QUEBEC WEST (Montreal, Saint-Jérôme, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke)
Observations
1. Very French. Rarely hear English, and ALL signs, information in museums, menus, etc are in French. And I wrote this in bilingual Montreal.
2. Gas is expensive, at least 25-30 cents/litre more than Ontario.
3. Recreational vehicles. Basically, there are none. I haven’t seen a camper, 5th wheel or diesel pusher since Manitoba. There are a few trailers. RV parks can’t be a good business.
4. Museums are the most expensive anywhere. Many don’t offer senior discounts.
Day 27 Sat Jun 28
Natural Heritage Campus, Canadian Museum of Nature, Gatineau. A great museum featuring a diverse collection of stuffed animals in impressive dioramas. $16.50, $14.50 reduced
ON Lachute
Day 28 Sun June 29
Lachute Farmers’ Market. Basically a flea market but also a row of sheds with furniture, dishes, glassware, puzzles etc etc. I bought a lovely lamp (heavy metal base, gorgeous thick glass shade with a floral pattern for $20!!
MONTREAL
Cosmodôme Science Museum, Laval. All about space with several rockets, all the space programs and the International Space Station. $10
Musee des Maitres et Artisans du Quebec. A museum about the crafts and trades of Quebecois – metal, wood carving, furniture, and a temporary exhibit on ceramics. In a spectacular old church (St Paul’s Presbyterian which was dismantled stone by stone and moved here) with an enormously high ceiling and massive wood beams with big angels. The church was better than the exhibit. $13, $10.50 reduced
Montreal Holocaust Museum. Montreal was the third most common home to Holocaust survivors (after Isreal and NYC). This highlighted many personal vignettes. One Jewish museums have security. The Dark Side. $12, $10 reduction
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Some masters (Matisse, Picasso, Monet and Quebec artists. Exhorbitant price of $31 with no seniors reduction.
McCord Museum. Montreal street photography, indigenous trauma plus art, and dress, fashion and textiles. Another whopping $22, $21 reduction.
Champ-de-Mars Station. The station has large geometric windows painted bright colours. The platform is ordinary. I took a ride one station and back on the Montreal Metro $3.75.
Schwartz’s Deli – Sandwiches – Steaks. When I arrived at 2 pm, there was huge line. I went inside to see the many ways they sell Montreal smoked beef – the sandwich was $15.50 and poutine expensive. A long row of booths and seats at the bar.
I then had a decision of many choices: see more museums I had little interest in, go south to Granby/Sherbrook but with few NM sites of interest and a loop back to the St Lawrence, see more museums (there were many left – see below) but few interested me, I didn’t like Montreal prices, and I’d already spent a small fortune on museums. So I continued on towards Quebec City. My initial plan was to make a tour through Gaspe but I doubt that will occur. I basically will be on my way to Labrador in about 3 days.
Joliette Art Museum, Joliette. Good value with 2 floors of permanent exhibits and some lovely art: Fena Veilliet of a library and 26 pieces of art on the walls, all painted in intricate detail, Water Under the Bridge, a collection of silver/gold chalices, and the best, a wonderful mobile of hundreds of clear glass objects (cups, wine glasses, medical glass, crystals, gravy boats all suspended miraculously from a mirrored ceiling. It’s also up in a high tower. The temporary exhibit by Rosalie Gagne used blown glass objects in novel shapes combined with metal, coloured water and other material (quite good). $15, $12 reduced.
TROIS RIVIERES
Quebec Museum of Folk Culture, A lovely museum. The best was the free exhibit by a wood carver at the front. $17, no reduction!!!
ON Sherwin Paints parking lot. Unfortunately the wifi stopped at 10.
Day 29 Mon June 30
As it was a Monday and all museums are closed, I decided to have a day off – playing bridge and working on my Devonshire genaeology. I didn’t get to sleep until 02:30 but finished. And then I realized that Tuesday was Canada Day and all museums would be closed too.
ON Mall lot outside a Tim Hortons with good wifi.
Day 30 Tue July 1
I spent another day doing the same. Canada Day.
ON SAB
Day 25 Wed July 2
EAST (Quebec City, Montmagny, Sept Îles)
QUEBEC CITY
Aquarium du Québec. The area around was totally blocked off with road construction. I stopped at an intersection to change Google Maps to my next destination. There was no traffic. A lady said I had to move. I said I needed to change maps. She yelled. I yelled back. Her supervisor came and took down my license plate. There were still no vehicle anywhere in site. The reinforces the idea that some Quebecois are stupid with no common sense.
Promenade Samuel De Champlain. A walkway along the St Lawrence. Urban Legends:
Museum of Fine Arts. Don’t miss this – it was worth the $24 admission. Inuit art on the third floor was extensive, most from eastern Nunavut. A few were fantastic, including many of the very small carvings. I had 6 pieces by artists there – from Kugarak and Gjoa Haven.
The temporary exhibit featuring Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) was very special. Basically a sculpture, her figures are generous and painted in bright polyester colours. Great show.
Maison Henry-Stuart. A regency cottage from 1849 with period (and little original) furniture. Two families living here including the Stuarts from 1918-1087. Not very interesting. These museums have remarkedly little about the owners. Seen by tour only. $10 no reduction. House and Biographical Museums.
The Plains of Abraham Museum. A good review of the battles leading up to and after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham with a movie about that. Well done. Marlello Tower exhibit. The British outnumbered the Quebec who relied on the militia and Indians. Wolfe didn’t land at well-defended Beauport but came at night and ascended the cliff to the plains. Both generals died. $14..75
La Citadelle de Québec. With the inner fort sitting across a peninsula, Cap Diamond, on top of a cliff, it wsa built between 1779-83 by the British (and expanded significantly in 1837-38 (because of advances in cannon, it was obsolete as soon as it was finished. It is surrounded by a moat, most of the inner buildings are occupied by the 22nd Regiment (the Citadel is their home since 1922, and the walls are in several layers extending out. Contains an official home of the Governor General. $22, $22 reduced, seen only on a guided tour.
ON On street in front of the museum. The Festival d’Ete Quebec starts tomorrow and all the parking was blocked off. I stayed there and got a ticket but continued in the same spot. I could hear the music from one of the three stages.
Day 32 Thur July 3
It rained a lot until the afternoon. I went out for a walkabout to see my last sites in Quebec City.
Musee des Ursulines de Quebec. Three Ursuline nuns arrived in 1639 as teachers. Details mostly the educational role the Ursuline nuns played in the education of girls. Several models of expansion of the monastery. The highlight is the chapel in two parts, including a cloistered large side extending down the right cross. White interior with some gilt. The altar was carved by the Lavasseur family who also did all the carving in the St Dominic church, gilded by the nuns. $17, $14 reduced
Musee de l’Amerique Francophone. Permanently closed
Musée Dark-Art. Permanently closed
Museum of Civilisation. Exhibits on Quebec, First Nations, Canadian inventors (mostly Quebecois) and how we behave in crowds. $25, $29 with the Titanic exhibit (which I didn’t see).
Old Quebec Funicular. It climbs the cliff below the Frontenac Hotel. $6 cash only, one way.
I heard Rod Stewart play on the stage near me at 9:30 pm.
ON Same spot. I am lucky that I have not been towed, but got a ticket. But will stay another night before leaving Quebec City.
Day 33 Fri July 4
At 9:45, I walked down 15 minutes to the retail store for Inuit carvings. The one staff fellow was very knowledgable. They had little from Kitikmiot. I bought groceries and gas for my Labrador/NFLD trip.
Passerelle des Trois-Soeurs. A pedestrian bridge over the St Charles River in north Quebec City – White, wood deck, and cable stayed from a column on the south shore.
Huron-Wendat Museum, Wendake: Called the Huron by the French, they call themselves the Wendat – a tribal nation that extended from the estuary of the St Lawrence to the Great Lakes. They were major traders along the St Lawrence. Their crafts (snowshoes, canoes, very fine beadwork) were a important source of income.
Downstairs is a room of portrait photography of modern Wandaat (but all posed in the centre). Outside is a great lodge that is very authentic with two layers of elevated shelves. $14.95 reduced.
Discusses women’s use of agriculture (the 3 sisters, corn, beans and squash that fed each other) to supply 80% of the food.
Jacques-Cartier NP. 50 kilometres north of Quebec City, it protects wildlife in the Laurentian massif in the Eastern forest-boreal transition ecoregion. In the mid-19th most was logged until the provincila park was created in 1895, logged till the 70s and in 1981, Jacques-Cartier National Park was created. The park contains several glacial landforms such as drumlins and moraine. Mainly conifers and sugar maple and yellow birch in the valleys.
100 km of hiking trails, 30 km of biking trails, kayaking, fishing, canoeing, tubing, snowshoeing and skiing. Accommodations include 9 cabins, 5 yurts and 114 campsites
SAGUENAY
Musee du Fjord. 21 km each way to see so I skipped it.
La Pulperie. This regional museum is on the site of the Chicoutimi Pulp Mill and is now a vast cultural and tourist entertainment complex on the banks of the Chicoutimi River. The mill ceased operations in 1930.
Three mills were built. The river transported wood and supplied energy. During the winter, when the river was practically unusable for industrial purposes, the workers cut all the wood (processed more than 4,000 logs per day and more than ten thousand logs of wood were cut every day). The logs were stacked on the river ice and in the spring floated to Lake Dubuc, an artificial reservoir built about 1 km upstream from the Pulperie site. The logs are debarked and shreded into tiny wood fibres. Hydraulic presses remove 50% of the water. Most was sold to the United States and England. It employed more than 2,000 men at its peak in 1920.
In the Saguenay Flood of 1996, 280 mm of rain in 48 hours with 120.5 mm already saturating the soil resulted in a catastrophic floodf. In a few hours, the water destroyed a lot of the buildings.
The City of Chicoutimi restored the site and the 1921 mechanical repair shop has exhibits. The main exhibit is of Arthur Villeneuve ‘s works and House .
Le Musée de la Petite Maison Blanche was built in 1890 in the heart of Chicoutimi. 24 feet by 24 feet, it was log and two floors.
, the Little White House and the entire surrounding neighborhood suffered a flood and the damage was minor. In , a flood swept away all the houses in the neighborhood. The Little White House thus benefited from media coverage throughout the world.
ON Tim Hortons on the other side of the river.
Day 34 Sat July 5
I was up at 5 am to start driving, hoping to drive the 800+ km and 9 hour drive to Labrador City.
Hôtel Tadoussac. Tadoussac was the first fur trading post in Canada, the first ocean port in the Saint Lawrence Valley and the oldest wooden church in existence in America, the Little Chapel or “Indian Chapel” Steamships brought tourists from as far as Montreal.
The first Hotel Tadoussac was built in 1864, demolished in 1941 and rebuilt in 1942 to bring cruise passengers from the Great Lakes. The hotel had 137 rooms, hot and cold running water. Furnishings were exclusively domestic arts and crafts.
Cruises ended in 1966 and the hotel closed. In 1984, it was completely renovated.
From Baie Comeau, it was 518 km and 7 hours (I left at 11 and arrived at 9 pm with 1 stop and a long nap.
Manic 5 is one of 4 Manic dams and power plants on the Manicauagan River. It was built from 1964-76. I didn’t take the dam tour and there was little info about the dam in the “museum”. There were two stretches of gravel – about 75 km after Manic 5 and 50 km before all the mines.
Fermont is a mining city in Côte-Nord region near the Quebec-Labrador border about 23 kilometres (14 mi) from Labrador City on Route 389, which connects to the Trans-Labrador Highway (Newfoundland and Labrador Route 500).
The city is located about 565 km (351 mi) from Baie-Comeau, about 867 km (539 mi) from Saguenay, and about 1,000 km (621 mi) from Quebec City.
Fermont (French contraction of “Fer Mont“, meaning “Iron Mountain”) was founded as a company town in the early 1970s to exploit rich iron ore deposits from Mont Wright, which is about 25 kilometres (16 mi) to the west.
The town is notable for the huge self-contained structure containing apartments, stores, schools, bars, a hotel, restaurants, a supermarket and swimming pool; the large building shelters a community of smaller apartment buildings and homes on its leeward side. Popularly known as The Wall (Le Mur), the structure was designed to be a windscreen to the rest of the town. It permits residents (other than mine workers) to never leave the building during the long winter, which usually lasts about seven months. The town was inspired by similar projects in Sweden. The building measures 1.3 kilometres (4,300 ft) long [6] and stands 15 metres (49 ft) high.
Following the depletion of the Jeannine Lake Mine at Gagnon in the late 1960s, the Québec Cartier Mining Company began to develop the Mont Wright Mine. This was a large-scale project that involved mining, processing, and transporting iron ore. Some 1,600 employees would be needed, and the town of Fermont was constructed to house them and their families. By the end of 1972, the first people settled there.
In 2021, Fermont had a population of 2,256 living in 976 of its 1,538 total private dwellings. With French being the dominant language in the community, Fermont is the world’s northernmost Francophone settlement of any considerable size, being located about one degree of latitude north of Dunkirk.
The local economy is entirely dependent on the Mont Wright and Fire Lake mines owned by ArcelorMittal.
Average earnings for full-time workers was $63,982 in 2001, compared to $39,217 in Quebec as a whole. The mine product is shipped to Port-Cartier on the Cartier Railway where it is converted to pellets.
Because of the town’s disproportionately high number of (relatively prosperous) men compared to women and the few entertainment options in Fermont’s climate, the adult entertainment industry is extremely lucrative in Fermont, and strippers can make a substantial amount of money for their profession.
The Trans-Quebec–Labrador Route (route 389 on the Quebec side and route 500 on the Labrador side) is the only road access. Route 389 begins in Baie-Comeau and goes north along the Manicouagan Reservoir.
The town is accessible by scheduled passenger airline service via the Wabush Airport located in Labrador West.
The Cartier Railway connects Port-Cartier to the Mont-Wright mine, but it is only used for transporting iron ore concentrate and bulk equipment. The train no longer carries passengers.
ON Mall parking lot in Labrador City
GO TO LABRADOR / NEWFOUNDLAND
RETURN TO QUEBEC EAST (Quebec City, Montmagny, Sept Îles)
Day 56 Tue July 22
I ended the long day of driving in Baie Comeau
ON Tim Hortons in Baie Comeau
Day 45 Wed July 23
The ferry from Escoumins to Trois Pistoles is a commercial ferry and no private bookings are possible. I crossed the Saguenay River at Tadoussac on the free highway ferry. The ferry from Saint Simeon to Riviere du Loup had a long waiting time. I arrived at 10 am to be told the 1 pm ferry was full and I would be waiting till 16:30. The waiting lines are moved around to fit the most vehicles and I was one of the last vehicles on the 1 pm ferry.
Brandy Pot Island Lighthouse, Rivière-du-Loup. The Pot a l’Eau-de-Vieu Archipelago consists of three small islands which link up at low tide: Gros Pot (Big Pot), Petit Pot (Small Pot), and Pot du Phare (Lighthouse Pot). The name of the archipelago came about during French rule when sailors likened the reddish-brown rainwater collected in pockets on the rocky islands to brandy, and the shape of those pockets to brandy pots.
Due to the calm currents in the area, merchant ships would often gather at the Brandy Pots to form convoys. In 1862, the lighthouse was built on the southeastern tip of Pot du Phare. A thirty-foot-six-inch square white clapboard structure has a 9.15 metre (30 foot) high cylindrical brick tower with a red roof. The fourth-order Fresnel lens had a diameter of five feet ten inches and was fitted with panes of glass measuring 43 x 28 1/2 x 1/2 inches. The mammoth flat-wick lamp used inside the lens consumed roughly seventy gallons of oil per season. The Pot a l’Eau-de-Vie Lightstation never had a fog alarm. The light was automated in 1964. In 1975, a light atop a forty-one-foot (12.5-metre) square steel skeletal tower took over the role of the lighthouse, and in 1978 the lens and lantern room were removed Société Duvetnor Ltée soon purchased Les Pèlerins Archipelago and several small islands and then, in 1986, Île aux Lièvres. Duvetnor obtained a lease for the Pot a l’Eau-de-Vieu Lighthouse, and in 1989 renovated the structure using historic photographs and John Page’s original architectural plans. On August 20, 1989, a newly fabricated copper lantern room was hoisted atop the tower, restoring some dignity to the neglected structure. That same year the society opened up Île aux Lièvres and Pot du Phare to visitors.
Fundraising by collecting eiderdown is used to restore the LH. Duvetnor raised funds to restore and maintain the lighthouse. Îles du Pot à l’Eau-de-Vie are uninhabited.
I saw the LH from the ferry.
Fraser Manor, Rivière-du-Loup. In 1834, Alexandre Fraser, seigneur of Rivière-du-Loup since 1802, was the landlord of the estate (the Seigniory) that was divided among locals (habitants), whose plots were granted under a royalty system. The house was the 6th and last seigniorial manor on the territory. The Manor was expanded in 1888 to what it looks like today.
The Manor has seen four generations of Frasers over 150 years. From 1950, the Manor was used as a summer residence by Alice, William’s daughter. In 1986, the Fraser legacy left the Manor definitively.
It was restored but all the furniture is period and not original. Another bourgeois home, about the fifth I have seen on this trip. I don’t find them interesting after a while.
This site is in the NM Religious and Sacred Art Museums series, which doesn’t make sense.
ON Near the New Brunswick Botanical Garden
GO TO NEW BRUNSWICK
MIGUASHA NATIONAL PARK WHS
