La belle province

Travels East :  Day 1 - 4, through Québec, La belle Province

After a quick stop in Toronto to drop off some things Liz and family needed for their trip to Lindsay, we got onto the 401 and kept on going to autoroute 40 in Québec with a couple of rest stops along the way. We managed to manoeuver our way through Montreal in rush hour without taking any wrong turns and stopped at le Marquis RV park, Saint-Sulpice on the north shore of the St. Lawrence river for the night.  Nice quiet campground with all services overlooking the St. Lawrence river. Our neighbour had an interesting mode of transportation. The main shipping lane was behind the island across from the RV park as we did see one freighter slipping by.

Our neighbour at Saint-Sulpice

St. Lawrence River

Day 2 was less of a drive, from Saint-Sulpice to Québec City, via Trois-Rivières on the north shore. We parked our roulette (trailer) at Coop Camping St-Esprit just east of Québec City and drove into the Old City via autoroute 440, which runs along the shore of the river (very impressive).  Unfortunately the weather turned a little showery, but we did walk around the city wall, over to the Château Frontenac, the Promenade, the Citadelle, the Plains of Abraham, and the Québec Legislature building. From the Promenade there is a great view upstream and downstream of the river, the ferry to Lévis on the south shore, and the Bridge to the île d'Orléans  What we missed was the Rue de Petit-Champlain as we did not go down the stairs or funicular to the base of the cliff. 

Chateau Frontenac

Entrance to the Citadelle

View from the Promenade

Day 3.  Continuing on autoroute 40 and then onto Route 138, we stopped to visit the shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, an impressive church dedicated to the grandmother of Jesus. It is the oldest pilgrimage site in North America (a shrine has been on this site for 350 years). The current Basilica was built in 1923 and is quite awe-inspiring with two towers, sculpted copper doors, mosaic floors, stained glass windows, and in particular a ceiling which has amazing artwork depicting the history of Ste-Anne. 

Ceiling of the Basilica

Door to the Basilica

Front of the Basilica

Sideview of Sainte Anne-de Beaupre

Back on the road again which became very hilly, with occasional magnificent views of the St. Lawrence we drove to towards Tadoussac where the road stops and everyone boards a ferry across the Saguenay River to continue their journey east.  Stopping at Portneuf-sur-Mer for gas for the truck, we also took a break for some ice cream, and no I didn't eat them both. 

We arrived in Baie-Comeau in the late afternoon, and found the information bureau at the harbor.  There was a ship being loaded with large rolls of paper from the nearby Abitibi/Bowater paper mill.  Four freighters were waiting in the sheltered bay to either load or unload their cargo at a nearby ore terminal (could have been bauxite for the aluminum processing plant at Jonquier/Chicoutimi).  This is where we turned off Route 138 onto Highway 389, a partly paved/partly gravel scenic route of 562 Km to Fermont (QC), changing to Hway 500 at the border with Labrador 8 Km further on.  There is limited gas available on this route so we made sure we topped up the gas tank wherever it was available.

We stopped for the night at Manic-2 campground, just past the Manic-2 Dam and Hydro-electric generating station.  We could hear the hum from the campground which was situated on a small lake with a sandy beach.  The campground owners lived in a typically Québeçois house with the curled gables which is needed for all the snow they get in the winter.