 | CANADA |
| CANADA |
GODBOUT - EAST
Having come over on the ferry from Matane yesterday and found myself a place to stay here in Godbout last night, I've decided to go for a ramble this afternoon. I've had a good rest and relaxation this morning and so now I'm feeling fit for (almost) anything.
First, though, I'm feeling fit enough to eat my lunchtime butties.
Here's a nice little pavilion here on the shore, just like a little Chinese pagoda. There are a few of them dotted around here and there. That would seem to be an ideal place to stop for lunch, even if the sides are opened and I'm going to be buffeted about by the wind.
I'm not sure about my book though. The pages are being blown about like nobody's business and so I'm not going to be able to relax here.
Consequently I decide to move on.
And if you have arrived at this page having followed one of our earlier trips and are waiting for the ferry across the St Lawrence, you can pass the time by coming with us too.
Godbout is well-known for its fishing. Not just for salmon from the rivers but also trout, herring, sea-bass, capelin and eels, not to mention the bigger stuff like whales and the like.
That's not just a modern phenomenon either. In fact in 1808 a representative of the Compagnie du Nord-Ouest wrote that Godbout was
"... un des meilleurs postes pour les fourrures et l'huile de phoque ainsi que pour l'abondance du saumon" - "one of the best posts for pelts and seal oil, as well as for the abundance of salmon"
In the old days, the catch was either frozen, sun-dried or smoked ready for transport on board a goelette for the city of Quebec.
Things improved in 1885 when a regular coastal service was established by the Holliday Brothers. They ran a shuttle between Mingan and the city of Quebec, and one of its ports of call was here at Godbout.
These days though, there's a fish-processing plant at Baie-Trinité . And so we have a kind of pier and a boat slipway at Godbout for the convenience of modern fishermen to launch their boats and unload their catch.
It receives quite a bit of use too. Despite what might be happening out on the Grand Banks and other deep-sea and coastal fisheries, there's still a small living to be eked out on the St Lawrence River by a few local fishermen.
Last night when I stuck my head out of the window I'd seen a white light in the shape of a cross shining from somewhere in the hills. Today I can see a cross over there where the light was. I decided that I would go out there this afternoon for an exploration.
It looks as if it's going to be something of a climb up there, but that's misleading. I asked my host about going over there and he told me that there was a path and then a flight of steps right up to the cross. That should make it somewhat easier.
He assured me however that the effort would be well-worth it. He reckoned that there are some really stunning views from up on the top, and so I decided to head off in that direction.
There is a road - the rue Pascal Comeau - which leads down to the far end of the village and when the road peters out, there's a footpath that continues onwards towards the flight of steps.
But never mind the road for the moment. What I'm interested in is the beautiful beach. There's no point whatever in being at the seaside (or the riverside even) and miss out on a walk along a sandy strand.
I'd been down to this end of the town before - and I'd come down here via the road too.
When I'd come over to Godbout the first time - by mistake - on the ferry in 2010 I'd been very impressed with the village, but having caught the wrong ferry, I was in quite a rush and hadn't had the time to stop.
I was passing by in Spring 2012 on my way down to Natasquan and so I decided to call into the village and see what I had missed 18 months earlier. And I wasm glad that I had come back too in order to photograph it for the first time.
But now we are back in September 2016 and unfortunately, there's only so far that I can go along the beach. That's because I find my way blocked off by a river.
The village of Godbout is situated in a sheltered bay and is flanked by two rivers. My perambulations have take me down towards the river on the eastern edge of the town.
Crossing over the river on foot is going to be rather problematic - I have no intention of wading across - and so I need to look for a bridge in the vicinity.
But I don't need to go very far. I simply make my way over to the footpath and there's a bridge there that carries the footpath over the river. The river is the smaller one of the two in the village, and I'll remember the name of it as soon as I've uploaded this page to the website.
But that's enough about this for now. The bridge takes me over the river and along the path, where a friendly neighbourhood dog-walker points me in the direction of the flight of stairs.
The stairs must be the way to the cross but they look as if they go on up for ever and I'm not too well these days. Anyway, the sooner I start, the sooner I can reach the top.
It was pretty tiring climbing all the way up here because there are quite a few steps to negotiate. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and I lost count of the number of steps long before I reached the top.
I do have to say that the view down to the eastern beach at Godbout was stunning from one of my resting positions halfway up the flight of stairs. I bet that the view is even better from the top - at least, it had better be.
There were 403 steps up to the top in fact, according to the number carved into the top step, but whether that included the couple of ramps that were there I really don't know.
They brought me up to the very top where there's a platform from which I could see the cross. It's actually an aerial or antenna support and that was rather disappointing because I was hoping that it might have been a Cartier cross.
There were crosses erected all over the cost of the Gaspé peninsula and the shore of the St Lawrence River to commemorate the places where it is believed that Jacques Cartier landed on his voyages of exploration during the 1530s.
But it goes without saying that if he had landed at every place so claimed, he would still be out there on the St Lawrence River even now.
Meanwhile, here I sat for half an hour or so in the sun to read my book and to catch my breath.
My host was certainly right about the view from the top of the stairs by the cross. That's the view of Godbout right down there with the harbour in centre view. You can see how beautiful the area is here and I'm glad that I managed to make it up to the top of the stairs to see it.
But its a shame that I have the sun shining directly into the lens of the camera. No matter how good your equipment and your technique might be, the camera can never do justice to the view in real life.
I walked back down to the bottom of the stairs. And on the bottom stairs there's the figure of 399 carved upon it. Somewhat different from the 403 carved at the top so something is clearly not correct about the counting.
I continued along the trackway eastwards and soon found myself at a shelter which overlooked a small beach. There's nobody out there on it right now but I bet that it's not so quiet in the middle of summer.
It faces south-to-south-west so it would catch the sun from early afternoon until late evening and there's a spectacular view right across the St Lawrence River to Matane and the wind farm at the back of that town. It's the ideal place to relax with a good book in the middle of August.
But not right now because it's late September and there's a wind. So I carry on walking along the track and come to this beautiful belvedere with another really good view out across the river.
Here I fell in with a yokel who was not only a local yokel but a very vocal local yokel. He spent quite a considerable while chatting to me, telling me all kinds of things about the history of the area.
He also had quite a few things to say about the current political crisis that's unfolding in the United States of America. He's all in favour of building a wall around the USA and keeping the inhabitants within their own boundaries.
He also expressed surprise that my French was so good, that we could have long and involved political discussions like this. And so was I surprised, to be honest. I've been living in Flanders and haven't spoken a word of French for six months except here in Quebec.
While we were busy chatting, I noticed a movement on the horizon and, sure enough, it was our new friend, the F A Gauthier. She had left Matane on the afternoon ferry crossing and was heading our way.
I was rather annoyed by this because had I stayed for another half-hour reading my book in the sunshine up on top of the stairs by the cross, I would have had a grandstand view of her coming into port. And wouldn't that have made a spectacular photograph?
But meanwhile, I continued on with my chat with the vocal local yokel. He told me that he first made the acquaintance of Godbout when he was driving past Highway 138 in 2002 and his car broke down.
While he was waiting for his car to be repaired he had come into the village for a wander around to see what there was and had promptly fell in love with the place, something that I find quite understandable.
Once his car had been repaired, he moved on, but came back later and bought a house here.
Right behind the belvedere where we are standing is a rather large quarry.
It is far from worked out but it seems to have been abandoned. I don't suppose that there's all that much market for the stone around here - I've not seen a single stone-built house in the vicinity
What doesn't help matters is the bridge that I walked over a little earlier. That's not going to support the weight of a heavy lorry loaded up with stones and rocks - and there doesn't seem to be any other convenient way out.
Meanwhile, the F A Gauthier comes steaming ... "dieseling" - ed ... into port, making quite an impressive photograph. And quite right too, because she is quite an impressive ship.
I did mention that she's the first brand-new ferry on the St Lawrence for a good number of years, but I didn?t tell you that she was built in Italy, at the Fincantieri de Castellammare di Stabia shipyard.
And that must have been a major blow to many Canadian shipbuilding companies, and also to John Brown's of Greenock who built many ships for the St Lawrence River ferries in the past.
But anyway, here she is. She is 133 metres long and 22.4 metres wide and although she doesn't look like it, she is displacing about 16,000 tonnes.
She has a a carrying capacity of 800 passengers and 180 vehicles, which means that the queue of unreserved vehicles that used to miss the boat on the Camille Marcoux and which we almost joined when we were here in 2014 may well be a thing of the past.
My vocal local yokel told me that somewhere along the trail out here were the remains of the village's old hydro-electric plant. That sounded to me as if it would be quite interesting and so I set out to see if I could find them and have a good butcher's.
But I was defeated by the steepness of the climb up into the hills and the looseness of the rocks on the trail. By the time that I was halfway up the hill I was going up one pace and sliding down three. When he said that there was a pente raide - a "steep hill", he was not joking. You can see that for yourself in this photo.
Feeling rather disappointed, I decided to call it a day
However, there was a beautiful view back down to the village, the harbour, the docks and the F A Gauthier from where I was standing.
I walked back to my digs via the beach. There weren't many people about at all (I counted two) but it was beautiful along here despite the fact that the wind had sprung up once again.
And I did what I had wanted to do by coming here, which was to have a good wash in the water of the St Lawrence River. It's a rather symbolic gesture that I like to perform on at least one occasion when I'm here.
And I had been looking forward to doing it too. After all, the journey of 2016 might well be the last time that I shall see the St Lawrence River.
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