 | CANADA |
| CANADA |
THE ILE AUX COUDRES
Leaving the quarry entrance back in 2011 I took what is known as the scenic route up over the top of the Cap aux Corbeaux and along the north shore of the St Lawrence.
"Scenic route", so they said, but you wouldn't have thought so because I can't see a flaming thing. I've driven right into the middle of a thick cloud.
Almost immediately I run into the rear of (well, not literally) a big heavy bus, one that I remember almost running me down as I was walking back to the car after photographing Baie St Paul. And this flaming bus is inching its way along here at walking pace and this is absurd. Does anyone remember the bus that I encountered on Newfoundland back in 2010? What this guy is doing is nothing like a Canadian bus driver at all.
I dunno what's the matter with this guy. The fog is thick but it isn't that thick, but I can't get past this bus while he's driving like this and the slower he goes, the more annoyed I become.
As we reach a long straight piece of road I decide to take my life in my hands and go past, but just as I pull out, so does he, right in front of me, and we have an exciting couple of seconds while I try to work out how to avoid going for a close inspection of his luggage.
It's here that I see what the problem was. It appears that we have been following a cyclist for the last few miles and it's the cyclist, not the bus, who has been holding everyone up. Once the bus is clear of the cyclist he puts his foot down and disappears into the gloom like a ferret up a trouser leg. This is much more like a Canadian bus driver.
Not like a French or Belgian bus driver though. In a situation like this, they would have been scraping the cyclist up off the highway a long time before this point.
I'd driven along this road before in fact - in October 2010 to be precise, on my way to the Trans-Labrador Highway but with the pressures that were on me to be in Newfoundland before winter set in, I didn't have too much time to stop for a look around.
However, round about 6kms from Baie St Paul (I made a little note) I encountered this view and reckoned that I could spare a couple of seconds to fit in a photograph.
In April 2012 however, there were no such issues. No low clouds or anything else to block the view and no pressures on my time either. And from up here at the top of the Cap we have a gorgeous view down to the St Lawrence.
That's not the south bank of the river just there by the way. It is in fact an island - the Ile aux Coudres as it so happens, one of the many islands in this part of the St Lawrence.
That's a bit more of the Ile aux Coudres - the north-eastern end in fact. I think that I've mentioned before that whilst it is generally said that the St Lawrence flows from west to east, there are several areas where its direction is from south-west to north-east, and this is one such area.
In the background is the south shore of the St Lawrence, as I'm sure that you had already guessed
What had brought the Ile aux Coudres into the forefront of my mind was that in 2011, driving through the fog and low cloud, I had noticed what looked like an interesting deviation (and an interesting deviation is something that will always attract my attention) in the general direction of the St Lawrence.
And not only that either. There's a sign there telling me that there's a ferry down there somewhere and that has to be well-worth an exploration.
However, I keep on telling people that they aren't all that good for the blood pressure. After all, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross.
Despite certain constraints on my time in 2011, I took this interesting deviation off to the right and this road led me to a road junction where I was expected to take another right turn.
Now, this particular deviation looks even more interesting. There is a sign at the side of the road telling me to expect a gradient of 20% - that is 1 in 5 - over a distance of 2 kilometres.
A descent like that isn't just interesting and impressive, it's totally astonishing over that kind of distance and thus well-worth a photo. This is the uphill direction.
And this is the downhill direction, taken from the same viewpoint.
Now having looked at the 2 photos myself, I can say confidently that they do nothing at all like justice to the actual steepness of the slope, so let me put this into a better perspective. After I had taken these photos, I simply jumped into the car, released the handbrake and rolled away. And by the time I had reached 90 kilometres per hour (with no engine, no servo-assisted brakes and no power-assisted steering either) I was still in the field of view of this photo just down there.
Arriving at the bottom of the slope, I found myself engulfed in thick cloud and, for all I know, smoke off the brakes of the car because they didn't 'arf do some work coming down that slope.
The inclement weather and the pressures on my time were such that a trip out to the island was not really much of a practical proposition in 2011 - no point in going on a sea cruise if you can't see anything and you risk being run down by an errant bulk carrier with a dozing watch.
No such issues though in 2012. It was certainly late in the day but the weather was good - perfect in fact for a little cruise - and I had already worked out a fall-back site for camping if the island didn't come up with anything suitable.
The ferry, the little Joseph Savard was busy doing its stuff and so it looked as if the evening had all the potential to turn into something extremely pleasant.
In 2011 I was up somewhere on the top of that hill over there trying desperately to peer through the gloom of the low cloud to see if I could see the ferry down here on the river.
In 2012, here I am on the ferry having a really good view of the hill in the background because although the weather might be overcast and cloudy to the west, the view to the east and up the hill to the small town of Les Eboulements is, as they say over here, quite degagé.
And I wasn't far wrong about the risks that one might run when crossing over the river in the fog. While I was gazing back up the steep slope down which we had descended a little earlier, my gaze was drawn to all of the rocks strewn about in the river near to where we are sailing.
The thought of running aground on a couple of those in the middle of a thick pea-souper and -10°C is enough to send a shiver running down anyone's spine and brings a whole new meaning to the term "a nervous wreck".
And not only that. As I indeed suspected our progress across into mid-channel was arrested slightly whilst a more imposing form of maritime transport crossed our path.
That's the Algoma Mariner out there and if you were with me on our marathon walk around the city of Quebec the previous day
you would have seen her putting into harbour there on her way from Hamilton, Ontario.
And so while Strawberry Moose was admiring the view and I was watching the shipping on the river, I fell in with a floozy and I spent most of the crossing talking to her
She told me that she works in some kind of Environmental Service and she was engaged on some kind of study teaching something about the environment to the elected members of some kind of Assembly.
I told her that in my not-inconsiderable experience, the best way to try to teach something to an elected member of any kind of Assembly is to beat it into their skull in Morse Code with a pick-axe handle, and she wholeheartedly agreed.
As we pulled into the terminal at St Bernard-sur-Mer, she was telling me that the marina here on the island had closed down and had in fact been partly demolished already.
She thought that that was rather a strange decision to make, and so did I. Islands are of course pretty much dependent upon the tourist trade and like most such businesses in tourist locations, passing trade plays a major role in all of this. There's no point in trying to cater for passing tourist trade if the trade keeps on passing by and there's nowhere for the tourists to stop.
Another thing that I learnt is that you don't find all that much private marine traffic on the St Lawrence around here. It seems that the currents and eddies in the river are quite strange and an experienced pilot is often required to guide the traffic along.
Here I am on the ile aux coudres looking back across to the mainland, the beautiful Laurentides and the road that goes up to Les Eboulements, and while you reflect on the scene, let me tell you a little about the island.
It's called the ile aux coudres because Couldre is old French for "Hazel" (and over the passage of time we seem to have lost the "L" - clearly too many angels singing carols at Christmas) and when Cartier landed here on September 7th 1534 he noted that there was an abundance of hazel trees here.
That date has another special significance because it was on that day, on this island, that the first-ever recorded Mass was celebrated on Canadian soil. As I've said before, Cartier was not without his spiritual companions on his voyages.
A little earlier today we were out driving around the western side of the Baie de St Paul where we had something of an excellent view of the island upon which we are currently standing. Here we have the view in reverse, looking back across the island and the Baie de St Paul to the western shore.
You'll also notice a slight difference between the quality of the shots taken to the west and those taken to the east. This particular view of the mountains at the rear of the bay would have been thoroughly magnificent in the correct lighting conditions but the evening is now closing in around us and the sun is settling lower in the sky to the west.
The photos taken to the east though are still impressive enough and the view along the coast to the headland of the Cap aux Oies - "Goose Cape" - is quite magnificent.
In the distance we can just about make out La Malbaie and that's on the agenda for us tomorrow. But of course, tomorrow is another day and I still have to think about where I'm going to be sleeping tonight. The aforementiond floozy did say that there were two campsites on the island but, as you might have expected without me having to tell you, they are both closed. The season has not yet begun.
But before I leave my comfortable spec on the top of the hill overlooking the harbour, let me quickly take a photograph of the far shore directly opposite.
That is of course the north shore of the St Lawrence and the town just there is St Joseph-de-la-Rive. You can tell from the heavy-duty concrete pier over there that that is the terminal of the ferry and from where I just set sail.
As is usual, I drove widdershins around the island and at the north-eastern end I encountered this enormous boat. It apparently belongs to a company based downriver a little at Tadoussac and is used for tourism purposes, whale-watching and all that kind of thing, along the St Lawrence.
It's not being used for much right now, though. There were three or four people busily occupied in adding a few touches of paint to the thing, preparing it for the tourist season, I suppose, whenever that season is likely to start. They were probably going to have a whale of a time.
But I can't hang about - I have other things to do. Accoding to the aforementioned floozy there's a windmill here on the island and as the French so rightly say,
"on ne peut pas etre au (Du)four et au moulin"
One of the many things that she said to me was not to miss it and as usual, there's nothing much wrong with my aim and so here I am.
As you might expect, it's closed at the moment, but since when has that ever stopped me? It also appears to be undergoing some kind of renovation programme, but that's never been anything of an issue either.
You probably noticed that there were a few vital bits missing off the sails of the windmill, but that's not particularly all that important as there is also a water mill on the premises. However a quick look at the millpond will tell you that there are a few vital pieces missing here too, like the sluice gates.
In the foreground is the mill race that takes the water down to the wheel and in the absence of the sluice gates, the level of water has fallen below the level required to enter the race.
You can tell where the level of water should be by looking at the stain over there on the concrete wall. But concrete? Really!
You mean to say that there's no local craftsman handy who knows how to make a traditional wall out of stone and clay? It looks as if there's an opening for me right here, and we aren't talking about the hole where the sluice gates should be.
Another thing you will notice is exactly what I have been saying for years about hydro-electric power . It's all very well building a barrage across a river to trap the water, but what you are also doing is to trap the silt that is being carried down by the river. Where the river is fast-flowing, such as in the region of the sluice gates, the silt will be carried away in the water, but where the water is sluggish such as around the edges, the water no longer has the velocity to carry the silt and the silt simply sinks to the bottom.
I'm convinced that the designers, builders and supporters of these huge hydro-electric projects are all going to be in for a nasty shock sooner or later when they discover that the lakes that they have created have all silted up.
From up here you can see the mill race, and an impressive structure it is too, rather reminiscent of the early trestle railway bridges, carrying the water down to the water mill, which is the red-roofed building just there.
There is evidence that the millrace is currently undergoing repair, and that's very likely the reason why the water in the millpond has been allowed to drain away - so that it doesn't interfere with the repair works.
The outflow for the water seems to be just down here, the water flowing out of that metal grille.
The water wheel is situated inside the building, as you might have gathered with the mill race taking the water inside the building. That was rather disappointing. I wouldn't have minded having a quick butcher's at the wheel and the mechanism but like I said, it was all closed up and there was no UNESCO delegation (such as that which came to my aid in Red Bay
) handy.
The water that doesn't flow down the millrace tumbles down a little rocky stream at the side of the building as you can see here. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the water is quite red. Maybe there is a considerable amount of iron in the soil around here, or else someone further upstream has been washing a load of cranberries.
With the force of the water rushing down there against the side of the building, you can imagine how much effort and material has gone into the construction of the mill in order that it might withstand the forces that are being applied against it. You wouldn't have that in a modern building.
Anyway, in brief, the watermill was built in 1824 and the windmill in 1836. Of course it makes sense to have the two mills on the same site and under the control of the same miller, for in winter the millrace would be frozen up and there would have to be another source of power available to grind the corn.
But I'm not going to start on about the astonishing lack of the harnessing of wind power here on the banks of the St Lawrence in modern times. I've said it so often in these pages. For a province such as Québec to have put all of its hopes and aspirations into hydro-electric power, leaving behind an ecological and environmental nightmare for generations to come, when there is a massive source of untapped wealth of energy here, renders me speechless.
And that's not something that happens every day. It brings back all kinds of memories about the Spaniards who were forever putting all of their Basques in one exit.
Evidently with the age of the site, there are repairs and renovations to be carried out, and the floozy on the ferry told me that the whole site is currently undegoing some kind of extensive restoration programme with the aim of presenting a totally self-sufficient activity site.
She said that once everything is up and running and working properly, they will be grinding corn here, producing their own flour and baking their own bread, all of which sounds thoroughly exciting to me.
You can see in the photo just here that they have already built a bread oven, although standing out here in the open air in January and February baking the bread isn't an activity that I would find enticing.
It would have been nice to have been able to fit all of the attractions, such as the mills and the bread oven, onto just one photograph all at the same time but as I said just a little earlier,
"on ne peut pas etre au four et au moulin"
There is, by way of an aside, a blacksmith's forge here too apparently, but with not being able to enter the premises I can't say anything about that.
That's enough of the historic mill site anyway. Back on the road and continuing our travels I encounter another amphibious vehicle of the type that would pull in the tourists by the boatload.
It's nothing like as big or as impressive as the one that we saw in Halifax in October 2010 but it's certainly different, and I suppose that it serves its purpose on the island.
As the sun slowly starts to sink below the horizon I arrive down at the south-eastern end of the island.
And here in the gathering gloom - "I'll have a pint of what you've been drinking" ...ed - we can see out across the sand and rocks of the island to the mainland, to the Laurentides in the background with the white spires and roof of the church of Baie St Paul nestling at their foot.
I have to say in all honestly that the lack of photos that I took on the island reflect the fact that there was nothing particular that caught my eye and thus, apart from the mill complex and the opportunity to go for a sail on a boat, I can say, just as Max Boyce once famously said, that I was there
However, it isn't all doom and gloom here just now. As I gaze over the roof of the Dodge to Cap Tourmente and the ski slopes of Le Massif, I realise that here on the car park of a restaurant that is still closed for the season, I'm well-sheltered from the easterly winds by a handy hedge, there's a beautiful view out across the river, and there's no-one around to bother me
I'm thinking to myself that this may well be a very likely spot in which to spend the night.
So spend the night I did.
In the past I've been woken up by cars, trains, buses, trams, aeroplanes, all that kind of thing, but this is the first time in my life that I've been woken up by a ship.
Yes, at some silly time of the morning not long after dawn, the Atlantic Superior, belonging to the Canadian Steamship Lines, came clattering, banging and rattling past my comfy little spec on its way to somewhere but I'm not quite sure where, because it disappeared from the United Nations marine database that very morning and didn't resurface - "what an unfortunate turn of phrase" ...ed - until sometime in September in the St Lawrence near Sorel-Tracy.
Now that I'm wide awake, I can stick my head outside the Dodge and have a good look around. And there can't be too many nicer places than this in which to wake up. I wonder what it will be like when the sun comes up.
But last night was impressive. After a quick evening meal and an hour or so working on my notes and photographs, I was out like a light and no-one disturbed me at all after that. My choice of spec was inspired.
After a healthy breakfast of orange juice and bagels with maple syrup, followed by coffee, I hit the road for the ferry back across the river to St Joseph de la Rive.
And a little word of warning here - don't park in the parking spaces on the quay. They aren't for the travellers queueing for the ferry and if a helpful shipmate doesn't come along and knock on your window to point you to the queue that is parked up aongside the wall on the steep downhill slope, you really will miss the boat.
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