Quebec, the North Country

11 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

Tags

Baie-Comeau, Dolbeau-Mistassini, Ferme Tournesol, Godbout, Hydro-Quebec, Manic 2, Quebec, Route du Fjord

Having made the decision to continue our travels in Quebec on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, we headed for the ferry docking town of Matane. From here the ferries do the run across (and back) to either Baie-Comeau or Godbout, with either trip lasting just over two hours. Ed had researched the ferry schedule a couple of days earlier and said that the 8AM ferry ran to the more northern town of Godbout and the later 2:30 ferry ran to Baie-Comeau. As we had no specific camping plans and consequently thinking we might need extra time to find a place we thought to catch the earlier ferry and work our way south. However, arriving in Matane at about noon we decided to go ahead and try the 2:30 Baie-Comeau run and while we waited, I’d get online and see if I could find a campground. We checked in and they put us in the no reservation line but we know from experience that if you’re there early enough this generally means you will get on board. We were early and close to the front of the line and after a few unsuccessful phone calls, I did find us a spot about 30km (18+ miles) north of the Baie-Comeau terminal on the other side. We loaded on the boat, had a very quiet crossing, even getting to see a large pod of porpoises, offloaded and headed up the coastal road 138.

Leaving Gaspe and Matane behind we were intrigued by the rip-rap in the shape of children’s toy jacks.

That’s a lot of prop wash… but it’s a big boat.

The campground directions had indicated that we should pretty quickly come to RT389 where we’d head north. Well…..no…there was no road 389 and our phones weren’t working to try and figure out what was going on. Ed suggested we keep going a bit. After a few kilometers he put the campground into the Garmin and it said we were 68km from our turn onto 389!! Well, clearly that was wrong so we drove on. A couple of minutes later my phone works and shows we’re north of Godbout!! Turns out my darling husband misremembered which boat went where and we’d taken the Matane to Godbout ferry! Life is an adventure 🙂 but we made the campground in time, had our cocktails, a good laugh, dinner and settled in for 2 nights at Camping Manic 2.

After the rainy morning and a load of laundry, we explored up Rt 389 about 107km (67miles). This is actually the road to Labrador City where it’s then called the Trans-Labrador Highway and we toyed with the idea of heading up and across it to Red Bay and on to Newfoundland but realistically we were not prepared so we decided that’s for another time. 😦

Along the side of RT 389 to Manic 3, the traffic on this road, which on the map is in the middle of nowhere was amazing, Logging trucks sure, but mostly non-stop Hydro-Quebec cars and trucks.

Electric power for the province is generated by hydro-electric generating plants from this area. There are 5 dams along the Manicouagan River that are only a small portion of the 63 hydro plants in Quebec. Our campsite was just up the road from the station called Manic 2, the second dam in the system here. This photo is just some kind of electric thinghy in that system.

Back down to Baie-Comeau and out 138W along the St Lawrence the tide was out (seems like we’re always along the water when the tide is out) and we were once again struck by how shallow the shoreline is.

No boats allowed! The rocks featured in this picture were brought to you by the retreating glaciers and dropped in place as the ice melted.

At Cap-de-Bon-Desir the shoreline comes to a hard coast and deep water which results in excellent whale watching, so of course, we paid the fee to go have a look.

Lots of people waiting and watching for whales. Of course, none came while we were there. The Park Service has done a lovely job of building natural stone walks and bridges to make it easy for folks to come out.

And here comes the fog.

We were decided that Thunder Bay, Ontario was our goal and we wanted to take a northern route in the hopes of less company on the roads and easier camping. To that end, we took RT 172 on the north side of the Saguenay River. This is labeled as Rue du Fjord and for many miles, it runs along the Sainte-Marguerite River.

Ed has a cool wade in the St. Marguerite River next to our campsite. This is not the fjord the Route du Fjord is referring to. That would be the next river over to the west, the much larger Saguenay.

As you might expect, this part of the province is world famous for its salmon fly fishing where it is all catch and release. This photo is just upstream around the bend from the above photo.

And guess what’s growing wild and ready to be picked! not just here but everywhere.

Not feeling like doing cities we passed Saguenay and were soon into pretty farm country where we stopped at a wonderful farm market, Ferme Tournesol.

Marti says she never looked like this after picking veggies out of our garden.

We didn’t buy nearly enough from these folks. The produce was just beautiful.

Yum!

Driving through Dolbeau-Mistassini we spotted a wonderful chute (waterfall) where RV’s were clearly camped and Ed immediately turned down the road. Being a Saturday, in a town, I was not expecting to get a spot, but the nice man said yes he had 3 sites and we should select which one we wanted 🙂

We think we just happened to get the best site in the park.

The Chutes

We continued north taking RT167 and then RT113 to Camping Opemiska where we stopped for the night and next morning headed toward TCH 117 (Trans Canada Highway) and Val-d’Or.

All across the northern parts of Quebec, the roadside wildflowers were a riot of color and especially the Loosestrife, Pearly Everlasting and Goldenrod interspersed with lots of Cattails.

Of course, there are lakes everywhere.

and Birch trees many of which grow to over 100 feet tall in dense groves.

I will be honest and admit this entire trek across Quebec has been unplanned and completely “by the seat of our pants” traveling. A lot of it was as Ed says, “just so we can say we’ve been there” and while I am looking forward to seeing Thunder Bay, Ontario where I actually have looked for things to do, we do have one more “just so we can say we’ve been there” on our horizon before that. 🙂

Looking towards the bow and what Ed thought was Baie-Comeau but turned out to be Godbout.

We waited for several minutes behind this truck with possibly the largest pipe we have ever seen on the road for a single lane traffic light at a construction zone. There is lots of construction on these roads because they only have about three months to make all the repairs and improvements due to the heavy trucks that tear them apart as well as the harsh weather.

North of Manic 2 on RT 389 when the Sun came out.

The lighthouse at Cap-de-Bon-Desir.

Carrots! More beautiful produce at Ferme Tournesol.

Crackerberry or Creeping Dogwood, (Cornus canadensis) and Indian Pipe.

Guess what else is growing wild in profusion and is ripe for the picking? Bleuets! Oh yum!

Turns out to our great amazement not only do they mine iron ore up here but gold. At Malartic, Quebec this pit mine is the largest open-pit gold mine in Canada. The pit measures 1.34 miles across in the long dimension and a half mile across. We only know this because of the biggest pile of tailings we have ever seen anywhere. The current vein they are mining is estimated to contain 9 million ounces of gold and it’s only one mine. Think about that.

We are currently in Ontario on Lake Superior and will keep you posted soon!

As always, thanks for coming along!

Gaspésie Peninsula ~ WITH, a short home tour in NY & VT

05 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

FDR, Frederic Church, Gaspe Peninsula, Haute-Gaspesie, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller, Perce Rock, Quebec, Shelburne Farm Inn, US Grant

After a visit back home celebrating our kids first home of their own (a fixer-upper we know will be great when they’re done); checking in with an eye doc about Ed’s eventual cataract surgery and enjoying time with family and friends, we headed north towards the Hudson River area of New York. With no particular plan other than eventually landing in Canada’s Gaspésie Peninsula, we did a kind of house tour trip as we went. In the interest of brevity and not really having much to say, we’ll offer up these brief recommendations.

Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home, Springwood and the FDR Library & Museum also on the estate. Highly recommend, especially the library and museum. Plan on two days.

Hyde Park, New York, Vanderbilt Mansion. The Biltmore Estate in Ashville N.C. is a favorite of ours and it so outclasses this home and gardens that we can’t bring ourselves to recommend this place.

Olana, the home of artist Frederic Church in Hudson N.Y. Marti recommends highly, Ed not so much on the house but yes on the view 🙂 .

With a thank you to our friend Tim Carmel for the head’s up, Grant’s Cottage in Wilton, N.Y. Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War and was a two-term US President but you’ll have to work hard to find the small home where on this bed, this important man died of throat cancer July 23, 1885. Highly recommended even if New York State doesn’t mark the location on their maps, or bother with a sign on the street!

We also recommend Marsh – Billings – Rockefeller National Historical Park and the Billings Farm & Museum Woodstock, Vermont. All three of the owners starting with George Marsh in the 1830’s were strong supporters of enlightened land management. The home is lovely and the museum part of the Billings Farm & Museum across the street is very interesting although poorly labeled. Unfortunately, at the home, we had the worst tour guide we ever had anywhere.

Last but certainly not least, on Lake Champlain in Shelburne VT, watch the cheese making process (an all day/everyday affair) at Shelburne Farms and enjoy a wonderful dinner at the Inn. Because you only live once, we treated ourselves to two nights here and highly recommend the whole experience. It’s lovely!

Now….on with the “real” blog post 🙂

The south shore of the St. Lawrence River runs the length of the northern border of the Gaspésie Peninsula until both river and land meet the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the Canadian province of Quebec. On the south side, the peninsula is separated from the Province of New Brunswick by the Restigouche River and Chaleur Bay. As has always been our experience with all the Canadian Border Services personnel, crossing at Fork Kent, Maine was easy. We chatted with the officer about where we were going and how long we intended to stay. He gave us some direction suggestions and didn’t seem to mind we had no concrete plans. 🙂

The peninsula is divided into sections with descriptive names and we headed north for Sainte-Flavie in the part labeled “The Coast” where we managed to get a tight, unlevel but ok spot on the St. Lawrence River at Capitaine Homard.

It’s tight, but it’s home!

Actually, the view from our View ain’t bad!

Having made good driving time and with our site secured we headed just up the road to Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens). These beautiful gardens were the result of Elise Reford’s doctor’s suggestion of less stressful excursion (i.e. instead of her normal fishing, riding, and hunting) following an appendectomy.

Over the course of ten years, Mrs. Reford laid out gardens that complimented the natural flow of the terrain to great effect.

Her inclusion and success with rare and difficult Himalayan Blue Poppies are world famous. And Marti is just a little jealous but isn’t it lovely?

Ed generally likes to travel counterclockwise when doing big loops so we headed south on 132 into the section labeled “The Valley”. The countryside here is low, steep mountains where after a bit the road also runs beside the Matapedia River. We took a side road to Saint-Irene where the guidebook said there was a lookout tower.

We don’t know for sure if they are putting it up or replacing it but the picnic table is the top of today’s tower.

And indeed, it is a lovely view.

Upon reaching the south side of the peninsula, “The Bay” section, we headed east on the ring road 132 where the views were to our eye, just water (sometimes) and small towns.

In Quebec, a very Catholic province, most towns, even the small ones have a substantial church. They are quite lovely.

We stopped for the night at Parc du Bourg de Pabos where a nice bilingual fellow camper helped us get a spot.

Not one of our more romantic campsites… but it works. It was a Friday and they were having some very serious sewer issues. The “officials” were there in the morning exploring the sewers out on the road. We left.

Finally in the section labeled “Land’s End” we started to actually see boats and folks playing in the water.

Truth is we are not exactly sure where this is but it is the first time we saw commercial fishing boats of any kind.

At Barachois we stopped and walked the old railroad bridge over the mouth of Rivière-Malbaie.

…and then continued on to the peninsula’s main tourist attraction, Rocher-Percé (Percé Rock meaning pierced rock). In 1534 Jacques Cartier reported three arches. By 1845 there were only two remaining, one of which collapsed leaving the current visible pillar and remaining arch,

The drive from Percé Rock was prettier than anything we had seen so far. Arriving at the town of Gaspé we sat at the sidewalk tables of Brise-Bise had a very good lunch.

Next day we drove to the north entrance of Parc National Forillon and did the short walk out to Cap Bon Ami.

Cap Bon Ami… where, in the parking lot we saw our very first American license plate. Nice folks from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Continuing west on 132 just outside Forillon we spotted Cap-des-Rosiers Lighthouse.

Built between 1853-1858 at 34 meters tall, this is the tallest lighthouse in Canada. Officials and citizens are extremely concerned about the very real possibility of it collapsing.

At the very beginning of the loveliest section on the peninsula, “The Haute-Gaspesie” (High-Gaspesie) we stopped briefly at the Cap de la Madeleine Lighthouse.

This the latest version of this lighthouse having been built in 1908.

From here the road is absolutely running “between a rock and a hard place” 🙂 For approximately 84 kilometers (52 miles) RT 132 runs next to the cliff face of the Chic-Chocs Mountains and the St. Lawrence.

After Perce Rock, headed into the most photographed and promoted section of the Gaspesie. This section is really fun.

But like most of the peninsula, the waters of the shore are very shallow and full of rocks for a long ways out… Ruh roh.

A beautiful drive but basically nowhere to pull over to just look. We did it anyway…

Overall, our recommendation for the Gaspésie Peninsula is weak at best. Except for the Lands End and Haute- Gaspesie sections it’s just not special enough, although Ed’s photographs may seem to put the lie to this. The people are the least friendly we have ever met! Without exaggeration, in the 7 ½ days, we were here 5 people either smiled back, said bonjour/hello or waved when we did any of those things (which we do all the time.) NONE did so first! I will say that one on one, almost everyone was pleasant, helpful and/or patient. Granted they are FRENCH Canadians, but Canada is an English language country. Almost exclusively, no effort is made to include a translation on signs, labels, menus, directions, anything, and it does complicate things. Although, we both are getting better at figuring words and meanings out. True disclosure…I went from an A to an F in 7th-grade French class! I commented to Ed several times that coming from a country where everything seems to have English/Spanish (or more) on it, these folks sure don’t seem to want to be inclusive 🙂 . We, me especially, found the experience exhausting and it colored my whole outlook. So, after a night of conversation and wine, we decided to head for the ferry at Matane to cross the St. Lawrence and see what was on the north shore and beyond.

Evening at Capitaine Homard. The fog was a constant companion.

Quiet details abound in Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens).

This section of the garden is called The Long Walk… It smelled really good too.

They may not offer the English words but the signage is quite clear.

As we have commented, the mountains are very steep and we encountered grades between 8% and 16% everywhere. They weren’t long but they were constant in the interior particularly and we loved this sign.

The amazing thing about all these hills and mountains is that on top there was this wonderful expanse of rich farmland where crops such as mustard, grains, corn, alfalfa, and cattle were healthy and lush.

And then there were fields lying fallow.

Almost all of the small village churches followed this same basic design with a tall sharp steeple.

Perce Rock. At low tide, people can walk out to it but there are many signs warning of the frequent and deadly rockfalls sliding off the rock face.

Looking east from the Cap Bon Ami viewpoint.

Hugging the cliffs and staying out of the water it really is a fun drive through this section, the Haute-Gaspesei.

“Lions, tigers, and bears… oh, my!” Nope, Along the Haute-Gaspesie road. Rocks, Waves, and Avalanches… Oh, my.

Hello Ontario! ~ Au Revoir Quebec!

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels, Uncategorized

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Canada, Costello PA, Frontenac, Ontario, Poutine, Quebec, Sundridge

Hello! Thank you all for bearing with us and our summer long disappearing act. We are thrilled to say Ed’s surgery went well, especially considering after the fact when the doctor told us he had been pretty worried! As they say, all’s well that ends well. We did however receive the sad news that our kitty Flea passed away. He had a good life and thanks to the kindness of the purchasers of our home, he got to stay on the farm he loved.

Ed did some repairs and upgrades to the RV, I gave it a good scrubbing inside while he did the outside and we hauled all the stuff we’d moved into the apartment back into our little wheeled house and we headed out on September 22^nd. Going up 15N into Pennsylvania over to Lewisburg where we picked up Rt 45 and then 322N driving through beautiful farm country to State College. We stopped for the night in Woodland, happy to be back on the road.

A beautiful, pristine round barn near State College, PA. Don’t see these often.

We were headed for Costello, Pennsylvania in Potter County where my Dad was born so I could say “hello” to my great grandparents Robert & Janetta Campbell Deppa. Robert came from Scotland when he was 8 and fought in the Civil War figuring as did many that when the North won he would then be a US citizen. Not so. After the war he also married Janetta who was all of 15 and a half. She is also for whom one of my nieces is named. We had been to the cemetery back in 2001 and it was overgrown and a mess. Volunteers have now cleaned it up and it looks lovely, although they also changed the name after well over 100 years.

Fern Woods in the Pennsylvania mountains…

From there driving on up into New York and many small towns on our way eventually to the Peace Bridge crossing into Canada and the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) towards Toronto and on past to Alliston, Ontario. We have noticed before that small towns in New York are generally very clean. Folks seem to take pride in their homes, yards and towns no matter how poor they might be. It’s nice.

An old truck at the cranberry farm.

We poked around Ontario for a couple of days. Stopped at Johnston’s Cranberry Farm where we sampled their cranberry and blueberry wines, won’t need to do that again. We drove to Penetanguishene just because a town with a name like that ought to be visited and had our first poutine (French fries and cheese curd covered with gravy) at the “World Famous Dock Lunch”; nope on both counts.

Went to the French River because in elementary school when we were taught about Canada the only places I remember being mentioned were the French River and the St. Lawrence River/Seaway. At the French River Provincial Park visitor center there is a 512ft. long, 12ft.wide bridge built 90ft. over the French River for and by snowmobile enthusiasts! They take their winter entertainment very seriously 🙂

Built by the French River Snow Voyageurs Snowmobile Club.

We hiked the one mile wooded trail to the Rocellet Falls. The rock of the Canadian Shield creates a sidewalk thru the woods, except for the spots where the tree roots unable to penetrate the shield and clinging to what dirt is available, make an ankle-twisting maze. It was a lovely walk and the falls are very pretty.

We visited our dear friend Beverley at her sister Wendy’s cottage on Deer Lake in Sundridge and had a wonderful time.

Marti goes for a boat ride on Deer Lake with our friend Beverley. Fraser was Captain and Wendy was Co-captain. I sat in the middle for balance.

They took us on a boat ride and out to Burk’s Falls see the Screaming Heads. Concrete castings about 16 feet tall scattered across the landscape, these heads, hands and rearing horses are odd and fun. There were also many large to huge metal bar pyramids and a few geodesic domes throughout the place. Oh, and a giant string web in the woods! One of those “you gotta see this” places 🙂

Screaming Heads reminiscent of Edvard Munch's "Scream".

Screaming Heads reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.

After Ontario we headed to Quebec and Quebec City. This is a major MVP (Must Visit Place)! We stayed across the St. Lawrence at the Campground Transit and took the short Levis Ferry ride across to Old Quebec City.

On the ferry from Levis…

If you can’t make it to France, this is the next best thing. Founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain this walled city is incredibly beautiful. With a commanding view of the river, the French, who finally lost it to the English in 1763 and the Americans who could not defeat it and so ensured that Canada would belong to England, the city is proud of its history. Inside the original walls it has such a European feel and with the population still speaking French we felt we must have traveled a lot farther than our odometer said (even in metric). We spent two windy days wandering around and will be back for sure. Plus, there’s this amazing, not too expensive, attic condo in the heart of the Old City that is calling my name…..