← PreviousDiscovering the Saguenay Fjord: an unforgettable day11 October 2019
When was the last time you truly experienced silence? In the middle of that stretch of water, we couldn't hear a single sound. No car in the distance, no raised voices, not even the breath of the wind. We were floating in a canoe on Lac Édouard, and getting there hadn't been easy. The first boat we'd been given had a small hole we hadn't noticed at first. We'd had to turn back in a hurry when we realised water was seeping in at a worrying rate. Picture us paddling flat out to reach the shore before our canoe sank into four-degree water. Before setting off again in another canoe, we checked carefully that it didn't leak, then off we went. The weather was fine, almost warm, and we glided stroke by stroke across a splendid lake surrounded by forests in autumn colours. It was the postcard image of Canada, the one we'd dreamed of before coming, and at last we were there.
If we were resting in our little boat, which rocked at the slightest movement, it was because we'd walked again that morning. The Ruisseau-Bouchard trail in La Mauricie National Park offered prime views of Lac du Solitaire and Lac aux Chevaux before following the stream that gives it its name. We took a multitude of photos yet again, and ended up thinking they all looked the same. Every lake or river was ringed by magnificent forest, as it had been since we arrived, but each panorama had something indefinable that amazed us every time.
Setting off again as the sun went down, we crossed the St Lawrence heading east and finally arrived after dark in the little village of L'Avenir. At the end of a long avenue lined with plane trees and an unlit dirt road, we found an old house. Inside, Pascale, a slightly eccentric sculptor, was waiting for us. She lived off her art and Airbnb. The place smelled old, but the atmosphere was warm. In our room, a mattress on the floor with no bed base awaited us for the night, along with a dozen flies.
12 October 2019
That morning we shared breakfast with a retired couple from Saint-François in Guadeloupe. Lovers of Québec and wide open spaces, they came every year at different times to go walking (and cool off). We naturally ended up talking about Guadeloupe, a region we adored and that they'd never left, and how it differs from mainland France. We said our goodbyes, because pleasant as they were, we had to get back on the road. We decided to make a quick stop at Walmart to buy a Canadian SIM card so we could make calls and be reachable if needed.
That "quick stop" turned out to be much longer than planned, nearly 45 minutes. We thought we'd be in and out of the shop in a few minutes, but the Canadian system caught us off guard. Prepaid SIM cards weren't self-service; you had to go through a salesperson. Ours had such a strong accent that we only understood every other word as he explained the different plans. What we did take in was that it was very expensive: 10 dollars for the SIM card, plus 20 dollars for unlimited texts, no internet and 100 minutes of calls, incoming and outgoing. Because yes, in Canada, unless you have a specific option, you also pay when someone calls you. Whereas in France everything is unlimited, here you pay for everything: incoming calls, voicemail, caller ID and so on. The salesman kindly added a free option so we wouldn't pay for incoming calls. Welcome to 2002!
After this stop, longer and costlier than planned, we got back on the road towards the Mont Orford ski resort. For "La Flambée des Couleurs" — the poetic name for the forests' autumn peak — the resort opens its lifts for four weekends so visitors can enjoy the landscape. And it's true that seeing the Eastern Townships plateau from a chairlift was something special. Cassandre was in raptures over the infinite shades of red. We wandered between the various lookouts with panoramas over the surrounding lakes. At the top, the trails were very well laid out, with wooden boardwalks along the mountain, so even people with reduced mobility could enjoy the view. The place was packed, as it was Thanksgiving weekend (the Monday was a holiday) and everyone was making the most of a long weekend with family.
We then went to the Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, a major Québec tourist spot on the west shore of Lake Memphremagog. Expecting a peaceful place, we were once again faced with crowds of visitors. At the car park entrance, staff were even directing traffic. We quickly understood that people weren't flocking there so much to visit the monastery as for pick-your-own apples, a very common practice in Québec. You just went into the orchard, picked as many apples as you wanted and paid on the way out. The abbey was also known for its shop, which sold a wide range of artisanal products (cheeses, ciders, jams, maple products and so on). It all looked delicious, but it was a real anthill inside, and the queue at the tills quickly put us off. Most people were there to shop rather than to visit. There were even Americans, as we were only a few kilometres from the Vermont border, and road signs pointed the way to the United States.
Our hosts for the evening welcomed us in the small town of Farnham around 5 pm, before heading off to a play in which the husband, who was also the town's mayor, had the lead role. The performance was to raise funds for a charity. So we enjoyed their huge, comfortable house all evening in the company of their two dogs.
13 October 2019
It may come as a surprise, but Québec is indeed a wine region. Vines have grown there since the first colonies, but it was only from the 1970s that winemaking really developed, peaking in the 1980s. Since then, Québec wines have won many international medals and techniques have improved over time. Climate change has even made harvests easier in recent years. In 2004 a wine route was created, linking twenty-two vineyards over 140 kilometres, letting lovers of wine and scenery amble from one estate to the next. Our new friends, Patrick and Marie-Claude, as well as inviting us to stay with them that very evening, recommended some vineyards to visit before we left their Airbnb.
We were in the middle of an Indian summer, the temperature was close to twenty degrees, and we set off in T-shirts for our first stop at the L'Ardennais vineyard. A big disappointment for Stéphane, who discovered that the last natives of the Ardennes had left long ago and only the name remained. We then stopped at the Clos Saragnat estate, run by Christian Barthomeuf, a Frenchman who emigrated to Québec and invented ice cider, which has become one of the symbols of regional excellence. This cider, fermented from the juice of frozen apples, is made by the traditional method of cryo-extraction: the apples are left on the trees through the winter to freeze. Once they've been dried by cold, sun and wind, they're harvested when the temperature is around -10 degrees, then pressed. The juice is fermented at low temperature for about eight months, producing the famous ice cider, very concentrated and sweet. Having loved the tasting, we left with a bottle. Some estates also produce ice wine from frozen grapes, but every estate we visited was sold out, victims of their own success. So we didn't get to taste it.
After a lunch break on a sunny terrace in Frelighsburg, a pretty village less than 4 kilometres from Vermont, we stopped at another estate and left with an excellent cider. We went back to Patrick and Marie-Claude's for dinner. They'd invited us to share a meal with a few friends, but we weren't prepared for the horde of kids waiting for us! Six adults and a dozen children — it was a lively atmosphere. Patrick found it funny, whispering that it was a great immersion for us. They all lived in Farnham, and as the next day was the Thanksgiving holiday (Action de grâce, as it's called in Québec), they were making the most of it to celebrate.
Marie-Claude had made "European hot dogs" (which had nothing European about them) and the local wine flowed freely. The evening was different from those we were used to in France: after eating quickly, it carried on mainly in the basement. Patrick explained that because of the winter cold, the large spaces under houses were often turned into living rooms. Theirs had a pool table, a mini-bar and a big projector. We played snooker as a group before moving on to karaoke. We discovered that Québécois are keener than we are on singing in front of a screen. We each took turns choosing a song to sing, and since our hosts were big Brassens fans, we went for a few of his songs. The evening ended with Les Copains d'abord, a perfect way to close a lovely evening.