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.
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| Our neighbour at Saint-Sulpice |
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| 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.
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| Chateau Frontenac |
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| Entrance to the Citadelle |
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| 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.
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| Ceiling of the Basilica |
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| Door to the Basilica |
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| Front of the Basilica |
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| 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.
