 | CANADA |
| CANADA |
BAIE JOHAN BEETZ
Well, wasn't harve St Pierre nice then?
A couple of miles further on, the landscape changes dramatically and you can tell what we have encountered the sub-arctic tundra or taiga or whatever.
But don't you think that this look like the upper end of Labrador, on top of the plateau between Red Bay and Cartwright ? I was quite struck by the coincidence but then again I did mention a short while back that I was convinced that the climatic zone was about to change.
This is kilometre 1232 and it's a bit relentless up here, isn't it?
You can tell that this is quite a modern road, long and straight, stretching for miles right across the horizon as far as the eye can see.
You'll also notice the snow poles. They are about 2 metres high, with red reflectors in the nearside and yellow reflectors on the offside (the colours are reversed on the revese side of the pole, of course).
It's easy to imagine just how wicked the wind would be here on a bad day and how much it would blow all of the snow about. The snowdrifts must be incredible and so it's no wonder that they have the snow poles like they do.
One thing that I forgot to do was to change the CD in the Dodge's music player at lunchtime. What I've been doing up to this point is to play the same CD in the afternoon and the following morning (and if I don't like the CD that much I shouldn't have brought it with me) and the one that I had on just now is a CD that I made of the Santana "Sight and Sound" concert from 1977 that I taped when I was living at 143A Nantwich Road.
Anyway, it's such a superb concert that it's not a problem to let it go round again. I love this concert and I'll never grow tired of it. I just wish that I could find a proper CD of it.
On a totally different note (seeing as how we were just discussing music) I've been noticing that many road signs here indicate that something is "230 metres away".
That's such an odd figure to see, and I reckon that it's a throwback to pre-metric days where something would have been "250 yards away". They left the posts in the original place and simply metricated the distance.
Just after here , at about kilometre 1252, we come to Projet Romaine. This is another hydro-electric project - a series of barrages numbered, quite imaginatively, Romaine 1, Romaine 2, Romaine 3 and Romaine 4.
Work started here in 2009 and Romaine 1 is well under way, with work on Romaine 2 having also been started.
I've actually seen the project summary for this hydro-electric system and one of its subsidiary aims is to open up the interior of this part of Quebec. There will be a circular road stretching 150 kms into the area around the dams, and that will "provide new opportunities for fishermen and hunters", and, doubtless, those persons engaged in mineral exploitation.
I did ask if I could go up to see how the work was getting along but a very polite and charming female security guard told me that it wasn't possible just now.
She said that if I were to come back in June something might be arranged, but I'll be long-gone from here by then unfortunately, no matter how temptimg the idea sounds.
But she did put me right about something else that I wanted to know. Regardless of what my mobile telephone is trying to tell me, we are now actually in the New Brunswick - Maritime time zone. Things apparently change at the 50th parallel.
I knew that the 50th parallel was going to be significant.
Now this is something that I find totally ironic.
Here we are at kilometre 1253 still within the confines of the properties belonging to Québec Hydro, with a hydro-electric plant in the course of construction, and here is a street light at the junction that is solar-powered.
If you look closely at the lamp, you will see that the bulbs inside are LEDs. It's impressive that the world is slowly starting to pick up on ideas that I've been putting into practice for at least 15 years.
Here's something else that we have discussed before at considerable length. When we were up in Labrador in 2010 .
When they've been building or repairing roads up in this part of the world they've been grubbing out at the sides of the roads to give motorists a better chance of spotting moose before the latter scramble into the roadway. What's been growing back hasn't been the conifers as you might have expected, but some kind of deciduous scrub.
It does make me wonder what the climax forest here might have been before man's intervention, and I would love to have seen a close description of the trees that were in the hold of that Greenland boat that had been "to fetch lumber from Markland" in 1347 and ended up in an Icelandic harbour.
While we are talking about Labrador ... "well, one of us is" - ed ... this is the kind of view that we were seeing all over the interior of the province. If we didn't have the sea in the background of the photograph, this could be anywhere up there. It's a classic view of what is described as "sub-arctic tundra"
However, I'm not too sure about the framework of the tipi. I wonder what that has been doing here.
Another thing that we talked about at great length up in Labrador was the practice of bridging streams and gulleys by throwing a galvanised steel culvert down into the gulley and piling rocks on top to make up the level.
I mentioned that this was a very short-term measure of false economy, and when we were in Newfoundland a little later we saw exactly what happens when the shot-term measure runs out of time.
Here, however, the people repairing this road have clearly been reading my notes, for what we have here at kilometre 1279 is a corrugated plastic tube being used as a culvert. It's all happening there isn't it.
When we left Havre-St-Pierre earlier this afternoon, I mentioned that our next stop would be at Baie-Johan-Beetz, and here we are at last.
First thing that I notice is the huge aerial in the background. Is that a Loran C? You may remember from our drive down Iceberg Alley to visit St Lewis, the farthest eastern permanent settlement on the Canadian mainland that we've talked about these before, so let's talk about Baie-Johan-Beetz instead.
This area was settled by someone named Joseph Tanguay, who built his little settlement at Petit-Watshishou, 9 miles to the east, in 1862 as a fishing camp for salmon and trout.
Regular followers of this rubbish don't need to be told what happened to that settlement in June 1868, but for the benefit of new readers who have yet to come to grips with everyday life in Quebec, a conflagration destroyed all of the buildings and everything in them. Tanguay was cleaned out and returned home to his parents.
In 1869 he returned to this bay, called in those days Piashtebai, and settled here permanently. This is where he founded his family and eventually ended up with seven children.
In 1897, the Belgian naturalist (not naturist - it's rather too cold for that) Johan Beetz, came to the bay. He fell in love with the area and also fell in love with Adela, one of the granddaughters of Tanguay. They married and settled here.
Beetz went on to found the Zoological Society of Quebec and in 1919 his name was given to the bay.
Given the original name of the settlement, it's no surprise to learn that the river here is called the riviere Piashti and until quite recently most of the fishing rights along the river banks were owned by groups of American fishermen. There are certain parts of the river that are reserved exclusively for fly-fishing and I bet that that isn't easy. It's hard enough trying to catch fish.
It wasn't until the early 1990s that the road reached Baie-Johan-Beetz. Prior to that, the only connection with the outside world was by coastal boat.
If this isn't bad enough, there was no harbour here until 1970 when this one was built. Prior to that date, the coastal boat anchored offshore and everything destined for the port, even the passengers, had to be passed down onto a skiff to make it ashore. Made of stern and rugged stuff, the inhabitants of Baie-Johan-Beetz.
During the period 1970-1972 they tried an experiment by running a hovercraft between Baie-Johan-Beetz and other places along the north shore. Hovercrafts need much less in the way of port facilities - any ship-launching ramp that is wide enough will do the job, and a hovercraft can also pass over the ice without any particular trouble. I understand that there's still a hovercraft service somewhere futher down the Gulf.
Offshore fishing is still the main occupation of the 95 inhabitants, and that's the refrigerated lorry from the processing plant at Havre-St-Pierre come to take away the catch.
But talking of the inhabitants, 95 is an increase from a few years ago when just 80 die-hards lived here. But it's still a long way short of the peak population of 241 who lived here in 1966.
Like everywhere else the whole world over, rural depopulation and the flight to urban areas in search of better working and living conditions has hit this area hard. People leave for the highly-paid jobs in the city or in the oil-rich westen provinces, the kids go off to school and don't ever come back, and the old folk leave for the Old People's Home in Havre-St-Pierre as families and rural solidarity break down.
While I was here, this little verandah caught my eye. And doesn't it open up all kinds of possibilities for me?
So much so that when I finally built my outdoor solar shower at home a couple of years later, the inspiration was quite obvious . It's amazing what you can conjure up with a couple of demi-chevrons and a couple of sheets of corrugated plastic.
Especially out here when I imagine that a verandah on the outside of the house is essential in the depths of winter.
A short way futher along the road I came to a bridge that carries Highway 138 over the riviere Pontbriand. There's a parking place here off the side of the road that's quite convenient because there are a few things worth seeing.
My little eye was caught by the waterfall here. It's only a small one compared to some that we saw yesterday morning but still worth a look.
As an aside, you'll note the modern bridge. I couldn't see a date on it but the road didn't arrive here until the early 1990s and so that will give you an idea of when it was probably built.
There's also a scenic view - a belvedere here. And while the vedere isn't as belle as some that we have seen, it's belle enough for us to sit here at a picnic table and watch the man out there in his boat doing a spot of fishing.
You'll probaby notice from the light that the day is drawing on. I spent quite a lot of time at Havre St Pierre this morning catching up on my e-mails and uploading a ton of photos and so I haven't accomplished too much.
I don't know what is farther on along the road and this place looks comfortable enough, so here I'm going to stay for the night. It has everything that I need for me to be fairly comfortable.
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