TROIS RIVIERES

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Having had a good wander around the old part of the town, it's time to head into the more modern part. By the beginning of the Nineteenth Century the town was a thriving industrial centre with 2500 people living here. Industry brought prosperity to the town and there was the arrival of a Palais de Justice, a Bishops' Palace, consulates, banks, a railway station, all that kind of thing. Many of the original houses were replaced by more substantial properties to reflect the new wealth of the owner.

But I'm not expecting to find too much of any great importance though, because there was a desperate conflagration here in 1908, just like everywhere else in Canada at one moment or another, and the business half of the town disappeared, along with 800 buildings.

Usually, in these circumstances and particularly when you are coping with winter weather conditions such as the kind that arise here, all kinds of buildings are quickly thrown up "any old how" without regard to architectural niceties.

Certainly what you see here, on the north side of the Place Pierre Boucher, does nothing to dispel any such thoughts. It's rather a disappointment.

The things that I had been reading about the place is that these days it is an important town of paper, pulp, metallurgy and all that kind of thing. There has been something of a population explosion and the town had expanded considerably. By 1984 there were 50,000 people living here and it is said that about 25% of the labour force works in the paper industry. It's that kind of report that had put me off visiting the place in the past.

Looking down the main street, whatever it might be called, in the general direction of the pulp mill that we saw earlier, this rather blurred photo (and I've no idea why that should happen just here) does nothing to allay my negative thoughts about the place.

In fact, I'm rather glad that I came into town along the river and discovered the Parc Portuaire first. Quite frankly, had I seen this part of the town first, I would have been inclined not to stop.

But stop I did, and I also stopped just here in 2013 where I could retake the photo and show you how it should really looK when the camera is in focus.

With it being party time, there are many more people out and about in the street too so the place has much more ambience than it did back in 2011.

The Place Pierre Boucher does have an interesting side, and this is the view back down to the river looking towards where I have been and what is described as the "Arondissement Historique de Trois Rivieres".

The impressive building in the background, in the Classical style and which can therefore only be a Government building, is in fact the local Post Office, would you believe?

The square itself is something of a mess and there is so much that could be done with a place like this. The town seems to think so too and there is currently a programme of renovation under way, at a cost of $3,500,000 so I am told. It's not long started, apparently, and they hope to finish it before winter 2012 arrives.

I didn't take much notice of it when I was here briefly in April 2012 but in August 2013 it looked no different from the 2011 photo, except that the protective fencing and the bollards had been removed. With all the time and all of the money that had been spent on it, I was expecting something magnificent. I can't understand what took them so long.

The monument that you see in the centre of the square is called le Flambeau or "the Flaming Torch" (but not a "Blasted Flashlight") and is inscribed hommage au Jeunesse Trifluvienne (Trifluvienne being what the inhabitants of Trois Rivieres call themselves) heros de la Petite Patrie 1634 - 1934 "je me souviens" or,in other words, "Homage to the youth of Trois Rivieres, heroes of the little motherland 1634 - 1934, I remember".

It's said elsewhere that despite the sabre-ratting, it's a monument to celebrate the tricentennial of the city and everything that I have ever seen written about le Flambeau, "this astonishing obelisk" as one writer who has clearly never been more that 10 kilometres out of the city in his life described it, proudly announces that it is illuminated at night, as if that is of some real significance in the city. Mind you, having seen the price of electricity here, maybe it is.

And that does put me in mind of the famous English-language press release issued by the Paris Municipal Authorities in the late 1970s and which a copy fell onto my desk, seeing as I had some involvement with road passenger transport back then.

The press release proudly announced, with no hint of irony, that
"the policeman who directs the traffic in the centre of the Arc de Triomphe will from now on be floodlit to make sure that motorists do not miss him in the dark"

By the way, Je me Souviens is the slogan of Québec and the major problem of the Québecois is that all they ever do is to remember, to such an extent as we have seen before and we will doubtless see again, that many of the Québecois have tended to sink deep into, well, self-pity, to such an extent that they aren't noticing that the world has moved on and passed them by.

It was said of the Bourbon Kings that they "learnt nothing and remembered everything" and on certain occasions and in certain circumstances no finer description of much of what I have seen of some (but not all, of course, I hasten to add) of the Québecois mentality can be found. And if you think about it deeply, even the time of this description - the mid-18th Century - is quite appropriate.

Remembering is one thing, but being obsessive is quite something else; My own opinion is that some people should put their history into a nice comfortable compartment where they can see it and touch it, and then move on and deal with the present, in exactly the same way that many Brits need to accept the fact that the UK is no longer a major world power but merely another insignificant offshore island.

Meanwhile, back at the ran ... errr ... place, there's a sign informing us that snow rules apply in the town from 15th November until 15th April. Presumably that relates to the regulations about parking your car in the street at night and all that kind of thing.

There's a cathedral here in Trois Rivieres. It was designed by Victor Bourgeau and dates from the 1850s, being consecrated in 1858. The first Bishop was someone called Thomas Cooke, who of course went on to abandon the church and open a chain of travel agents - "are you sure about this?" ...ed.

The cathedral looked nothing like this when it was opened. We had the usual problem of peoples' eyes being bigger than their bellies, and the money ran out before they reached the spire. That wasn't added until 1905.

While I was walking back up from the Palais de Justicein 2013, I found myself with a view of the cathedral from the rear and so I thought that I would add that to the collection.

If, by the way, you are wondering why the spire of the cathedral is coloured green, I have to say that that was not the original intention. It's because it's actually covered in copper and the copper has discoloured with prolonged exposure to the atmosphere.

In the background of course is our Pont Laviolette.

At the side of the cathedral and slightly behind the street line in the Bishops Palace. In front of the Palace is a statue, but it's not to Thomas Cooke but in fact to Bishop Louis-François Laflèche, 1818-1898, who was bishop here from 1870 until his death. One can only imagine that Thomas Cooke had set off on his travels by 1870 but as for the claim to fame of Laflèche that he merits a statue, you will find out a little further down the page.

There are two verses from the Bible carved here on the statue -
"he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor" Luke 4:18, and
"the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared" from Titus 3:4.

I think though that were I in the business of erecting monuments and quoting Titus, I would go for Titus 3:1, 3:2 and 3:3, verses which are far more appropriate and which continue to apply today, even within the organisation of the Church.

Opposite the cathedral and the Bishops Palace is a public park. This is the Parc Champlain and around it are congregated most of the civic buildings and an art gallery.

This looks quite pretty and it seems to be quite a popular spot for some relaxation, especially in this nice weather that we are having today. There are loads of people hanging around and it's just become swamped with a mass of schoolkids eating sandwiches and chips and the like.

Schoolkids on their lunch break? Yikes! That means that it's midday at least and my parking meter ran out 10 minutes ago. I need to get myself weaving. And I bet there is tons of stuff that I will have missed as well. I can't believe what an interesting place Trois Rivieres is.

As I leave that park, I walk past a certain spot where there is that honey smell again. It must be a plant of some description. E- if you know what it is.

On the way back to the Dodge, I come across this nice white house just here. It's not the original house on this site - that was built in 1668 by Jacques le Neuf, Lord of la Poterie and was a two storey house built en colombage.

The property passed in 1729 to François Chastelain and it is he who is responsible for the building that we see today. He died in 1761 and the property passed to his son-in-law Claude-Joseph Boucher, Sieur de Niverville and whose name the building carries today.

Not that it's anything to do with history or to do with Trois Rivieres, but if you are a car scrapyard scavenger as I am, when did you last see a rotten car in Europe? Back in the 1970s and 1980s I was always welding up sills and wheel arches, and that kind of thing. But the last time I did any welding on a motor vehicle was in 1998 when I had to weld up the exhaust on the Passat, and that only because we were going on holiday early next morning.

I haven't had to do any welding in years and I can't think of the last time that I saw a rotten car on the road in Europe. Yet here parked upin Trois Rivieres is a modern F150 pick-up, and the whole left-side sill is rotting away.

These F150s aren't cheap either. I was quoted over $50,000 or so last year for a 4x4 version. I wouldn't be very happy at all if it were to end up like this after a couple of years.

But this is strange. In Europe it is almost always the kerb-side that rotted away first on a car, due of course to the salty water lingering in the gutter. Here though, this is the side at the centre of the road. How bizarre! I wonder what the reason is for that.

But no time for that now. There's still plenty to do.

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