetting around the world to write about amazing spots, which then spurs more travel, expands the collective carbon footprint. She is increasingly interested in exploring wild places, and cool things to do, closer to home.

We're right behind her.

Since 1995, Seven Days has been here to inform readers about what's happening in Vermont. This week it's Québec's turn.

Happy summer.