On Things Along the Way 1

For Photos:  http://willemcoetzee.blogspot.com/2013/08/eerste-fotos.html
                   http://willemcoetzee.blogspot.com/2013/09/fotos-2.html
                    http://willemcoetzee.blogspot.com/2013/09/fotos-3.html

One of the highlights of our stay at Four Mile Creek State Park, New York, was undoubtedly that Fickie and Stella could visit with their daughter and her family on the Canadian side. Andre and Anida are both physicians and have been working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the past 9 years. Andre’s specialty is in Aviation Medicine and he has extensive teaching obligations with his job. Anida’s work is of a more general nature and not full time, enabling her to be with the children after school, which is not integrated with the local system and following a British curriculum.  They enjoy rather generous leave privileges and could this year spend 6 weeks in Canada. Having started out from British Columbia, they were getting towards the end of their excursion by the time they got to Niagara Falls.

This venue is a significant tourist attraction with the view somewhat more attractive from the Canadian side. It certainly is a majestic display of nature at work and raises numerous questions. Laying between the last two of the five Great Lakes of North America on the way to the Saint Lawrence river, which drains Lake Ontario into the Atlantic Ocean over a 1,000 mile course, one  cannot marvel at the massif amount of water and fail to ask how and where did it come about? What is it doing to the understructure; how much is washing away and for how much longer could this continue? We do not want to attempt a treatise on geography, hydrology and more, but when one is in the presence of 21% of the earth’s fresh water, it demands some respect. We have found the Wikipedia presentation on The Great Lakes very informative and in a way supportive of our expectation to dip toes in all 5 of the lakes in the course of our travels. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes ) As for now, we are solidly on our way to get to where it all ends, with the Saint Lawrence reaching the Atlantic. Although we did not address the issue of how shipping past Niagara Falls works, the Welland Canal system is alluded to in the following:  You won't get any closer to a Great Lakes Ship unless you're a sailor yourself! The Welland Canals Centre at Lock 3, Centre's elevated observation platform, lets visitors see ships from around the world as they navigate Lock 3 on their way through the St. Lawrence Seaway System. See the ships climb the mountain from this observation platform. Ships transit the canal from April to December.

Later on we got close to a canal system with historic significance (see below).

We experienced Toronto in its late summer glory.  It wasn’t a first encounter for any of us and since much time has passed since some of the earlier visits, we just went down memory lane.  It certainly is a pretty city with beautiful architecture and other cultural attractions.  Many of these in the downtown area are quite reachable by foot, perhaps not even requiring parking changes for those who are young in years.  However, traffic congestion and road construction are major factors to content with. The Art Gallery of Ontario remains a worthwhile attraction and the Henry Moore exhibition was this time supplemented with a novel music presence.  Music  by Thomas Tallis, arranged  by Janet Cardiff in a celebrated soundscape  Forty-Part Motet (2001),

https://www.high.org/Art/Exhibitions/The-Forty-Part-Motet-By-Janet-Cardiff.aspx  in

the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre. Featuring 40 mounted loud speakers that define a round space, each speaker emits a separately recorded voice singing Thomas Tallis’s 1573 choral composition Spem in Alium. The arrangement of speakers gives participants the opportunity to explore choral music as they would a sculpture, by listening to it in parts and as a whole. Hailed by the New York Times as “deceptively simple, matter-of-fact in its presentation – and so sublime in its effect,” the piece is on special loan to the AGO from New York’s Museum of Modern Art. (As per a news release by the AGO). The eight choirs that provide the 5 different voices certainly made the experience rather riveting and seats were provided within the large circle in which the loudspeakers were placed. However, listeners were free to move around and some paused in front of individual speakers for extended periods of time. Not the kind of thing one runs into that often.

On the edge of China Town, Fickie, Stella and Willem ventured there for lunch (while Susan remained at the AGO) and were intrigued by the many, and often unusual kinds of produce presented in sidewalk stalls. Back at the AGO, we wrapped up our visit by covering exhibits not yet attended and then headed for the lake front area. This was quite attractive and reflected a face lift since the last time we were there. However, the area is plagued by construction work, which made driving shear torture.  Nevertheless, Fickie wanted to scale the CN Tower (previously observed from our camp site across Lake Ontario at Four Mile Creek, NY) but returned to the rest of us down by water’s edge after being discouraged by the waiting line to get up there. 

A day or so later we negotiated the Toronto traffic again, this time to pick up our microwave oven from a repair facility and to visit the Black Creek Pioneer Village and McMichael Art Gallery. The former, www.blackcreek.ca   is a must see and much expanded since our last visit 40 years ago, when we were in the company of  Hans and Glenn  Blokker  –  South Africans temporarily residing in Toronto at the time.  The effort to reconstruct a functioning village with authentic artifacts dating to the time of the Industrial  Revolution, is extremely successful. Deliberate attempts nowadays to discredit Western Civilization and glorify left-behind societies in museum exhibitions all over, could pause for perspective on what brought us to where we are today in a rather short span of time.

The McMichael Gallery is located in a spectacular spacious setting in woods; one would not expect such a place in the midst of ordinary urban neighborhoods. Things have changed in forty years and neither the collection of original drawings for the novel, Maria Chapdelaine, by Louise Hemon, nor any indication of the book itself was in evidence. The book is out of print and the art work in storage, but sporadically makes it back for exhibition, were the answers received. This gallery and so many others in Canada are caught up in the spirit of First People mania, which may blow over in the next forty years. However, the temporary exhibitions of photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Burtynsky were stunning, in addition to a very representative collection of Group of Seven Canadian art that made the visit worthwhile: http://www.mcmichael.com/

The trip from Toronto to Killbear gradually leaves dense urbanization behind and the road is rather good, even with construction work underway. By the time we wanted to stretch legs, it was clear that Ontario highway authorities were not very helpful. Easy accessible pull-offs are rather sparse and the odd road sign is miniscule and seldom placed for timely alert. We ultimately just pulled off the road where the curb widened next to a low rock face.  It turned out that others have done so before. In evidence were stacked stone figurines ( Inuksuk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk ) of Canadian native origin that were frequently seen along highways.

The route moves through landscape that is somewhat varying as for vegetation and human habitation but what caught attention was the wealth of ponds, smaller lakes and streams. Past Parry Sound we veered off onto a progressively dwindling road, leading to Killbear, while often wondering if we were still on the right track. We were, and the rewards were well worth it. Although it provides a huge number of camp sites to a variety of interests and needs, these are so spread out through woods with hiking trails that one was hardly aware of the number and range of users. One could call it rugged for lack of electric, water or sewer hookups, but wash rooms with hot water showers and mostly flush toilets as well as attractive laundry facilities with washers and dryers mitigated the assessment. Not dependent on bathroom facilities ourselves, but laying a heavy demand on water, which we had to replenish by hauling it in by truck in a newly purchased 30 gallon plastic garbage can, overcame any perceived shortcoming. Our electricity adventure was dealt with before (see On Problem Solving) and ultimately we could really enjoy this gorgeous setting.

Georgian Bay constitutes a very large lake by any standard, adjoined to Lake Huron and thus considered a part of it. Parry Sound on Big Sound is a side show off Georgian Bay and Killbear lies on the link between the two.  One would thus think it to be remote from the real action but the same fishermen that were intrigued by our Porta-Bote told us that the water was some 200 feet deep, about 500 yards from the beach. They landed lake trout at the 24 inch upper size limit daily at about the point where the drop to 200 foot occurs. Lake trout are deep water fish. Although quite excited about fishing prospects with our boat that was launched so successful, dealing with unforeseen problems was a major distraction. Fishing would have to wait for another time. Killbear is certainly high on our list of memorable places!

Lake Nipissing is an enviable body of water in any language. From a beautiful camp site we could hardly discern the ridges across, marking the other side but rough waves discouraged us from venturing out. Close to shore the water was shallow, warm and calm, which caused the lovely sandy beach to be well populated under a cloudless sky. The Canadians were wrenching every bit of late summer enjoyment out of the place, for when winter sets in the lake freezes over and fisherman drive on it in their 4X4’s to pitch shelter and drill through the ice, dropping lines for Walleye, they told us. We were curious about the name of the town, Sturgeon Falls. It turned out that commercial harvesting for caviar from sturgeon fish was terminated after the sturgeon population had drop some years ago.  The fish were not harmed by the process but it did cut back on offspring to the point of justifying the termination of the industry. Now, Willem had a healthy respect for sturgeon, if only for the size that these beasts are known to reach and it was new to him that Nipissing could be such a hot spot, compared to the much larger Georgian Bay and Lake Huron.  Life remains a learning experience!

Approaching North Bay on Lake Nipissing from the west during a day trip did not impress us much, except for some attractions on the shore line, which are easy to miss altogether, unless one stumbles across a rail line per chance.  It wasn’t until the next day, when we passed by en route to Ottawa that we became aware of more diversified and attractive developments away from the old town.  First impressions thus left us (perhaps unjustly) with the notion that city and regional planners would approach things differently if given the assignment to build a city anew at such a nice spot. But this is not the reality of today; much more is it the heritage of a frontier town with a rich and colorful history that is deserving of enhanced preservation and face lifting. 

The Municipal Campground of Ottawa is a beautiful place. It comes with electricity and water hookups and since we were scheduled to be there for 5 days, dumping could be done upon exiting for Montreal.  We had a lovely shady spot, well backed into the woods and as private as one could wish for. Promoted as having Wi-Fi, we were a little disappointed to not have it at our campsite. We had to haul laptops to the laundry facility, which was impeccably clean with 5 washers and 5 driers of good quality and a counter with electric outlets. Willem was usually in there at the crack of dawn and others toward the evening. We thus hardly encountered other folks needing the Wi-Fi feature. But it was great not having to track down a connection in a shopping mall somewhere, with no electric outlet around.

One of the features of the area worth seeing is the Rideau Canal waterway, which fascinated Willem and family some 20 years ago during a vacation trip. Like just about everywhere in Canada, the abundance of water, streams and lakes present some opportunities between Ottawa and Kingston on Lake Ontario. These were exploited in the late 1700’s/early 1800’s when animosity prevailed between the British, French and American interests in this part of the world.  The Saint Lawrence waterway has been of inestimable value since the very inception and colonization in earlier centuries and formed the backbone of commercial developments that required moving cargo from abroad to the cities on Lake Ontario and produce, including beaver pelts, back to European markets. Looking at a map of the area, French territory (Quebec of today) extends on both sides of the Saint Lawrence, while non-American territory at the time extended to just west of where the Ottawa River meets the Saint Lawrence. This meant that cargo ships moving up river to Lake Ontario and the British/Canadian harbors were vulnerable to America cannon fire, had relations deteriorated further. The Brits needed a Plan B in the event of an American stranglehold on their commercial interests and on supplies reaching their settlements along Lake Ontario. 

The Canadians thus embarked on a project which connected the Rideau River, which flows into the Ottawa River in Ottawa, with a lake via a canal and followed through with a canal system between various lakes, ultimately to Kingston on Lake Ontario. This required a series of locks, consistent with techniques developed in Europe, to negotiate differences in water levels and seeing it today gives a clear understanding of concepts later employed for shipping upstream from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, for instance, by means of the Welland Canal System, where the rise is more than 300 feet. The same concepts were used for constructing the Panama Canal. The Rideau Canal never fulfilled its military purpose because the threat didn’t quite materialize but saw commercial shipping usage for a time. When it fell into disuse, the system was maintained and today sees recreation use as a world heritage site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rideau_Canal ) . We paused at three villages along the canal system; first at West Port, where the primary aim is tourism.  There is a charming marina setting, in addition to interesting museums and strolling attractions throughout the town.  Second was our turning point at Newboro, where Willem and family have spent a few days in 1994. Then Smith Falls, where we enjoyed lunch at an outstanding Chinese restaurant and saw more locks of a different design.

Another Toronto attraction is across the Ottawa River in Hull: The Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC)-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Museum_of_Civilization This is a fascinating place with outstanding architecture and it reflects one of the fads of today -- debunking history. It is possible to sense some of the flavor of the Bass controversy of the 90’s at Yale University, http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xix/3.24.95/news/bass.html  which  still isn’t quite dead yet --  http://charlesrowley.com/2013/04/28/the-closing-of-the-yale-university-mind/  The elaborate Voodoo exhibition with its heavy African syncretist bearing served as vehicle for a remarkable attack on Christianity and Western Civilization.  The Haitian variety strongly influenced the exhibition and given the general state of Haiti and its economy today, as well as dependence on international handouts – particularly leaning on the US, this exhibition is informative and sobering, and gives pause for thought. The First Nation exhibits are attractive, and the depiction of Canadian historical figures fascinating.

Moving on to Montreal, we stayed at a highly rated RV camp, which was reflected in the price and in-house Wi-Fi. The latter supported progress with input for our blog, but as of this writing, photographs could not be titled in time, before our departing for destinations further east towards the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Montreal is in the province of Quebec, with surprisingly, an almost anti-English, French attitude. Yet, although English is still banned from road signs in Montreal, it is the city where English settlers historically sought refuge from French pressure in other Quebec towns in centuries past. Interesting though, is the fact that throughout Ontario and other provinces, bilingual signs and notices are present virtually without exception, while none of the kind is observed throughout where we’ve been in Quebec. Montreal is a very attractive, modern city with unique cultural gems. One of which is the Place des Arts – an assembly of theatres, including a symphony hall, opera house, smaller facilities for performing arts and a museum of modern art.  It wasn’t the season for any of it, so we could only admire the setting, which is connected to the Complex Desjardins, a spectacular shopping complex, which, in turn, is part of an extensive 20-mile underground network of weatherproof passage ways spread out all over the city center. It links metro and train stations, 1,700 shops and stores, theatres, hotels, offices and apartments and provides a glimpse of the ingenuity employed to cope with harsh winter conditions. With feet aching for the comfort of our camp site miles away, we headed back, only to be hopelessly lost in traffic.  Sign posts along highways, where nobody seems to pay attention to speed limits, are notoriously poor and if one move with the flow, a sign has a tendency to become history before its message could be put to use.

The next day brought us to McGill University, where Fickie once visited his brother, Gerard, who was working on a PhD. From there to a spectacular lookout point on Mount Royal, where one cannot escape the perspective of the Olympic Stadium and its leaning tower in the distance, to which we headed next.  This is a bit of a sad story ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_%28Montreal%29 ) For decades Quebec fought to get out from under the financial yoke of the endeavor, resulting in steep taxes of various kinds. It now seems that the yoke is gone but not the taxes. Toward the end of our tour through Quebec, this came into sharper focus.

Back in camp, we once again marveled at the custom of some to have year round camp sites, elaborately outfitted in virtually permanent fashion but only occupied during the summer. After all, it would be less fun to spend the winter in a trailer up north and this demonstration took snow-birding, by moving way south for the winter, to quite a level. Before leaving Alouette camp the next morning, we took advantage of the largest car wash ever seen, to pass the 5^thwheel  through. It was a do-it-yourself affair, which had Fickie way up on a movable platform with foam brush and subsequent pressurized water rinse, and Willem on ground level with the same, reaching way up, while Susan and Stella fed Loonies and Toonies into the dispenser that turned on whatever we wanted. $16 later, we had a spick and span trailer, although it took the entire morning trip to completely get dry again ourselves!

We reached our camp site, some 7 miles west of Quebec City, in the early afternoon and it turned out to be the most crowded affair to date, with less space between RV’s than we’ve grown accustomed to.  But we had full hookups and Wi-Fi inside our camper.  The next day was Labor Day, which accounted for the dense long weekend campground population wanting to take advantage of swimming pool and numerous other playground amenities. However, the weather had turned nasty and by lunch time we had the campground virtually to ourselves, while attending to correspondence and administrative matters. The next morning we headed to the old part of Quebec City for the day. We had a terrific day and experienced the real European character of Quebec City. No kidding. From here onward, we were for all intents and purposes no longer on the American continent. Not a word of English on display, very little, if any English understood and although we didn’t encounter the hostility or much deliberate playing dumb towards English speakers suggested to us before, we are convinced that very many people of even middle age and younger had little to no understanding of English. We don’t know what is being taught in the school system, but with English barred from road signs in Montreal and no, but no sign of bilingualism in this province of a bilingual country, there seems to be an air of French exclusiveness, enhanced by abundant markings of historic relics all over.  Sculptures of historical personalities from France and Quebec abound throughout the city, keeping the military and French cultural origins and heritage alive and in high esteem. It would not surprise if the number of Roman Catholic churches, monasteries, relics and signs per square kilometer exceed that of Paris, France. For centuries Protestants were barred from immigrating to French America, as proclaimed by Louis XIV. In the charter granted in 1627, therefore, to the Company of New France, it was stipulated that no colonists should be sent out to New France who were not Roman Catholics; and this prohibition remained in effect during the whole period of French rule. But surprisingly, we noticed a tiny Presbyterian church, dating back to British occupation of Quebec City and a land grant by King George III in 1759 to worshippers of the Church of Scotland that have been around in Quebec City. The conquest of Canada by British arms in 1763 threatened a complete reversal of the religious history of New France . The Royal Proclamation of 1763 promised Canada "the enjoyment of the benefit of the laws of Our realm of England "; and the royal instructions to General Murray , the first civil governor of the province, required him to admit of no "Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Sea of Rome.". (http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/CanadaReligiousHistory_000.htm ) The odd later comer Methodist and Baptist church was also seen outside of Quebec City and no doubt others would exist nowadays. But some 20 miles East of Quebec City and out in the country side we visited the cathedral, Basilique Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, on a late Thursday afternoon. This establishment would rival the Notre Dame in Paris, perhaps not quite in size, but in architecture (although rebuilt in the 1900’s, following a fire, in Revival Gothic style) in art (including an exact replica of Michael Angelo’s Pieta), in elaboration and atmosphere with superb and at times resounding organ music during a service that was underway.  National Geographic Traveler Canada says: The present, magnificent building was completed in 1934 and rivals the great cathedrals of Europe in the splendid proportions and opulent décor.

Orleans is an Island in the St Lawrence just south of Quebec City, reachable by bridge and we took the approximately 36 mile road trip around it. Farming is the mainstay and the beauty of vegetation and architecture representing styles spanning centuries, were well worth the visit, crowned by a basket of fresh strawberries. Apples and asparagus were other crops seen, in addition to those typical of dairy farming in the region.

Further east, we arrived at (for Susan) the most beautiful campground setting to date just south of Rimouski at the Parc National Du Bic on a neat bay of the river. Willem remarked he had to agree, even with respect to the fact that it was the first time he observed the equivalent of an art painting behind plexiglass affixed to the inside of a public toilet door!  Admittedly, this was the cleanest public facility imaginable. Although still at least another 200 miles from the ocean, the water is saline and one cannot see across the river, looking downstream. The holiday season is over and the campground was virtually deserted. The next day was pretty dreary, and we were surprised to see the water line having receded as a result of a 13 foot drop in the level.  Although still far, far away, ocean ebb and tide made themselves known!  We took a road trip to Rimouski, which proved to be an interesting town with an almost never ending board walk/bicycle path along the riverfront.  A number of wind surfers were literally squeezing the last out of the season, bringing some cheer and color to the gray milieu. On the way back to camp, the dense clouds had lifted somewhat and we accessed the Parc at an alternative entrance, so we could explore some of it while light lasted for Fickie to do photography. The place yielded more of its beauty before we returned to camp and some good eating. Our last day started out quite bright but the forecast was for a 70% chance of rain. So, we got going soon after breakfast with a view to get some hiking in, particularly scaling a ridge that promised remarkable vistas. En route we had all the vistas we needed and continued on a narrow dwindling route along shore to splendid views and enviable summer residence settings.  After lunch in camp, remarkable oscillations in the weather fulfilled some of the forecast and during one of the sunny periods we ventured out for a hike close to camp. Wherever one turned in this place, it was pretty and had dark clouds not crept over the proximal mountain cliffs, we might have carried on instead of barely making it back to camp ahead of a downpour. We had a pork dish in the slow cooker spreading a terrific aroma in anticipation of a meal to celebrate Susan’s birthday the next day, when we would be on a relatively long stretch to our next stop at the furthest point we were to reach east – Forillon National Park.

This proved a considerable miscalculation. Not so much in distance but in time taken to cover it. The route from Rimouski followed the river very closely but dwindled down to a two-lane track with quite some traffic, although the scenery was increasingly unbeatable. By the hour it became for Susan the most beautiful she’s ever seen and toward Forillon National Park the sentiment was virtually unanimous. Quaint little villages in the most amazing natural settings were hardly interspersed with anything bigger and connected by Route 132.  The road became more winding with ups to scale and downs to negotiate rather cautiously, resulting in a 7-hour haul, including a couple of short breaks for leg stretching and munching on sandwiches that Stella and Susan had prepared beforehand. The mountain scenery was quite something and we thought it a pity that we were ahead of the fall foliage spectacle that was surely to come in a couple of weeks. Knowing that we would still be in New England at the time, and could simply not encounter peak season on demand, it will be interesting to see where we catch up with it, or vise versa.

By the time we got to Forillon, registration kiosks were closed and we stumbled around with RV en tow to find a campsite. However, there were numerous camping sections with considerable numbers of camp sites in each and just about nobody over there. By the time it got dark, we haven’t spotted anything we could fit into and were trying to maneuver around a bend with low branches, when a fellow in a truck showed up and miraculously, he spoke English! He happened to be scouting out camp sites for some friends that were coming in for the weekend, noticed our predicament and offered help in a significant way. It turned out we were in the wrong campground and he ultimately escorted us to one for RV’s, with water and electric hookups. He knew the vacant sites so well and took us to one of three into which we might fit, with slide-outs and awning extended. It was a gigantic struggle to let exactly that happen and Fickie had to negotiate trees on the left and right, branches overhead, a signpost with the number of the site across from ours and a water spigot a few feet away from the post, to back the trailer in. We were not settled until close to 11, after an amazing dinner that Stella and Susan came up with.

The next morning was gorgeous and soon after breakfast we drove as far as the road went toward Cape Gaspe, the furthest point out. It left us with a 4 kilometer hike, one way, to get to the light house, which was quite a challenge, given the steep topography. But it was nice and warm and lightly clothed, we worked up a sweat in no time. There was abundant evidence that this is bear country with plenty of berries around. We made it to the top and to our surprise, were greeted by a bone chilling wind blowing from the other side of the ridge.  With a mere glimpse at what we came to see and perhaps 3 photos taken, we lost no time in turning around and headed back the way we came!  We proceeded by truck to the town of Gaspe with a view to having a seafood meal, which was real good. But aching from the stiff walk in the morning, we had no interest in anything else than getting back to hot showers and a quiet evening of catching up on reading and Wi-Fi-less computer activity. In the course of reading, someone quoted the National Geographic Society, which stated this very region to be the 3^rd most beautiful destination in the world, after the Norwegian fjords and the Kootenay and Yoho national parks in British Columbia, Canada. So, Susan was almost right, but seemed to have forgotten our equally slow going in the fjord world of Norway, almost 40 years ago. British Columbia is still 9 months away for us, so further checking on the National Geographic assessment will have to wait!

Throughout the night we were aware of rain and in the early morning, strong wind gusts. Willem figured it was going to be a camper-bound morning and leisurely fixed breakfast. By about 9:30 the others emerged and even after breakfast, were slow in straightening out, while rain continued to come down gently. Fickie and Willem took advantage of impeccably clean bathrooms with hot showers. Willem took a look at our schedule, gathered information about campgrounds and shared the options with the others. We decided to change our initial itinerary and made phone calls, resulting in reservations on the coast of Maine. This implied only 4 more days without Wi-Fi! Meanwhile, Fickie and the ladies continued to select photographs for the blog. We should have them ready with captions and hopefully on the blog within a week. We’ve built a huge backlog mostly on account of limited to no Wi-Fi. So, on a better looking morning, we packed up and left for Sugarloaf State Park in New Brunswick, September 12.

The drive from Forillon to Campbelton, New Brunswick, was long but we had an early start and were better prepared mentally, as compared to the experience of getting to Forillon. As expected, it was another scenic route along the ocean with numerous settings for taking photos. The weather didn’t cooperate as well as one would have preferred. But we finally crossed the line into New Brunswick and found our way to the intended campground in the Sugarloaf Provincial Park.

Reflecting on the Quebec experience at this point is perhaps in order. Keep in mind that we only had a rather brief, if not superficial experience and this assessment is no more than the result of just it. First, one is surprised, if not somewhat confused by the exclusive French foot put forward by Quebec. At times one felt it was perhaps more French than France itself! But we didn’t experience any hostility on account of our being different and lacking command of the language. It wasn’t until we had reached the campground at Rimouski and met Skip, a native English speaking tourist from London, Ontario, that we gained some perspective. Skip is a retired school teacher and firstly he confirmed what we already suspected, that English teaching was not compulsory in Quebec schools. Second, that English remains virtually outlawed to varying degrees in many respects, such as official and public communications. Third, that an almost ferocious spirit of independence is more than cultivated – perhaps rather enforced. Fourth, the contrary is true for the rest of (English speaking) Canada, where French teaching to some level in schools is compulsory. Furthermore, centralized attempts at more intimately integrating Quebec into the broader Canadian fold have essentially been abandoned, for when this was actively pursued, the opposite effect was provoked and Quebec independence came to be voted on. In the recent past, it was defeated twice by natives of Quebec, however with a much narrower margin the last time. The attitude seems that pressure from Ottawa toward furthering integration was abandoned, for if pressed, Quebec would probably break away.  So, let things just simply be. One is thus tempted to conclude that the status quo may prevail indefinitely. But such would overlook a seemingly active ongoing debate in Quebec about more openness and cultural integration, which we could only sense vaguely, for lack of understanding French. But there is something truly admirable about a people who are holding their own together so successfully amidst times of vastly changing communication and cultural sentiments internationally!

An additional paradox became highlighted by an English speaking French fellow, Jean, from Montreal at Forillon. It was his sixth visit in 55 years -- the first having been as a child with his father. At that time the beauty of the region was of course there, the roads less so, but poverty abounded amongst the dominant fisherman population grinding out an existence. This is in stark contrast with the situation on the surface, today, which reflects multiple harbors and marinas with recreation boats of extraordinary size and variety, second to none elsewhere. Playground of the rich and famous, if not applicable, may be well advanced in the making. The cost of camping, taxes, food and gasoline to the tourist is reflective of it. And it was the only place where we have run into a steep per person fee to date, in addition to the campground fee – both levied on a daily basis. But before one runs away with the idea of general affluence, the lady pumping gas at a gas station in Gaspe, was English speaking to our surprise, from generations of English stock in the area and provided additional perspective. She said there were more English in years past and that we will see evidence of it as we proceeded west toward New Brunswick. This proved accurate in terms of place names and the odd small Anglican Church building. Referring to the long and harsh winters, Willem asked about what the many locals like she herself do and where they go when the tourists are gone. Her reply was eye opening: they have a 20 week work season per year and the other 32 weeks find them on the dole with social benefits, including medical, essentially free, at the expense of Quebec taxpayers (although the smiling kind lady seemed like she could benefit from dental care a few notches up). So, here we saw the price of socialism in action. Who would vote for anyone else or for change with a virtual free ride for two-thirds of the year? These guys have just about no prospect of ever joining the rich and famous but will serve and some will envy them to the delight of some politicians and the abhorrence of others, it would seem.