 | CANADA - |
| CANADA - |
LAKES AND CANYONS
On the way out of La Baie,there's a sign informing me that St Siméon is 122 kilometres from here. According to the Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav however, it's going to take me 9 hours 26 minutes to get there. That cant ever be right. I'm in a car, not on a pushbike
I almost immediately pass a mile marker dislaying the figure 120. That's presumably 120 kilometres to where the road that I'm on - Highway 170 - joins Highway 138 so the distances seem to be about right.
So what's going on about the time? Either The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav is having another one of her little aberrations, or else she knows something that I don't ... "and as it happens ..." - ed.
Another thing that I've been mentioning is the overwhelming number of old Jags from the 1980s and 1990s that I've been seeing on my travels. Most of them have been laid up too as if their better days were behind them.
Here's one that happens to be in a convenient spot where I can stop to take a photo. Parked up on a goose-neck trailer so it's probably not being used on the road.
But it is quite surprising that there are all of these old "British Leyland" Jags about, and I can't have seen more than half-a-dozen of the later Ford-built Jags in all the years that I've been travelling around in North America.
Just after kilometre 120 near the village of St Felix d'Otis is a turning to the left in the direction of the Saguenay Fjord - apparently part of the route des Billots, whatever a Billot might be when it's at home, if it ever is, and so I turned off down there for a look. It was a good plan too as it really was a scenic route even though the road surface was thoroughly dreadful.
However, as you are all expecting, for you have travelled about with me for miles and miles through the whole of Eastern Canada, the place is closed up until "next June".
The tourist season hasn't arrived here yet, which is something that I call bizarre. With an increase in active population, especially within the early-retired age group, and the pressure on resources and thus facilities, one would have thought that a concerted campaign would have been launched to bring those people, not dependent upon employment breaks and school holidays, to visit the tourist sites earlier and later in the season.
The local economy would benefit from an extension of the tourist season, and so would the venues and the tourists themselves - those who come out of season and have the facilities to themselves, and those who come at the height of the season and find fewer people fighting for whatever facilities are available.
It shows a total lack of imagination and lack of marketing skills on the part of these Tourist Associations and Tourist Boards.
There's a sign hanging here on the fence telling me that down here is the Site de la Nouvelle France. This is a site that recreates life in a typical Nouvelle France settlement of the 17th Century where costumed actors pretend to be immigrants and show the tourists just what life was like in Nouvelle France back in those days.
It sounded quite interesting and so I parked up the Dodge and set off on foot to see what I could see.
I was quite looking forward to the part of the show where all of the colonists would be brutally tortured and then massacred by the Iroquois - you can't have a genuine recreation of life in 17th Century Nouvelle France without some of that - and I actually made about 50 metres don the road but a passing torrential rainstorm which had appeared out of nowhere ... "divine retribution" - ed ... convinced me that it wasn't such a good idea.
I went back to the Dodge, thinking that that can wait for another day.
While I'm here though, there's another opportunity to add another entry to my competition of "101 Uses For A Redundant School Bus". In the USA buses can only be used on school runs until they reach a certain age ... "the buses, not the school runs" - ed ... and that's probably true in Canada too.
As a result, the entire Continent is littered with redundant school buses and it's quite interesting to see the uses to which these old buses have been put. Some of them have been quite innovative.
In case you haven't already noticed, we have left way behind us the agricultural zone of Lac St Jean and we are now back in the mountain passes that roughly follow the course of the Saguenay Fjord back to Highway 138 near St Siméon.
If you are into mountains and passes and lakes and all of that kind of thing, you won't be disappointed by the views along this road. This is what it looks like at kilometre marker 98.
This particular lake is called Lac Long and it certainly lives up to its name as it seems as if I've been driving alongside it for a week.
But what are these aircraft doing here? I could maybe understand them being here it if they are seaplanes, or lake planes even. And that was what I was expecting them to be when I first saw them.
But they aren't, are they? Unless I'm missing something of course.
I'm intrigued as to how they have arrived here and, furthermore, how the owner plans to have them take off again. There has to be a story behind them and had there been anyone around to ask, I would have enquired. But the place is as empty as my bank account currently is.
If you can throw any light on this, please .
And so we continue our travels along Highway 170 back towards Highway 138 and the St Lawrence River and round about kilometre marker 88 we finally enter the mountain pass or canyon or whatever you would like to call it.
It's very much like the valley of the riviere Ste Marguerite that we followed on our way into here, but of course that is on the eastern side of the Saguenay Fjord.
Absolutely everywhere is worth stopping to photograph and the fact that there are so few photographs of the spectacular scenery is nothing to do with the quality of the view but simply a question of being able to stop the car safely, clear of the roadway.
That's not always possible because, unlike Europe, there are very, very few lay-bys at the side of the road in North America and so quite often you are taking your life into your own hands when you stop.
There's a small town along here called Riviere-Eternite and from here there's a narrow road signposted down to Baie-l'Eternité.
Where there's a bay there's usually a considerable body of water to go with it and round here, that can only be the Saguenay Fjord. Consequently, I set off down there, travelling Eternity Road as the Moody Blues so eloquently put it, singing to myself the part of the lyrics that go "what will you find there?"
First thing that we find is another helping of spectacular mountain pass or canyon scenery.
Second thing that we find is some of the local fauna coming along to greet us.
My travelling companion, Strawberry Moose, is extremely pleased to be greeted in this fashion and bearing in mind a recent news report , goes off to do his bit.
And what can I say? Apart from the fact "and where's mine?"
There's a car park right down at the far end of the road and there's not as much space on there as you might think because there are all of these sheds scattered all over the place.
You'll notice the towing hitches on them and a closer inspection will show you that they are mounted on runners, not on wheels.
That can only mean one thing. These are probably fishing cabins and in the winter they are probably towed out onto the surface of the frozen lake so that fishermen may fish through iceholes in the snow.
That thought sent a chill down my spine, especially when I learnt that the ice can be as much as one metre thick from January to mid-March.
Parking up the Dodge, I walk down to the water's edge. We are indeed at the Saguenay Fjord. This is the Baie Eternite and it's two kilometres across to the other side.
Even though today is dark and gloomy and the sun has disappeared, you can still appreciate the spectacular view.
The two headlands that mark the entrance into the bay are Cape Eternite, measured by some at 350 metres and others at as much as 549 metres, to the right, and the 348 metres (or 518 metres, depending upon whose book you read) of Cap Trinite to the left. Yes, They Still Call Me Trinity
My friend Malou from Luxembourg would really love the walk around here. It's the Sentier Notre Dame Kapatakan or something like that anyway, and follows the side of the fjord for a distance of a mere 215 kilometres
It passes along the top of Cap Trinite where, right on the top, you can see a statue of Our Lady of the Saguenay - a large white statue of the mother of Jesus that was erected in 1881.
So that was an interesting detour, wasn't it? And even Strawberry Moose loved it too, but for completely different reasons than me.
And it's a good job that we didn't come here yesterday, because the place would have been closed. Today is the first day that is has been open for the tourist season.
Another thing that I should mention is that the signage back down there was bilingual. I'm continually going on ... "ad nauseam" - ed ... about how the Government of Quebec and, by extension, the Quebec Tourist Board totally ignore the Anglophone tourists by their extremist monolingual policy, something that is responsible for driving away Anglophone tourists (and their dollars) by the millions.
That's certainly not the case here, so chapeau to whoever has organised the bilingual signs.
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