[photopress:quebec188.jpg,full,alignleft]It’s hard to believe, but North America’s oldest city turns 400 this year. Samuel Champlain probably would not have envisioned when he created a settlement here in 1608 that Quebec City would become the cultural centre and lifeblood of French Canadian way of life.

This summer’s festivities should be spectacular if the New Year’s celebration and the recent Winter Carnival is any indication. Here is a quick rundown of the years’ activities from the Globe and Mail:

Winter highlights

It was no coincidence that the New Year’s Eve party was an outdoor event: Major events for the party will be held en plein air throughout the year.

The annual Quebec Winter Carnival, Feb. 1 to Feb. 17, will embrace the colours of the 400th anniversary with a revamped festival, including a redesigned closing-night parade that will reflect the anniversary theme of celebrating Quebec City as a “meeting place.” Also returning will be the usual activities, such as dogsled races, snow-sculpting workshops, canoe races and Bonhomme’s Ball.

During the closing days of winter, on March 15, the Quebec symphony orchestra will bring together 300 musicians and a chorus of 700 from across Quebec for a presentation at Colisée Pepsi of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand, a piece rarely performed anywhere in the world. Spring events The international hockey competition, from May 2 to 18, will present 16 of the best teams in the World Hockey Championship. Canada opens defence of its gold medal against Slovenia at the Metro Centre in Halifax on May 2. The semi-finals and medal games will be played in Quebec City.

Numerous cultural international events will also mark the spring festivities, including Starmania Opera, a unique melding of opera singers, choirs and symphony orchestral music of the popular rock concert. For more than 25 years, the show has been a major success at home and abroad, especially in France, and it is being presented as an opera for the first time. Five presentations will be held, beginning May 17 at the Grand Théâtre de Québec.

Two important cultural exhibitions will also highlight late winter and spring activities. From Feb. 14 to April 27, the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts will display 160 selected works of 22 artists who were either born or lived in Quebec City from 1670 to 1970. The presentation, Quebec: A City and its Artists, will feature selected works from painters such as François Baillairgé, James Pattison Cockburn, Cornelius Krieghoff and Paul Lemieux. The Quebec National Museum of Civilization, meanwhile, will present an exhibition called Gold of the Americas, highlighting pre-Columbian civilizations, which opens April 30. Summer events The summer months will see dozens of shows and conferences covering a wide range of events. But for many culture enthusiasts, nothing will rival The Louvre in Quebec: The Arts and Life, an exhibit of more than 250 pieces of art from the Paris institution, running from June 5 to Oct. 26 at the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts. The objects, ranging from paintings to sculptures and from Islamic arts and Egyptian antiquities to graphic arts, will reflect the celebration’s theme of meetings and encounters.

When the city was officially founded on July 3, 1608, the Huron-Wendat First Nation played an important role in helping the French settlers adapt. The Huron-Wendats have been named “host nation” of the celebrations and the indigenous peoples’ contributions to the history of Quebec City will be acknowledged through special participations throughout the year. In Old Wendake, there will be performances on summer weekends, beginning July 18, of a two-hour outdoor extravaganza entitled Kiugwe (meaning “the time and the place for meeting”). A series of t ableaux vivants will illustrate the First Nation’s myths and history.

The most spectacular summer event will undoubtedly push the creative boundaries of local boy Robert Lepage. For 40 nights, beginning on June 20, Lepage will display his artistic genius on a 10-storey, 600-metre-long row of grain silos, which will be transformed into a massive screen. Born and raised in Quebec City, Lepage — a theatre director, writer, actor and filmmaker — has a remarkable oeuvre of performing arts, including award-winning plays such as The Dragon’s Trilogy. He jumped at the opportunity to create a visual tribute to his hometown’s past, present and future. Titled The Image Mil l, the 40-minute, three-dimensional animation will mark four centuries of Quebec City’s contribution to North American culture.

At the same time, 15,000 participants will arrive in the city for the Roman Catholic Church’s International Eucharistic Congress, a week-long religious celebration beginning on June 15 that could attract many more to the city should Pope Benedict II decide to celebrate mass at the closing ceremonies on the Plains of Abraham.

The publicity from the Pope’s visit would certainly be an attraction in the runup to the three-day celebrations marking the official anniversary beginning July 3. Dignitaries from around the world will gather for the annual anniversary High Mass in the Basilique de Québec, followed by a Salute to Champlain and a military parade showcasing Quebec’s Royal 22nd Regiment (the Vandoos) and its current role in Afghanistan.

July 3 is also the opening of the annual Québec City Summer Festival, which is expected to attract major performers Nickelback, Billy Talent, Solas and the Elmer Ferrer Band. The next day, the American Fourth of July holiday, will be highlighted to underscore the ties between Quebec and the United States.

On July 5, there will be a series of city-wide performances called the Urban Opera, a gathering of musical, visual and cinematographic works by local artists. At the foot of the provincial legislature, a fireworks display will enhance the beauty of the Fountain of Tourny, a $4-million gift to the city by local department store owner Peter Simons. Simons purchased the fountain, which won a gold medal at the 1855 Paris Exposition, from Quebec’s sister city, Bordeaux, France, where it had been gathering dust. It has already become one of the city’s most impressive new landmarks.

The next day, July 6, everyone is invited to the “Mega-Happening,” a massive gathering on the Plains of Abraham for an aerial souvenir photo intended as a legacy for the city’s 500th anniversary.

Then, from July 19 to Aug. 6, some of the world’s best pyrotechnicians will gather for the International Fireworks Competition at Montmorency Falls, a 10-minute drive from the city, that will embrace the beauty of water and magic of the fireworks.

During a night-long celebration on Aug. 15, a floating dance floor, The Walking Road, will be set up to embrace the bounty of the majestic St. Lawrence River and its contribution to city’s settlement.

That will be followed by Celine Dion‘s gift to the people of Quebec City — a free concert on Aug. 22. Dion is the symbol of international success in Quebec, a driving force in broadening the province’s appeal abroad. Fall events Festivities in the fall will appeal to all musical tastes, from a major rock concert being planned for Labour Day weekend to Placido Domingo’s world opera contest, Operalia, to be held at the Grand Théâtre de Québec and the newly renovated Palais Montcalm from Sept. 18 to 24.

The famed Cirque du Soleil, which began as a theatre group in Baie-Saint-Paul near Quebec City, is preparing a show, embracing the diversity of cultures, on Oct. 19 for the closing ceremonies of the 400th anniversary, which will coincide with the meeting of la Francophonie. The high-profile gathering of the organization of 55 French-speaking states and governments is an appropriate finale to an anniversary that will have spent almost a year celebrating meetings and encounters.

The ambitious program, however, will require all the organizing skills of the new president to achieve the kind of success Quebec City deserves, and to leave a lasting impression on all those eager to join the party.

You can also take the opportunity to get in some great skiing while you are in town with top resorts like Mont Ste. Anne, Le Massif, Massif du Sud and Stoneham.

For many of us that haven’t visited Quebec City in years, this is shaping to be a wonderful opportunity to re-acquaint ourselves with this classic old city.