The "Near North"

Well, I am having a FANTASTIC holiday!

We’re “primitive” camping again and were fortunate on the August long weekend to have found a spot right by the lake in a far corner of this very old camping ground. It’s so old the shower building is made from logs cut short and laid on their sides with the ends exposed. Cement surrounds the logs to hold it all together and everything’s a weathered grey.

It might be a day or two before we get access to internet again. We’ll have to backtrack on the blog abit.

We didn’t include much about our ride from the French campground up and over the Gaspé peninsula on our way to Quebec City. The sun was out and that revived our spirits.

The road surface was in terrible shape and required a rider’s full attention, but every now and then one could steal a glance at the surrounding countryside with some very old farmsteads. Villages were few and far between and all of them seemed to be named after saints. There must be a great many saints. Everything again, very lush and overgrown after all the rain. The towns are set in valleys and when the road followed the hillside, the white spires of the churches stood out against the green of the fields and surrounding stands of maple and pine.

We followed the road north until it met the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, so wide at this point we were unable to see the far shore. Feels good to finally turn west finally headed towards home. The highway follows the shoreline and it was a lovely ride.

Again, more Ste.’s. We stopped in Ste. Simon for lunch at the mouth of a secondary river on it’s way to join the mighty St. Lawrence. There was a house nearby that had been built in the 1700’s by a wealthy business man. There was a huge cross about 20’ high erected in the yard outside. It was wonderful to see the house occupied by what seemed like a young family, it’s yard strewn with toys and the family’s clothing hung outside to dry in the sunshine.

Ste. Simon provided some informational signage about it’s heritage and I was interested to learn that there was a huge cottage industry flourishing in the early 1900’s based around the harvest of sea moss. Huge sailing ships would come up from the states to collect the product which was used to stuff the seats of the early motor cars. A large mattress company also existed in the town that made use of the sea moss. The plant was devistated by disease and the industry died leaving behind many farmers who missed the extra income the harvest provided.

I have a few other memories about the French people. Some of them were stand-offish, but they may have shared my shyness about attempting conversation. Many were warm and friendly and made every attempt to be of assistance.

The French women truly are quite stylish, some managing to maintain an “air” whilst camping with a twist of a scarf or cleverly casual hairstyle.

Generally, very generally, speaking the French people seem more boisterous. They shout to one another and their conversational tone is louder than we’re used to in the west.

They often have a bottle of wine with lunch, even at picnic tables. Certainly wine or something stronger with supper. Perhaps that’s why we could hear singing around evening campfires.

Our wonderful day in Old Quebec was described in our last post. It is amazing to think the French had large and established businesses in eastern Canada during the 1700’s. In Old Quebec the many hotels of that era, built from stone, still function as hotels today.

Today’s city includes many museums and galleries including world-class work by Quebec craftspeople. They have a modern take of the traditional crafts of weaving and woodworking and we saw some wonderful innovative jewellery and paintings. It is an old and very rich culture.

One of the large museums offered the Bodyworks exhibit which uses human bodies set up in tableaux. Not for me.

It was a wonderful day I’ll always remember evidenced by the bandages on my feet.

In some ways we were looking forward to a return to Ontario where functioning in a strange place is easier without the language barrier.

We got an early start from the hotel and Grant did an amazing job of getting us through the rush hour maze of overpasses and interchanges within Old Quebec. Did I mention the French can be aggressive drivers?

We took the LaPorte Bridge over the St. Lawrence and headed for Ontari-ari-o.

Yesterday’s (Friday) ride was under partly cloudy skies. We followed Hwy.. #40 which enabled us to by-pass Montreal. I’ve often heard that Montreal is a cosmopolitan, exciting city, but cities aren’t so easy on a bike, especially with a trailer in tow. There’s no doubt any time spent there would be expensive so we decided to press on. Besides, I have no makeup and would stand out in an unbecoming way amongst the French women.

We followed the river, taking a small open ferry across to the south side and before long were in Ontario. The roads improved dramatically. The forecast called for a fair night, but we kept our eyes on the accumulating black clouds. Grant was adamant that he did not want to have to go through another rainy miserable night and wet pack up the next morning. He thought it best we stop in Hawesbury just shy of Ottawa and find a motel.

We soon learned that ottawa was hosting a world class piper’s competition and we had some difficulty finding a room.

We were fortunate. “Stephanie’s” turned out to be a wonderful motel with attached restaurant. We enjoyed meeting our neighbours, a young couple from Massachusetts travelling with their three month old son, then splurged on some drinks and a wonderful meal on an upstairs terrace. We had a great breakfast “on the house”,

Just to be fair, we also passed on Ottawa. The highway cuts through the heart of the city, but the eight lane system made it an easy passage. We tried to stay in a centre lane, but sometimes the two lanes to the right or to the left would split off. We stayed alert, but even so were forced into some sudden lane changes allowed by the gracious locals who must have seen our license plates and taken pity.

We have elected to break with our tradition of secondary highways and are staying with the Trans Canada. The travel is through rural countryside and very pretty and we can make excellent time. Some of our highway travel has been tedious and boring, but not so here. We’ve been treated to more green fields and the road itself is smooth and in good repair. Biking is much easier. We covered alot of distance today, but it was not tiring and I have been spared some of the fatigue, sore arm and back issues brought on at times travelling the rough roads during my unsuccessful attempt to dodge potholes.

Last night (Saturday) we rode good old Hwy.. 17. It feels like an old friend and I had to buy the obligatory T-shirt which I wore today. We drove through Arnprior and Carleton Place part of the “Easter Townships”.

We stopped at Stonecliffe at a campground on the Ottawa River. We’d found in the camping brochure and it sounded like it had all the bells and whistles. Silly us had forgotten it was the long weekend, their “busiest weekend of the year”. They were full, but pointed down the road. We were unable to get an unserviced lot, but it was absolutely beautiful.

That was where the beginning of this entry was written.

We had a refreshing swim in the river and a great supper, experimenting quite successfully with adding orange to our pork chops.

While the wet weather in the East has had it’s drawbacks, the upside is that campfires are still permitted. The irony is the wood is damp, but we managed to get a nice fire going.

As the sky darkened groups of campers passed by headed into the woods beside us. They were headed to the next bay for fireworks. We joined them and found about a hundred people gathered in the dark, oohhing and aaahing over the display. It was nothing like you’d see in English Bay during the International fireworks competition, but it was better in it’s way. Lovely to see the families gathered, the kids shouting out, everyone having fun in a simple way in a beautiful setting. Missed the kids tonight and wished they were here camping with us.

Seems Grant, Boy scout leader, was the only one from our campground who’d thought to bring a flashlight. A fairly large group of campers huddled together with Grant in the lead. There was lots of laughter and occasional shouts of “log”.

Well, now it is Sunday, Aug. 2. I got up before Jill and started coffee feeling so relieved that it had not rained overnight. There were some clouds in the sky but we were sure that we would be heading away from the threat of rain. As we finished our breakfast clouds started to move overhead and a few drops of rain fell. We made record time in getting everything packed and the tent stowed away. So we had an early start to the day.

With a great deal of luck we missed any falling rain and only encountered some wet roads. Hwy. 17 still treating us well. Our first stop to refuel was Mattawa. We met a couple from Ottawa heading west on a Gold Wing with a trailer with ‘Reborn Teenagers’ painted on the back. Their timing was a little worse than ours cause they had been in and out of rain.

At Tim Horton’s in North Bay a group of riders were suiting up for the worst. They were heading to Ottawa and were sure to be riding into it. Every stop had a similar flavor to it, ‘which way are you coming from?’, ‘did you get any rain’?

It does sound like the same old thing over again, does’t it? North Bay was the now or never point whether we take Hwy. 11, the northern route or stay on #17 and retrace much of the roads we came on. The truth of it is we enjoyed the views around Lake Superior so much we chose to see it again rather than mostly trees and rocks of the north. Camp spots are somewhat sparse on #11 too.

Temperatures were a bit cooler so we kept our liners under our jackets but we had mostly clear skies. The highway is good and there is a lot to enjoy looking at. Every now and then we would get a gorgeous view of Georgian Bay. We did a pretty good ride today, covering about 420 Km’s. For the last hour we are now on a part of the road that we have been on before. At our stop for fuel in Blind River we were told that rain was expected overnight and thunder showers tomorrow. So here we are at an Inn in Blind River. Next door to us is a couple from Niagara area. They are riding a Harley Deluxe and heading to visit their daughter in Edmonton. Dark clouds have kept moving around but still no rain yet. For the next couple of days we will be riding on the same roads that we came on. Much of this route is really nice and we can visit and stay in places we missed on our way out.