We went
back to the same place as yesterday for breakfast and were met with
a friendly smile from the same waitress. Our plan for today is to go
back to the Musée de la Civilisation before heading on down through
Montréal and hopefully making it as far as Québec. The distances
are reasonably big but something in a car you would not think twice
about. Driving in Morty though we are a bit slower than back home
and also the speed limits are lower. They have signs posted along
the motorways telling you how much you will be fined if you exceed
the speed limit by different amounts.
Down at the river the water was being whipped up with a vengeance.
Yesterday there were a few white crests on the river, today there
were sizeable waves. It made me ponder what it must be like out on
the wider gulf and on the open sea as Québec is a fair way inland. I
am just glad that today is not a day where I need to get a ferry. We
dumped our stuff in Morty and then headed over the road back to the
museum.
Both of us wanted to see the rest of the Russian exhibition we had
first come to on Friday so this was our first port of call. I went
back to listen to the story I was part way through on Friday when we
got turfed out. It was about a girl whose mother died when she was
young. Before she died she gave the girl a small doll and told her
that if ever she needed help or advice she should feed the doll,
talk to her and the doll would help. Her father remarried and the
new stepmother and her two not very attractive daughters gave the
little girl a very tough time. The girl talked to her doll every day
and the doll helped her achieve all the chores she was set to do. It was a Cinderella like story and in
the end the girl married the Tsar and she and her father lived
happily ever after.
The rest of the exhibition charted the early seeds of discontent
that resulted in the Russian revolutions. The pre-revolution average
man on the street certainly did seem to have a tough time of it with
various different taxes to pay that meant they really had little to
survive on. The revolution itself came in stages with the Tsar
firstly conceding some powers before finally abdicating in favour of
his brother who declined to take up the position. The post
revolution era sounds as if it was equally tough but in different
ways. The art works they had on display also reflected the change in
the culture of the country. The ceramics and textiles of the day
were decorated with industrial themed prints and styles.
The next exhibit we went to was about the First Nations. In the
Québec province there are eleven distinct tribes most of which are
small with just a few hundred or a few thousand people. The largest
tribe only numbers about twenty five thousand. Most were originally
fishers and hunter gatherers but as the Europeans extended across
their traditional lands they have had to adapt their way of life.
Many are now involved in logging and some are making the most of the
tourist trade. There was a tepee on display. It was reasonably roomy
inside but would still have been a snug fit for a family.
Stef was captivated by this exhibit and was avidly reading every
panel. It did not really do much for me and I had gone through it
more quickly. The part I found most interesting was the short video
of a couple of people building an igloo. They made it look very easy
but I bet it is not in practice. The igloo was built from the
inside, and it seemed as if the ice blocks they used were cut from
the inside so that the floor level of the inside of the igloo would
be below the outside floor level. They simply trim the ice slabs to
fit next to the surrounding pieces and gradually incline them to
create a domed roof. Fitting the final few slabs in the roof also
looked tricky. Next a hole was cut in the side so that the Indians
could get in and out. They patched up any gaps between the slabs
with loose snow to stop draughts blowing through and then made a
door out of a final ice block. The video only lasted a few minutes
and there was no soundtrack to tell you how long it actually takes
to build one from scratch.
To me the most interesting exhibit was called "Autopsy of a Murder"
and it was really good fun. It was designed to tell you all about
the tools and techniques used for solving crimes. Rather than just
setting out information panels, they had simulated a murder and you
had to go round the exhibit getting clues and working out the end
result. We matched fingerprints, DNA samples, ballistics traces of
guns, voice patterns, fibre samples analysis as well as getting
clues and information from our police helper along the way. It was
very cleverly done and was a great way of setting out the exhibit.
We spent twice as much time there than we had expected to.
We had brief look at another exhibit called "26 objects in Search of
Authors". For each letter of the alphabet they chose an exhibit from
the museum's collection and than asked a a Québec author whose name
also started with that letter and asked them to bring the object to
life. It lost its impact slightly in the translation from French to
English but I though that the concept was an interesting one.
Unfortunately, the young boys who decided to stand in front of me
and move the information panels while I tried to read them made me
give up and just have a whistle stop tour of the exhibit.
Chateau Frontenac looming
over Vieux Québec
Finally thought it became time to say goodbye to Québec city. I had
not expected to like it here because the French speaking people we
have met have generally not been very warm and friendly. That was
not our experience of the old part of Québec but I do not know what
it would have been like if we had stayed in a less touristic part.
Stef steered us artfully out of the city and back onto the route 138
down towards Montréal. We had decided to just go along the motorway
as we have maxed out of pretty scenic stuff. As such it was a fairly
uneventful drive.
Just to the north of Montréal we stopped for a break and I took over
the driving. As luck would have it this also signaled a change in
weather. It became misty and wet and the wind picked up again. I
cannot say I was looking forward to the drive through Montréal but I
was glad it was Sunday so there would be no rush hour traffic. It
was funny being back in the place we had first arrived in Canada in
over two months ago. Our expected stop at Roulottes Gilbert, from
whom we had bought Morty, was abandoned as they will be shut. As we
were bombing through we also did not stop off to see the Denis's,
the couple who had taken pity on us all those weeks ago in Gaspé
when it rained and fed us and plied us with very large glasses of
rum and coke.
The road really skirted around the outside of Montréal rather than
through the city centre. It is a bit of a maze if you are not
familiar with it but Stef's expert navigation skills meant we only
had to do an about turn once, not bad I thought. Out the other end
the road was much quieter on the way to Ottawa. By this time it was
pitch black so you could not really see the countryside we were
driving through but I sensed that it was just flat fields as far as
you could see.
Earlier I had looked through our books to find a campsite and
plumped for one that seemed to be on the outskirts of Ottawa and not
too far from the centre. It was in a place called Greely which is
much further out than I had thought with not a lot around it. By the
time we checked in it was late and we had no food but fortunately
the local Chinese was open for take out. It did the trick and before
long we were tucked up in bed for the night.
