Airstream Time

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69℉ at 4:00am and raining hard

Thursday, September 8, 2016

It rained hard all day and night. The internet at this campground has been very spotty, and if you want more than an hour you have to pay $10/device. It’s a very nice campground, well-maintained, clean with nice hiking trails and close to Tadoussac. They just need to improve the WIFI. I continue to have trouble with my Mac connecting to some WIFI’s. There is something a few networks do that my Mac doesn’t like. I have looked at all the settings and read on the net, but I can’t figure it out. 

It was a good day to watch one of the movies we bought in Dolbeau, “Dark Places “ with         Charlize Theron. It’s a captivating movie, but we only watched half, saving the other half for later. By 10:30 I was stir crazy, so we decided to drive north to Les Escoumins and have lunch at the restaurant Lillian drives out of her way to go to, Pecherie Manicouagan. How truckers drive these roads in good conditions is a wonder to me, but in fog and heavy rain, they just keep zooming along. Even without the trailer, I was driving slow. Of course the scenery makes you slow down on this stretch. Beautiful lake followed beautiful lake. Martha was drooling to kayak any one of them, but Lac Jimmy seemed the prettiest. The clouds were so low, they hung across the mountains. I love that look. 

First stop was a Boulangerie (bakery) by the airport in Grandes-Bergeronnes the “chatty guy” had told Martha about. He also said there was a great whale-watching area behind the airport. The Boulangerie was cute and the lady was very nice, speaking good English. We loaded up with a small pizza with bacon, caramelized onion and sharp Canadian cheddar, some sweet rolls for breakfast and a loaf of bread, shaped like a butt (pain d’fesses). Then we drove behind the airport to a beautiful park with picnic tables lining the water’s edge, surely a great place to watch whales, but we didn’t see anything. 

We took a turn too soon into Les Escoumins and ended up exploring the town down to the Ferry that takes will take you across the St. Lawrence to  Trois-Pistoles. This part of town is native Innu, and we need to come back and explore. Finally arriving at the restaurant, we ordered a glass of wine while studying the extensive seafood menu. So hard to choose! I chose a seafood lasagne with a Ceasar’s salad while Martha ordered clam chowder and smoked salmon. It was reasonably busy for a rainy day, just a bit past tourist season. The service was good and the food was excellent. With windows all around, we enjoyed looking across the bay at the small town. Rt. 138 goes right through town. There is a pretty good-sized Marche (market), so we would have to come back tomorrow. 

Stopping back in Tadoussac, we found a beautiful view of the harbor from the top of the mountain. We decided on desert at the Gelateria. A very nice young lady named Majorie helped us. There was no one else in the shop, so we struck up a conversation as she asked where we were traveling and where we were from. We said we couldn’t decide on where to go next – to continue northeast, to cross the St. Lawrence or to go back to pick up Haute Gorge National Park. She used to work at Haute-Gorge and she loves the park. Otherwise she said she hadn’t traveled northeast much, or across the St. Lawrence. Really! I was thinking she just lives in this little town and never leaves. Many people are like that and are perfectly happy with it. It certainly is a beautiful place. Then she told us about going to Chiapas, Mexico and spending two months in the mountains, going to California and New York State and planning a trip now to Peru! We had a great conversation about all these places until more customers came in and we said our goodbyes. 

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Exploring Tadoussac was the adventure of the day, so we started at the Visitor’s Center where a very nice lady told us where to go and what to see. Martha commented about her ability to write upside down so we could read as she talked. We walked a wooded path to the Marine Environment Discovery Center and Escoumins (lookout point). For $11 each we took the tour. The best thing about the center are the lookout rocks outside, where we saw more Belugas and one big whale. Then Martha hit the shops while I sat outside. An hour later, we had covered the town. While sitting outside one shop, I noticed a local girl leaving a small quick food shack with a paper cone of what looked like fried shrimp. Later we would sample what turned out to be calamari fritters, and they were excellent. Right behind it is a gelateria (gellato) that also serves expresso. We just peeked in for a look, and it looked just like ones we saw in Italy. We decided to return after dinner. 

Driving north past our campground, we found the Dunes de Sable that the Visitor’s Center lady suggested. This was a happening! I felt like we were in California or maybe the Baja Peninsula, or maybe a drive-in movie. People were parked along the edge of high, steep cliffs of sand overlooking a beautiful cove. The tide was out, and there was a steady flight of what seemed like thousands of seagulls or terns flying into the beach. We were up so high, they were dots below us. The wind was blowing hard, but people didn’t seem to mind. Some backed their cars in and then put the trunk up. Then they set up chairs behind and had their lunch with the car and trunk lid acting as a wind break. Others parked sideways and took out their chairs. Campers were parked along a tree line, and people were walking down the steep hill to the beach. I put on all the layers I had and walked to the edge of the cliff. I decided I could make it down to the beach, but I would need a chairlift to get me back up the long, steep climb. We ate our lunch in the car and people-watched half the time and beach-watched the other half. Apparently, this is a huge bird-watching area – seabirds, ducks, geese, forrest birds and migrating hawks. At the far end, we took a trail that wound its way to the beach. It wasn’t too bad getting back up. 

We returned to the Visitor’s Center to get better WIFI and take care of some business. We decided to return to the Dunes for cocktail hour. By then, the tide was back in and it was raining, giving it a much different look. Still, people came and went. We watched a young family come up from the beach. They were huffing, but they made it. At the far end, a fellow had a small fire going. People came and went, but some were there for the night, one building up sand in front and back of his tires, I guess so the wind wouldn’t blow him off the cliff. It is an incredible spot.

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There was a hike with a view in our campground, so after breakfast we set out for a nice stroll and a view. At the beginning of the trail was a rock with the unfamiliar word, Hèbertisme, written on it.  After walking up the side of the mountain, we came upon a beautifully mulched trail with a series of challenges built from logs and rope. Kids of all ages would love this. Whoever built this is very talented, and they put a huge amount of work into it. There are also signs explaining the challenges and why they might be useful. For instance in pioneer or native american days, they might be used to cross rivers, creeks or canyons. There are also many signs to educate about plants and trees and their uses. Don’t miss this if you are in Tadoussac!

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60℉ at 4:00am

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

We decided to move to Tadoussac to take the whale cruise while we had some good weather. It is supposed to rain pretty hard Thursday. We love this campground and this area, so we hate to leave. The termite farm helped make the decision. It’s only an hour from Petit Saguenay to Tadoussac, but I drove slower to be more comfortable with the Airstream. Rolling hills is an inadequate description. All of these ancient mountains are straight up and straight down, so it’s tough on the truck’s engine going up and it’s brakes going down. 

All traffic going north and south travel 138, and there is no bridge over the Saguenay, so everyone takes the ferry. Two of them work day and night, and it’s free. Everything gets on – RV’s, motorcycles and tractor-trailers, and it only takes 10 minutes to cross. Beluga whales swam all over the river as we waited to cross. I almost took out a truck’s mirror as we pulled up in our lane on the ferry. A man guides you, and he really wants you to pay attention to him. Unloading two one lane from each side of the ferry, it goes pretty quick. OK, now where is that campground? Martha wasn’t paying full attention as she was looking at all the shops and restaurants. I had to bring her back into the moment. 

We found Camping Des Dunes, and they had a site. I had figured we didn’t need reservations as we headed north after Labor Day, but Tadoussac looked like a tourist beach town in summer. It was hopping! Martha told the lady we wanted to take a whale tour and they offered a 5% discount if they booked it. There was nothing open at 4:30, but we could get on at 1:00. It was 12:30. While Martha paid the bills, I went to park the trailer. I missed the spot and had to back up. By the time I got to it, Martha was there to direct me. We quickly unhooked, grabbed a few things and headed back to town, which is only 5 blocks away. The main attraction here is whale-watching, so the street was busy, and the dock was crowded. One man was directing traffic on the dock- tour busses, tractor trailers either delivering or picking up goods, and lots of touristas. We showed him our 1:00 ticket and he guided us into a parking spot, moving a traffic cone. The lady at the campground said they would hold us a spot. I tried to tip this nice man, but he would have nothing of it.

It was a 3-hour cruise, and once we got into the St. Lawrence it was chilly. We put on what clothes we had grabbed. In our haste I did not bring a camera strap, so I tied a strap to my backpack, which carried another lens. Our wildlife viewing luck hasn’t been too good and it continued. We didn’t see anything but seagulls and hundreds of Cormorants for an hour. All the boats talk to each other, and they are on the water all day, so they usually know where the whales are. We had to go all the way across the St. Lawrence to find them. The lady on the loud speaker of course spoke French mostly, but said a few things in English. We didn’t understand a lot. We ended up seeing maybe 5 different kinds of whales. All I could tell was the white ones were Belugas. Some others were big while others were medium-sized. They were feeding so hard, all you really saw was their backs as they came up for air and went right back down. It was fun and the scenery is pretty, but standing on the rail gets pretty cold. As the boat turned around and headed back to port, we went inside to warm up. Martha was enjoying people-watching and the fashion statements, mostly the men who mixed plaids with stripes.

Getting back to camp, we leveled the trailer and started a fire, cooking sweet potatoes, sausages and onions. Oh yea, and beets.

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49℉ at 4:00, high 82

Monday, September 5, 2016

On a day of perfect weather, we went to Anse Saint-Jean. An Anse is a cove and a Baie is a big bay. Driving through town to the end we parked next to a Fjord National Park sign for a hike. While reading, a couple walked by heading up the trail. The lady stopped and gave us all kinds of information about the area, where to go, what the hikes were like as they had been here a few days. Speaking perfect English, they were from Montreal. The husband was obviously a seasoned hiker – very fit with legs that could walk for days. We took her excellent advice, heading across the covered bridge to the top of the hill for spectacular views. Then we took a short hike to a waterfall, but the real story is the houses of this town. They are so incredibly planted with flowers and plants. The style is so quaint, and I love the colors, the shutters and porches. Many have signs explaining the history or the style. You sometimes feel odd photographing someone’s home, but I could spend a lot more time taking pictures of them in this lovely little town. My favorite is the one that sort of looks like a small train station. I have always loved that design.

Back at camp Martha assigned me to cooking beats in a fire. It takes a long time to cook beets in a fire!! Just stick them in the hottest part of the fire and turn them every half hour for two to three hours! Thankfully the local termites stayed in their house. We had bought some things at a tiny shop on the way to the plage (beach), so we had an appetizer of red deer patè on baguette and a great salad with salmon, three kinds of sprouts and mushrooms. Yum!

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It was a cool, overcast day for a trip on the Saguenay in a rubber boat, so we dressed warmly. It was also sprinkling rain. Arriving at the visitor’s center at 1:30 we filled out our paperwork, relieving anyone of any responsibility. A young man introduced himself as our guide, asking where we were from as we walked down to the boat. He lives just the other side of Mont Valin. So here we are in Quebec with a very nice guy who lives nearby, and what’s his name? Rafael! I meant to get the rest of the story, but never did. He did an outstanding job of explaining all the intricacies of the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence that makes this place so special. It is difficult to comprehend all of the water in Quebec – all those lakes and big rivers, but add to that the Great Lakes. All of this water drains into the St. Lawrence River! It is 25% of all the fresh water on Earth. As the glaciers formed this area, they cut what would become the river as deep a the mountains are high, and it is pretty much a vertical drop off. As all of this formed, there was a huge pile up of rock, like a huge bull dozer might make an underwater dam in the Saguenay. The Atlantic and Arctic Oceans are flowing into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and into the river, bringing huge amounts of plankton, krill and other foods that whales and other mammals like to eat, but this food source can’t move past that pile-up in the Saguenay. Therefore, the whales and dolphins don’t come either. Most of this water is also fresh water, with some sea water staying on the bottom layer. But past that pile-up where all that fresh water meets that huge flow of seawater filled with food is a very special place. We can’t wait to take that whale cruise!

There is a story about a man driving a wagon on the Saguenay in the winter where the river freezes 12 deep. He broke through the ice. Praying to the Virgin Mary to save him, he managed to escape. So indebted, he had a huge statue of the Mother Mary carved from pine. It was shipped in pieces up the river, then cut further into 14 pieces so it could be hauled by hand to it’s resting place on the Saguenay where it has survived through sometimes brutal conditions for over 100 years!

As Rafael took the very quiet and smooth -running Yamaha around the bay, he stopped to look at a big vertical rock where climbers were working their way to the top. Apparently it takes about three days for them to make the climb, sleeping on the cliff. I thought walking that ledge was crazy enough! Then along to what looked like a very deep cut in the mountain, Rafael pointed to the other side of the river where there was an identical one. This is a fault where two tectonic plates meet. I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite quotes by Will Durant in the book Krakatoa, “Civilizations exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice”.

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50℉ at 5:30 am, high of 62 and cloudy

Saturday, September 3, 2016

This is a great campground, spread out nicely with grass, two services, WIFI, very clean bathrooms and a nice office. There is an area across the street with the cutest cabins, right on the river. For $100/night you can sleep four. It has the feel of a very nice fishing camp, which it really is. The big draw is salmon fishing, which of course is all over now. July is the big month when 90cm salmon are caught. That’s a three-foot salmon! You can only hook two for the day and you have to turn them loose. Every pool is named, and I’m sure someone is fishing every one. I’m not sure what kind they are, but they happily don’t die, but go back to sea. It looks like it will cost a non-resident about $100/day for the privilege. Just down the road toward town is a spring where you can fill your water bottles.

50℉ at 5:30 am, high 67

Friday, September 2, 2016

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Moving from Camping Lac Jolly, we stopped for roadwork and who happens by coming the other way from playing cards in Chicoutimi, but  Paul and Diane Tremblay! We chatted a few minutes in the middle of the road. I commented that there are a lot of Tremblays in Quebec. Paul said he has written a book on the Tremblays of just this area. It is 97 pages long. What a nice couple! It wasn’t bad driving through Saguenay. You just have to be so alert so you don’t take a wrong turn. Driving a trailer, you have to stay in the right lane, but it is always the bumpiest, and we got caught in a right turn lane, but I went straight anyway, cutting off a couple of motorcycle riders – sorry!

Then driving along the Saguenay is lovely with beautiful farmland and cute little towns. We wanted to stop in one, but there was nowhere to park with the trailer. You can drive the entire length of the Saguenay River in an hour though, so it’s easy enough to drive back. We drove into Parc National du Fjord du Saguenay. It’s a very narrow road leading to the Information Center and follows the most beautiful trout stream, with places to park and fish. We learned at the Information Center that it was now closed for the season as the limits had been met. We signed up for a Fjord zodiac tour tomorrow at 2:00, choosing the warmer part of the day. 

Then we walked down to the bay and took a few pictures. Behind us was a huge rock face, and Martha spotted people on it. They were just dots. We talked with a nice gentleman whose daughter was doing the 6-hour climb up the trail, up a ladder, across the first rock face, across a swinging bridge and on to the other rock face. This is a very popular thing in several parks, and they are always booked. It’s only $77. If someone paid me a million, I might give it a go. The gentleman said he would go, but he was too heavy, so he was proudly watching his daughter. 

We felt fortunate to have any campsite for four nights since it is a big holiday weekend, but now driving to Petit Saguenay, we were apprehensive. Four days in a campground you don’t like is not good. Making the turn to Riviere Petite Saguenay, we got a look at the beautiful river. The water is pretty low. We stopped at what we hoped was the office and went in. There was a big salmon mounted on the wall, and there was a case with flies for sale. Upstairs there were rods for sale. I began to smile. The pleasant lady didn’t speak much English, but with our poor French, we worked it out. Yes, we were booked four nights – whew! Yes, there are two services – tres bien! There is WIFI – yippee. There were people waiting, so I didn’t ask about fishing, but I read a sheet on the wall similar to La Faunique that lists fishermen, what they caught and how much they weighed. I went out to look at the campground as Martha paid the bill. It is nicely-set in grassy, shades sites with plenty of room. I couldn’t stop smiling. 

It took a bit of wrangling to get around the trees and get the trailer straight, but it was worth it. This will be a great spot to spend four days. Maybe we should stay longer. As we studied the brochures, we saw a salmon chute and decided to take a drive to it. A beautiful spot with a fall and a fish ladder, we walked up and down looking for salmon, but saw nothing. Martha said the campground closes in two weeks, so I think the run is over. The scenery driving back is really pretty, with farmland, little mountains and deep valleys gouged out by glaciers thousands of years ago. Back at camp we studied the area over a beer and glass of wine. There is a lot to see and do in this area.