Who would have guessed that Canada, which I have always caricatured as a mild-mannered, slightly bland country, would be so full of ex-tremes? My family of five went there to ski, and soon became involved in more perverse activities, such as plunging half-naked into a river through a hole in the thick ice and screaming: “Infarctus!”

Indeed, we seemed at constant risk of heart attacks, either through fear or extremes of temperature, and this made our family trip to Tremblant in the Laurentian mountains on the east coast all the more pleasurable. Before you stop reading, I would like to make it clear that the average February temperature there was -18C (1F), perfectly acceptable even to small children and wimps like myself, and sometimes it even rose to -10C.

So long as you had thermal underwear, glove liners and two pairs of socks, it was comfortable, and we skied for six hours a day. We also invested in five black Hannibal Lecter-style masks that covered the nose and mouth, which were warm and also very amusing. Did I mention the unusual day when, including the windchill factor, it was -55C on top of the mountain? Yes, but soon there were acres of fresh snow, which powdered our hair as we sat afterwards in the outdoor heated pool at our hotel, the Fairmont, and watched the cable cars glide by.

Tremblant is a purpose-built ski-in, ski-out pedestrian resort, built higher up the mountain than the old village. Apartments, hotels, shops and restaurants are all low-rise, made to look like tall village houses around a snow-covered square with an open fire for defrosting. It reminded me of Pound-bury, the Prince of Wales’s model town in Dorset, or Disney’s Celebration town in Florida. That said, it all worked beautifully for families, particularly the Fairmont Hotel, where you could ski past the hot pools into the basement café for hot chocolate.

The food in the many village restaurants was good and, with the pound doing well against the dollar, not too expensive. Although we were in French-speaking Canada, the fare was American rather than cordon bleu, and there was one Swiss-style fondue restaurant. Our most serious meal was breakfast at the hotel’s vast buffet. Here’s what one unnamed child ate in a sitting (bear in mind that this cost C$10, less than a fiver): toasted bagel with egg fried to order, bacon, sausage, homemade baked beans, tomato. Hot chocolate. Followed by Froot Loops with milk, apple juice, and a plate of fruit. Plus a mini pain au chocolat and a pancake with maple syrup. And then some more Froot Loops. You need a lot of central heating in the cold.

Tremblant is constantly voted the best ski resort in eastern Canada, but it was not packed, and there were few queues for the lifts. It feels safe, and the surrounding landscape is majestically empty. At dusk, you can sit in the bar of the Hôtel du Lac and watch deer walking across the frozen lake.

We also saw deer in the woods when we abandoned our children at ski school and sneaked off to Le Scan-dinave Spa, a short taxi ride away. There is a series of wooden cabins among snow-covered trees, joined by paths leading to outdoor plunge pools. The idea is to boil yourself lobster pink in the sauna and then run out and jump into a cold pool. After this you take a rest on “zero-gravity” loungers in a wood-clad sun room, and then sit under a hot outdoor waterfall, followed by an icy shower. The foolhardy tackle the huge Diable river itself, which has an ice hole kept open by a heater. I went down the steps up to my knees in the icy, fast-moving river, but my husband went for the full-body plunge. He is still alive.

Our other peculiar activity was a trip to Le Ranch Mont-Tremblant, half an hour away where, decked out in our Hannibal masks and ski helmets, we rode into the pristine woods, our horses trotting through fresh snow. There was a real wilderness silence. I had just been reading The Tenderness of Wolves, set in the 1860s in Canada, so I was on the lookout for tracks and danger at all times...

The children’s group ski lessons were particularly good. These lasted from 9.30am to 3pm, many friends were made, and lunch – soup, sandwiches and hot chocolate – was taken in the chalet restaurant on the mountaintop. After a week, my seven-year-old daughter, who had been a novice, contrived a route for us down the mountain that necessitated a steep black run. I thought of calling for a grown-up, then realised I was the grown-up, and followed her as she shot down, like a red dwarf on speed.

I favour slow, dignified skiing myself, preferably on a steady blue run, to the tune of, say, The Blue Danube in my head. But the black-run junkies seemed happy here – there were dozens of terrifying possibilities, sheer drops and moguls. I don’t snowboard, but from the gondola, I saw the snow park, playing booming music, with a huge half-pipe, moguls and jumps. It was also interesting to observe that Canadian snowboarders dress in garish, baggy suits, and look like enormous toddlers.

Tremblant is 90 minutes’ drive from Montreal airport. Was it too extreme to fly for seven hours and experience a five-hour time difference when we could have skied in Europe? Not a bit – once you have taken account of the airport palaver, the trip wasn’t that long. And it also helped that we never fully changed time zones, getting up at six and falling into bed shattered by nine.

Across the pond

Going transatlantic for half-term skiing can be less expensive than staying closer to home, thanks to a weak dollar and good-value restaurants.
Banff, Canada £3,682 room only, three days’ ski school.
Kitzbuhel, Austria £5,373 half board, five days’ ski school. Prices based on February 9 departure for two adults and two children under 12, staying in a four-star hotel for seven nights, including flights and transfers. Book with Inghams (020-8780 4433, www.inghams.co.uk).

Need to know

Kate Muir travelled with Neilson (0845 0703460, www.neilson.co.uk), and Air Canada (0871 2201111, www.aircanada.co.uk), which has return flights to Montreal from £328 return.

A week at the Fairmont Tremblant costs from £819 per adult, £445 per child, based on two sharing. During February half-term 2008 the price is from £1,155 per adult, £525 per child.

One week’s self-catering at Le Lodge de la Montagne is from £599 per adult, £445 per child, based on two adults sharing. The prices include direct flights from Heathrow with Air Canada.

Neilson has a special offer at Tremblant this season (except over the Christmas period) of a free lift pass for a child of 12 or under when a parent prebooks an adult lift pass.