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TROIS RIVIERES |
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TROIS RIVIERES |
Horrible, dirty, noisy and smelly.
Still, that's quite enough about me. Let's talk about Trois Rivieres.
Horrible, dirty, noisy and smelly.
That was my first impression of Trois Rivières the first time that I drove past here. All I could see from the Motorway high above the town were a couple of factories belching out clouds of steam that were hanging around in the valley obscuring everything.
The smell too, a smell of wet paper and damp wood, was overwhelming. "What a miserable place in which to live!" I muttered to myself as I drove on by.
It was actually my first time in Canada, late December 2000 in fact. There was snow and ice all over the roads, I was feeling rather unsure of myself, and I was hurrying to catch a ferry. No-one can be at his best in these circumstances.
That's not quite correct. That was not all that I had seen. There was also a magnificent bow-girder bridge crossing the st Lawrence, reminiscent of the legendary "Fog On The Tyne" Bridge between Newcastle and Gateshead or the Runcorn Bridge across the Mersey but on a much, much grander scale and after a couple of years of reflection I began to regret not having taken 15 minutes out of my journey to find a place from which to photograph it. I resolved to return.
In 2010 on my way to Labrador I drove once more past Trois Rivières, but on the south side of the river and despite an immense amount of searching, could I heck find a decent spec to take a decent photo of the bridge. This was what inspired me to return in 2011 and do the job properly.
In 2012 and 2013 I was retracing the route of the Chemin du Roy along the north bank of the St Lawrence River. Trois Rivières was actually a staging post along the road and so I came here again. I merged a few photos from those voyages into the relevant texts, hence you'll find that this becomes something of a merged visit.
Anyway, all I can say in conclusion was "just how wrong can anyone's first impressions be?"
I had a lot of other things planned for the area too when I was here in 2013 but sitting on the Platon on Sunday afternoon, I had some news that resulted in a dramatic change of plan and knocked my timetable all out of shape.
It seems that one of the daughters of my niece has crashed her little car. She is now really stuck, having just created a little business about 15 miles away from home and she takes possession of her little premises next weekend. She is going to need as much help as possible, and so what are Uncle Eric's plans from next Friday onwards?
Well, it seems that Uncle Eric's plans are now to go and give Zoe a hand, and Les Forges de Saint Maurice, Shawinigan, St Tite and La Tuque will have to wait for another time.
there will be a 2013 index here in due course
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