Along the North Bank to Baie-Comeau

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It was rainy and cold as I pulled into a gas station just North of Quebec City. I was joined by a couple from Amarillo, Texas on a big yellow three wheeled motorcycle with trailer. They were very enthusiastic, and kept commenting on the amount of trees in Virginia when they found out where I lived. Having driven 1,800 miles to go to a three-wheel motorcycle rally outside Montreal, they were reluctant to head home, so they were exploring up the the North bank of the St Lawrence. So was I. The road runs on the flat between a big cliff, and the water's edge -- and will probably be a casualty when the West Antarctic glaciers hit the sea. I was bombing along and shot right past a huge grey cathedral. Having visited a few French gothic cathedrals, I turned around to find out what this one was like. Romanesque. Not a flying buttress or a gothic arch in sight. Every column topped by a rounded arch. It turned out to be the Basilica to Ste Anne de Beaupre. What is striking when one enters are the two columns loaded with the crutches, staves, braces and other support equipment of people who were miraculously cured here. The powers of the patron saint of Quebec keep bringing people in to visit.

The road NE tracks the coast, dropping into the bays and rising over the rocky ridges between. I was getting used to this rythm, when all of a sudden the road went over the hill and dropped down to stop at the water's edge. The Ferry at Tadoussac, that David Traynham had told me about. Whales gather to eat at this place, where the food rich river exits into the St Lawrence -- and lots of people go along to wish them a 'bon apetite'. I had a great lunch there, and then trundled on under grey skies to Baie-Comeau -- the site of a paper mill built by an American, the former owner of the Chicago Tribune -- and the place where the route turns inland and heads straight North into the Wilderness.

If one continues further North along the coast, one arrives at towns like Port Cartier and Sept Iles, which have become major processing and shipping points for the large mines in the interior of the Province.

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Photos

The fjord at Tadoussac
Departure ferry at lower left

Tadoussac town, on the other side of the river
No whales to be seen.

Within Quebec, most people seem to dispense with the Canadian flag.
The blue fleur de lis flag of Quebec gets pride of place.