Tag Archives: perce

Wednesday 7th October 2015 – I HAD YET ANOTHER …

… really bad night last night. Only on this occasion there wasn’t any particular reason for it. I was still awake at 02:00 this morning, which is not like me over here, is it? And worse still, I had no idea why that might have been.

I crawled under the shower and then made a coffee but I still didn’t feel much better.

grande riviere baie des chaleurs gaspe peninsula highway 132 quebec canadaAnyway, to wake myself up, I made myself another mug of coffee and went down to the harbour for a walk around and some fresh air.

And, strangely enough, this would have been quite a good place to have stayed for the night. There was plenty of space here and there were quite a few boats up on stocks. I could have tucked myself in here quite happily in the peace and quiet and been well away.

Still, you live and learn, don’t you?

la roche percée baie des chaleurs gaspe peninsula highway 132 quebec canadaHaving fuelled up Strider, I set off again and after a good drive I pulled up on a rest area to admire the view and drink another coffee.

We’ve all seen this rock before haven’t we? It’s La Roche Percée, the Pierced Rock, and we came by here before. It’s said to be one of the hundreds of places where Jacques Cartier made a landing and erected a cross.

If he really did land at all of the places that are claimed as his landing sites, he would probably be still out there now, but this time it’s probably correct because no-one could invent a description of this particular site without having visited it and there isn’t another place that resembles this in the whole of the St Lawrence estuary.

I was away with the fairies for about an hour up here too in the lovely sunny late-morning, and then I set off again to continue my travels.

perce baie des chaleurs gaspe peninsula highway 132 quebec canadaWe’ve seen the town of Percé before and so I won’t trouble you with another photo of the town itself. The only thing that you need to remember is that half of the buildings are motels and the other half are tourist attractions.

But all of that notwithstanding, we certainly haven’t seen the town and the rock from this angle. And although you can’t see the hole in the rock, this is certainly the most exciting angle to view everything. But itwas quite an effort to take the photo. There’s nowhere to park except at the side of the road and there’s an endless stream of traffic up the hill.

railway locomotive station gaspe baie des chaleurs gaspe peninsula highway 132 quebec canadaWe finally solve the mystery of the railway when we arrive at the town of Gaspé. All of the railway installations have been swept away and there’s a huge tourist information building constructed on the site.

And parked out at the back of it is the train here. We’ve seen dozens of locomotives like this and so I think that it might be one of the GP38 family, but I’ll need to check up on that.

railway train locomotive station gaspe baie des chaleurs gaspe peninsula highway 132 quebec canadaThe girl in charge of the tourist information office told me the story of the train, so now I can tell you all.

VIARAIL stopped running the trains to Montreal about 6 years ago and abandoned the line, so she said. It’s now a tourist scenic railway that runs just as far as Percé and back again in the summer months with no connection to the main line at Compbelltown, which should make life interesting if they ever need to replace the loco or send it away for repair.

But that’s not likely to happen as the service didn’t run this year. It seems that important work is needed to be done on the line but the Quebec Government hasn’t done it. “Maybe they’ll do it ready for next year” she said, and I’m not convinced that she believed it either.

The latest update on all of this is that Jean-François Turcotte told me “that was RS-18u 1849; it’s been trucked-out to the active portion of the line and is now used to haul woodchip, cement and windmill parts along with three other RS-18u’s. The carriages for the former l’Amiral tourist train are still in Gaspé, AFAIK.”

And Anthony Bernard Prince said ” A lot of track maintenance work will be carried out on the 3rd section of our railroad between Port-Daniel and Gaspé this year (2021). The majority of the work will be carried out between Chandler and Douglastown. 15,000 ties will be replaced, many crossings will be replaced, and thousands of tons of ballast will be spread.”

The town of Gaspé is a nightmare to negotiate as the whole road system is torn up for repair. I eventually made it to Tim Horton’s but didn’t stay long. Instead, I moved on and I’m now esconced at the site of the old World War II military defences for the bay. It’s a little-known fact that I had the UK fallen to the Germans in World War II, the Royal Navy would have come and set themselves up over here in the Gaspé.

And on the way out of Gaspé on the way to here here I drove past two motels that I hadn’t noticed in 2010. Where were they when I needed them?

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 – HAVING SURVIVED …

arts motor inn dalhousie new brunswick canada… last night’s motel I woke up to the coldest day of the journey so far (Labrador excluded of course).

It’s minus 1°C as I leave the motel and I’m now in winter gear – thick jacket, hat and gloves.

I’m just amazed at how quickly winter has arrived here.

campbelltown new brunswick canadaSo off for a quick tour of Dalhousie and its neighbouring town, Campbelltown, where the predominant language spoken here is, as you might expect, … errrr … French, even though this is New Brunswick.

And crossing the head of Chaleur Bay into Quebec, the predominant language in the town in which you arrive is … errrr … Mikmac.

Strawberry Moose and I had the pleasure of being introduced to the new tribal chief, the old one having just won the world’s tea-drinking championship, he died in his teepee.
“I am Chief Sitting Duck” said the chief
“How” I replied
“How” replied Strawberry Moose.
“And this is my favourite squaw Minnimama”
“How” I replied
“How” replied Strawberry Moose
“I bought her for two buffalo skins” said the chief
“How” I replied
“Never mind how” said Strawberry Moose. “Where?”

carleton gaspesie gaspe peninsula bay des chaleurs quebec canadaAnd so then along the north bank of the Baie de Chaleur, or the south shore of the Gaspe Peninsula, depending upon how you look at it.

The first European to set foot here was Jacques Cartier in his epic voyage of 1534 (although if he did indeed set his foot in everywhere that he is supposed to have set his foot he would never have had time to have written about it)

caplain gaspesie gaspe peninsula bay des chaleurs quebec canada
This north bank (or south shore) is really beautiful and you can’t move along it without tripping over a motel ir a guest house. There are thousands of them.

And quite right too – it is one of the most scenic parts of whatever passes for the Canadian Riviera and well worth the visit, and it’s not all that often that you hear me say that.

gaspesie perce gaspe quebec canadaHighlight of today’s part of the voyage has to be the town of Perce, and this was where I was headed.

Cartier also had a landfall here and this time there would seem to be no doubt at all about this – he describes perfectly the offshore island with the hole through the middle, and it truly is spectacular, so I’m not surprised that he remarked upon it.

motel adams gaspe quebec canadaI’m now in a motel in the town of Gaspe – the eastern-most town on the peninsula.

Gaspe is quite a historic place, a well-known former port but, alas, with everything demolished in the 1970s and much of it not yet rebuilt, as modern ships are far too big to use the new port.

And I have realised that tomorrow, if I can get a place on the late evening ferry to Baie Comeau from Matane, this will be my last night south of the St Lawrence.

That is rather a depressing thought, you know.