Yesterday's long drive took its toll and we had a slow start this
morning. Tadoussac is a very small village with a permanent
population of less than one thousand people, but it is where the
well healed Quebecois head for at the weekend and has been a bit of
a tourist trap since 1864! The area is a great spot for whale
watching and attracts tour buses and motor homes galore.
We dropped in to Tourist Information to get the low down on what
there is to see and do. The main activity focuses around boat trips
to see the whales but we both have had of fill of whales for the
moment. We asked about internet access and then camped out in the
local cafe, Cafe Boheme, to check our mails for the first time in
quite a while. The cafe was very French in its style, ambience and
the staff but it also had a homely feel to it. Upstairs they had
internet connections so armed with coffee we set to work.
Picking up our mail we learned that Stef's sister Mischa and her
husband Greg had had their first baby, a boy called Woody. He
arrived last Wednesday, just one day later than expected. All is
well and they are now coming to terms with a bit of a change in
lifestyle! Stef went to phone Mischa and his Mum and when he eventually
got through had long chats with both. I finished checking the other
bits and pieces we needed and went to find him by the phone. Stef
was still in mid-flow and looked as if he would be for ages. As
other people came up to use the phone I explained in my best French
that he would probably be a long time and they shrugged and walked
off. The calling card we bought yesterday has more than paid for
itself already and we are both kicking ourselves that we did not
think of them sooner.
We popped back to the cafe for a late lunch before heading out to
see the sights of Tadoussac. It was still busy with coach loads of
tourists (I dread to think what this place gets like in the summer)
and there were also still a fair few RV's around. A quick count
showed that there were more RV's than places available at the
campsite and, as we had decided to stay here for a second night, we
called to reserve a spot. It was just as well that we did as we got
the last place with services.
Lovely soft furs
Ambling down towards the lake we passed The Tadoussac Hotel, a grand
old white building with an impressive view across the bay. I could
picture a swanky party being held on the lawns in day's gone by with
ladies in their finest and men in blazers and boaters all drinking
copious amounts of champagne. Tadoussac Bay itself is part of the
select club of the World's Thirty Most Beautiful Bays, and I can
well understand why. It is nestled in green forest land just where
the Saguenay River Fjord meets the St Lawrence River. The dark blue
colour of the water reflects the tree line and, as it has a small
population it has an unspoilt charm and a slow and relaxed pace of
life.
Around the bay there is a boardwalk which in effect takes you past
the main sights. The Petite Chapelle was closed when we went by so
we did not get a chance to look inside the oldest existing log built
church in Canada. It was built in 1747 and the first mass was
celebrated there by Jesuits in 1750. We did, however, make it into
the Trading Post, a reconstruction of the first trading post built
in 1600. I obviously had not read the information we had about this
museum before we went in because I was expecting it to be all about
the fur trade.
It did have a selection of different furs and a few bits of
information on trapping and preparing the pelts. The main focus
though was to give a potted history of the First Nation tribes,
European settlement and the growth of the oil and whale industries
as well as fur trapping. The building itself bore little resemblance
to anything other than a garden shed so I left with no real feeling
of what a fur trading post in operation would look and feel like.,
You may have already guessed that I did not think it was really
worth paying $3 each to go in.
Following the bay around we were already too late for the Whale
Interpretation Centre and will come back tomorrow to visit that.
Instead we went for a short walk around the Pointe de l'Islet from
where you can see out to the St Lawrence as well as up into the
fjord. The trail took you along flat sloping rocks along the fjord
side where the sun had finally come out and it was warm to just sit
and watch the world go by. A few metres further on around the point
and it was a different story. The sky was dark and cloudy overhead
and the wind was up, whipping white flakes onto the surface.
As we watched we saw a couple of fins gliding gracefully by. I am
not sure what type of whale they were, and they could have been
porpoises, but people coming of the whale boat tours must be pretty
miffed to see them in the bay that they left a few hours ago. We had
hoped to see beluga whales as well but that was not to be. This area
is renowned for its whale population due to its geographical
features. Where the end of the fjord meets the St Lawrence there is
a ridge of land under the sea, almost as if it was a hilltop between
two valleys. This becomes a natural feeding ground for krill and
plankton, in turn the food of whales and this is why the area is so
good for whale watching.
The Saguenay fjord in the
afternoon sun
Walking back around the bay the sun was starting to set. The autumn
colours are really starting to turn and the falling sun lit the
trees with a golden and rosy glow making an already beautiful bay
even more beautiful. A sign along the boardwalk thanked us for
watching whales from the shore as it is the most ecologically sound
place to watch them. This really became clear as the tide turned.
What looks like a nice sandy beach is a nice sandy beach but it has
dark grey sand, stained with the oil from all the whale watching
tour boats.
It was still busy in the village as we stopped to get some drinks
from the local shop. For a small village it had quite a wide mix of
bits and pieces, again a reflection that this is weekend break
territory for the well heeled of Quebec. We headed back to the
campsite as it got dark to find that lots of our RV neighbours were
people who had rented them from Canadream. They, and
1-800-RV-to-rent seem to have cornered the market on RV rental on
the east coast of Canada.
As the temperature fell outside we made it warm and snug inside,
glad again that we have on board heating. It still makes me chuckle
that people call the heater a furnace. To me, furnace conjures up
images of big industrial plants where metal ores are smelted down
with iron and steel coming out of the end of the process. Its a far
cry from the result we get from our furnace!
