Couldn’t Operate the Drinking Fountain?

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I spend ten minutes or so doing a couple of Duolingo lessons in French so I can kid myself I’m not lying when I tell the locals I’ve tried to learn their language. It's then off for a wander along Rue Saint Jean into Old Quebec. It’s insanely cute, and just like Michael said - “a trip to Europe without crossing the pond”. The Rue’s closed off to cars and is wall to wall street cafes, most of them packed with Sunday morning diners. I could well believe I was in Paris. The City Hall and other similar public buildings have got an extra French look and feel to them with their green copper rooves. I stroll along the massive deck in front of the even more massive Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac overlooking the St Lawrence River. The Chateau is apparently often said to be one of the world’s most photographed buildings, and it’s not hard to see why. I wander off into the backstreets again. It’s so cute that it occurs to me that I’d be more than happy to get lost in here. Hang on, I think I might actually be lost. I thought I was nearly back at the hotel, but this doesn’t look at all familiar. I’m having a bit of trouble with Google Maps; I don’t think this has got anything to do with the Aussie lady's bogan pronunciation of the French street names, although that’s probably not helping; she sounds about as French as I do.

We grab a quick bite to eat at an Irish pub (?) and then do our usual trick of taking a tour on the hop on hop off bus to get ourselves familiarised. The commentary includes quite a bit on the local history, and particularly Quebec’s French background. I thought the name was French but it seems I’m not getting any marks for that; the local Algonquinian Indians knew the area as Kebec which means “where the river narrows”. French explorer Jaqués Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence River in 1541. No Google maps in those days - he thought he was in India, and hence referred to the locals as Indians. He settled here with a few hundred other Frenchmen, but they went home less than a year later after struggling with hostile natives and the harsh winter. French explorer and diplomat Samuel de Champlain then came here in 1608 to again set up shop for the French, this time more permanently, so he’s generally regarded as “The Father of the New France”. The British and the French weren’t getting along too well in the mid-eighteenth century, and this resulted in a number of battles here in New France during the Seven Years’ War of 1756 to 1763. The Brits eventually came out on top and the French then had to hand back their territory, including Quebec. However the Brits needed the French on side in case they got attacked by the Americans, so part of the settlement deal included that the French got to keep the right to speak French. This right was then preserved when Canada gained its independence in 1867.

The bus tour takes us down past the port and the lower and apparently older part of the town next to the River, and then up through a large park area known as the Plains of Abraham. It seems that this was the site of a number of battles between the Brits and the French during the Seven Years’ War, including one of the few that the French managed to win. I reckon the locals might never have quite gotten over having to give up New France. The recorded commentary seems to get a bit stuck on the bit about the French victory - I’m sure we didn’t really need to hear about it three times - time to let it go guys.

They sure seem to take their right to speak French seriously here. I remember reading about a guy who’d made it his life‘s work to make sure that all public signage here was in French, and he'd then sue the provincial government if he found any infractions. The case I remember was about signage on a drinking fountain. Now I’ve never had too much trouble trying to operate one of those, but it seems that that wasn’t really the point of the case - the law said that the instructions should have been in French, and they weren’t. I’m not sure what damages he might have been after - I would have thought it might be a bit hard to claim you were too stupid to be able to operate a drinking fountain to get a drink solely because you couldn’t understand the instructions, but then again I’m not a lawyer.

It’s well over thirty degrees here today and it feels almost tropical. The commentary tells us however that in winter they need icebreakers to stop the River freezing over. This is apparently very important as a lot of local industries rely on cargo ships being able to operate all year round at least as far upstream as Montreal. The River looks like it’s about a kilometre wide here, so the concept of the whole thing freezing over seems almost inconceivable.

We head out for dinner to a small Moroccan restaurant in a narrow alleyway off Rue Saint Jean. There’s Moroccan music playing and we’re sitting next to a potted palm (I wonder what they do with that in winter). It’s also still quite warm, so we feel like we’re in Morocco, in a city that feels like part of France, in North America. Hmmm. I’m glad we’ve got the reassurance of Google Maps. I go to pay and our young waitress asks me where we’re from. She looks like she’s about to fall over when I say Australia. She says that they sometimes get visitors from Ontario, but Australia “is very far away”, and “very exotique” for her.…

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Quebec
We love Quebec. We ate in a fondue restaurant that was very good. The hotel is indeed the centerpiece and very opulent. I often think I'd like to spend one night there. Doubt we'd want to spend the money for more.