SAINT-AMBROISE, Quebec — In a retirement group north of Quebec City, 30-foot plastic palm bushes overlook Miami, Orlando and Cocoa Avenues, cookie-cutter streets the place residents glide by some days on snowshoes.
The pool space — full with straw-covered umbrellas, a candy-colored inflatable youngsters’s slide and a close-by tiki bar — evokes numerous oceanside condos in Florida. Except for the snow, and temperatures that dipped this month to minus 15 levels Fahrenheit.
This is Domaine de la Florida, a Canadian make-believe Miami, whose 520 residents are so in love with the Sunshine State that they’ve recreated it right here. In the summer time, golf carts whisk silver-haired retirees to video games of seashore volleyball, shuffleboard and Bingo. In the winter, as many as half of them fireplace up their R.V.’s or hop into their vehicles or a aircraft, and head south for the actual deal.
Until this yr.
Because the pandemic spoiled annual pilgrimages to their beloved tropical refuge, they have been caught in Canada, the place they traded in their bathing fits for thermal underwear and have been attempting to make one of the best of it.
“At least we had a white Christmas this year and can pretend we’re in Miami,” mused Gérard Ste-Croix, a 71 year-old resident, whereas cradling his shivering Yorkshire terrier, Mala. He and his spouse have braved a Canadian winter for the primary time in 11 years, after the coronavirus compelled them to desert plans to spend six months in their R.V. close to Tampa, on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Inside their Quebec residence, an indication perched on a shelf stated: “Paradise.”
Eager to keep up their Florida mind-set, the couple grill hamburgers on their patio, sheathed in plastic to maintain out the chilly. Other residents additionally favor a Miami-inspired aesthetic: pastel-colored backyard gnomes in winter changed by pink flamingoes when the snow melts.
Each yr an enormous flock of Quebec “snowbirds” migrate for the winter to Florida, the place they be a part of retirees from New York and different Americans drawn by Florida’s heat and its senior-friendly methods. Think early-bird specials, surf and turf, adrenaline-charged Canasta tournaments, and slow-moving autos pushed by folks whose youngsters marvel if they need to nonetheless have licenses.
The Quebecers are so ubiquitous that they’ve their very own Florida-based French-language newspaper, Le Soleil de la Floride, in addition to an area ecosystem of Francophone actual property brokers, accountants and dentists.
Even the unofficial Queen of Quebec, the singer Celine Dion, saved a 13-bedroom beachfront property in Florida, with a non-public water park, earlier than promoting it in 2017 for a reported $28 million.
Before the pandemic, an estimated a million Canadian residents spent their winters in the United States; at the least 500,000 of them have been Quebec snowbirds who traveled to Florida, in response to the Canadian Snowbird Association, a gaggle that advises snowbirds on issues like insurance coverage.
Such is the affect of Quebec tradition in elements of the Sunshine State that in South Florida there are greater than half a dozen restaurants providing poutine, the zipper-bursting Quebecois delicacy of French fries, cheese curds and gravy.
But this yr, the closure of the land border with the United States and fears of catching the virus deterred lots of Quebec’s snowbirds from the annual pilgrimage. Florida has had greater than 1.96 million cases of Covid-19 in contrast with 922,848 in all of Canada.
And whereas it’s nonetheless potential to take fast flights from Montreal to Miami — a costlier possibility than driving — some residents of Domaine de la Florida stated they have been repelled by guidelines requiring them to quarantine for 14 days after flying residence to Canada. That would come with spending three days in a chosen resort at a value of about $2,000 Canadian {dollars}, or about $1,600.
In the top, a majority of the group’s snowbirds opted to remain put.
Nicole Ruest, 66, who lives on Orlando Avenue together with her husband Ghislain Gagné, 70, stated it was the primary time in seven years that the 2 had not gone to Florida. She passes the times doing puzzles, baking Quebecois dishes like Tourtière, or meat pies, and going for lengthy walks. On extra temperate days, she stated, residents place plastic lounge chairs on the snowy pavement in entrance of their houses and trade pleasant gossip, a lot as they might poolside in Florida.
Ms. Ruest stated heading south was simply not an possibility this yr since she feared she or her husband would possibly get sick overseas.
“This place is not for everyone but we like the sense of community here,” she stated.
The brainchild of 69-year-old André Bouchard, a snowbird himself, the group of near-identical prefabricated homes sits on a greater than one-mile lengthy stretch of land in Saint Ambroise, a municipality of about 4,000 folks in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. The area is proud and picturesque, surrounded by mountains and famed for its aluminum and forest industries.
Mr. Bouchard, who owns an RV dealership throughout the road, stated about half of the Domaine’s residents have been snowbirds.
His fake Florida took root a few decade in the past when he observed what number of Quebecers spent their winters in Miami. To reproduce Florida’s tropical sensibility, he stated he “planted” dozens of plastic palm bushes annually — imported from China. The largest value about 5,000 Canadian {dollars}, or about $4,000, every.
Let’s say he’s very critical in relation to flora. Every September he takes off the bushes’ detachable leaves and covers the tree tops with black rubbish baggage to create the joy of newly blossoming bushes when he reattaches them in the spring.
“People were initially skeptical and said, ‘How can you recreate Florida in Quebec?’” Mr. Bouchard recalled. “But when I put palm trees and the street signs, sales took off.”
Mr. Ste.-Croix stated the expense of flying to Florida and sending his automobile individually had cemented his resolution to stay in Canada this yr. BBQs apart, he’s additionally adapting by occurring cross-country ski expeditions.
He stated his spouse, who “hates the cold,” had discovered solace in embroidery. The couple was nonetheless paying $564 a month hire for the tenting website in Florida the place that they had parked their cellular residence.
Despite the challenges, some Canadians have traveled to Florida. Part of the enchantment was the potential of getting vaccinated towards the coronavirus at a time when Canada’s vaccination price has been lagging different nations, together with that of the United States.
Perhaps predictably, there was a backlash towards Canadian vaccine vacationers on social media.
The state of Florida was initially vaccinating anybody age 65 or older, however has since tightened the principles to require those that qualify for vaccination to have proof of residency.
Joseph Roboz, 73, a Montrealer, is on the board of Century Village East, a condominium advanced in Deerfield Beach the place about half of the greater than 8,000 condominiums are owned by Canadian snowbirds. Mr. Roboz, who has a lung ailment, stated that after arriving in Florida in January, he had been vaccinated inside 48 hours.
“This is my life we are talking about,” he stated, explaining his rationale for touring. He stated vaccinating Canadian residents in Florida, massive contributors to the native financial system, was a public well being crucial.
Real Vachon, 60, a resident of Domaine de la Florida, not too long ago traveled to Fort Lauderdale to hitch his spouse, Linda, and their French bulldog, Daisy. He stated getting vaccinated had been a draw, together with the chance to move the times lolling at their Florida residence’s out of doors spa, surrounded by actual palm bushes, sans frostbite.
He and his spouse are planning to depart Florida by the top of April for residence. That must be simply in time to see the plastic palm bushes “bloom.”
