It's just a year since Tyrone businessman Noel Gormley saw an ad for Côte Nord. He and his family - his children are seven and eight - flew out and picked out a plot straight away.

Impressed by the value for money, they bought a four-bed log cabin for €366,000, and went out in October for the handover. But why buy a holiday home so far away?

"My wife and kids loved the skiing; then we went out for a summer holiday. It's not easy to find a two-season holiday home like this. It's such a natural life: we went to the National Park down the road, camped, canoed, picnicked. There's a great outdoors lifestyle there."

Côte Nord has a communal swimming pool, a beach at Auberge Caribou by a lake, and tennis courts, so you don't have to travel far to enjoy it either. And for Noel, there's a choice of good golf courses nearby, costing from €26-€39 (Cdn$40-$60) a day.

The family also enjoyed discovering the old Laurentian villages, like St Jovite and Mont Tremblant, away from the main resort, "which is a bit too Disney for me".