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Published: August 26th 2022
More than a few months back while planning this voyage to Canada, Merry Jo remarked that while in Newfoundland there existed a possibility to visit France…..say what? Seems that off the west coast of Newfoundland there are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which are a self-governing territorial
overseas collectivity of
France—so says Wikipedia. In common parlance, although you are in Canada, you can take a one-and-a-half-hour ferry ride and find yourself in a place where the primary language is French, the euro is the main currency and, in our case, where the food was fantastic. More on that later….
As a side note, for those of you really paying attention, you'll note that this blog entry is from France....it is, but the physical location is in North America...well, we needed additional consultation with Ali, the esteemed founder of TravelBlog. Seems this may be the first blog from St. Pierre and Miquelon on TravelBlog and we could not properly place the blog, hence the assistance. Now that we settled it.....off we go.
Logistically, it was a bit of challenge to get there. Not because of the distance between St. John’s and Fortune where we got the ferry. Or the
ferry tickets which we purchased months in advance. The challenge was to get a rental car to get us there. In the post COVID world, rental cars can be in short supply, we started working on getting the rental car over four months ago. We were concerned as we already had made the airline ticket and ferry ticket purchases. Multiple phone calls and several months later, we secured our wheels on off we went. The ride was smooth and relatively short. The owner of the bed and breakfast met us at the ferry and a few minutes later we were at a cute house up the hill from the ferry dock.
Turns out, we really were in France, not only because of the euro, but also because of electricity. Dave did not bring any converters as he was of the opinion that due to the proximity to Canada that the same electrical current would be in play…..but this was not the case. Although almost all modern day appliances do not need a power converter, hair rollers do….and therein lies the blunder on Dave’s part as Merry Jo uses…..yep, you guessed it electric rollers.
If you are interested in
Does anybody really know what time it is?
So here's the deal...you travel west and also add 30 minutes....an in-depth history of the island you will have to google it, but the reader’s digest version is that they were owned by France, then Britain and in 1814 they were given back to France to settle a debt. These islands were not seen as valuable at the time. Eventually, the islands became prosperous due to fishing. In 1903, the island toyed with the idea of joining the U.S but nothing came of that. This is not an uncommon occurrence in the earlier days of North American history. But that's all in the rearview mirror now...this island is quite French and darned proud of it!
Another interesting quirk was that St. Pierre is on a different time zone than Newfoundland. When you leave the U.S., PE Island and Nova Scotia are one hour ahead. Then when you travel to Newfoundland, you move another 30 minutes ahead. When you head west about ten miles off the coast of Newfoundland, St. Pierre sets their clocks another 30 minutes ahead. Why? Probably because they can and don't want to dither around with this Newfoundland approach of just nudging the clock 30 minutes ahead of its Maritime neighbors. A little head spinning, but
there you have it.
We spent our two days wandering about the smallish island, taking in museums, sampling some fine local brew, and enjoying the fine cuisine that our bed and breakfast owner provided us. He is a trained chef from Paris, who went on to work on some cruise ships before landing on this island and we were the lucky recipients of two meals that foodies like us have great appreciation for. Two days (or in our case a day and a half) is just about right to take in the island unless you are a hiker and have the opportunity to also visit the neighboring island of Miquelon. We might have done that, but the ferry only runs once a day and didn't fit into our plans.
We enjoyed a short visit to the Cultural Museum ad the Musee Heritage. In the 1920's the prohibition in the U.S. created a boon for Saint Pierre & Miquelon for the illegal smuggling of liquor from Canada, Europe and Bermuda to the U.S..... bless them. This was know as rum running and this island played a vital role in the smuggling...LOL. The museums gave a glimpse into days gone
by in their world of medicine, journalism, fishing and rum running.
One afternoon, we caught a water taxi to the Isle de Marin, which lies just off the island. We enjoyed lots of great hiking on this island. This island was once home to over 600 residents who lived on this treeless island and made their living from the sea. Commercialization of fishing most likely contributed to the islands declining population, leaving an interesting collection of buildings which now serve as a life-sized museum of a past life. The church is lovely and according to the information provided the last wedding occurred in September 1948. This island had a lovely graveyard with scenic views. Walking the graveyard and reading the tombstones gives a picture of the life on this small, small island. Again, we are reminded of the difficulty and hazards of the fishing life. There is not one single tree on this little strip of land....our guess is that the wind would not allow it.
The annual Basque festival was going on during our time there and we were witness to a sporting event we’ve not seen previously, Basque Pelota, which is a rather general term for
a racquet sport which has several variations. This iteration involved teams of two players hitting a smallish black ball against a rather tall cement wall. They cover quite a bit of ground on the large playing surface. It is similar to racquet ball. The festival included many other activities, but we did not take the opportunity to partake in them as the big festival day was on Sunday and we left on Friday. We did have the opportunity to watch some of the professional Basque Pelota players who flew in from France for this festival. They were amazingly quick.
If you plan on going to Miquelon for some hiking check the ferry schedule because it doesn’t run every day and we are told it only goes once a day. Even though these islands are small, and you can walk from one side of downtown St. Pierre to another in about 15 minutes it is easy to get your steps in. Water waterfront is cute and there are several hiking trails to be had. We enjoyed our hiking and hit high numbers on the Fitbit.
Our time on St. Pierre was brief, but then it was time to return
to Newfoundland, adjust our clocks again and head for more adventures……
Where we stayed: Auerge Quatre Temps
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amanda
non-member comment
Oh la la!
I am so excited to see this. I have been intrigued by St. Pierre and Miquelon since learning about it just a few years ago but haven't been able to visit yet. I never thought about the electricity being EU too! It seems crazy to rent a car just to park it in a lot but I understand that is what you have to do. When I looked several years ago cars were available but quite expensive, by pre Covid standards. Too bad there isn't demand for a bus from a larger town. I suppose it is quite small and they can't handle but so many people. Do residents keep cars on the mainland or do they have cars?