Quebec and Saguenay

Saturday 9/28/19

I made an error in my last entry – we sailed right past Montreal and on through the night, reaching Quebec City late morning. We’ll stop in Montreal, our final stop, on the way back upriver. We had a beautiful day in Quebec, cool and sunny, perfect for walking. The low lying area where we landed had a mix of old buildings on narrow cobbled streets and modern buildings on wide, paved streets. We set out with Bruce and Maggie and found our way to the funicular which gave us a spectacular ride up to the main city. The area of town closest to where the cruise ships dock was flooded with tourists from two enormous ships, but as we made our way into town the crowds thinned. Although we missed the main demonstrations we saw groups going to and coming from the Friday march against inaction on climate change.

Bruce and Maggie had a couple of errands they wanted to run, and that gave us enough of a destination. After complete success on the errands we found a small Halal restaurant with great food, friendly staff, and local customers. We capped lunch off with some of the best gelato ever. The proprietor had 36 flavors at the height of the season. He was out of a few, as he’s only open until mid-October, but it was still a dazzling array. He took serious pride in his product, and with good reason. Like all the Quebecquoise we met, he politely switched to English for us. It was lovely to hear French all around us, and I could read most of the signs – though many were bilingual. People say that Quebec feels like a European city, and I suppose it does, both because of the charming older streets and because of the foreign language. I’ve certainly seen areas of US cities that have similar charm, but there do seem to be more square blocks of charm in Quebec than in most of the cities I know. We had a lovely ramble, never got completely lost, and returned to the ship exhausted. I went out for a short walk after a nap, but there wasn’t a lot of spring left in my step.

We sailed up the St. Lawrence overnight and turned into the Saguenay at a little after six on a cloudy, drizzly morning. The Saguenay was carved out by the Laurentide ice sheet and it’s stunningly beautiful, carved and scoured as the ice sheet advanced and retreated. Massive rock cliffs drop straight into the deep, dark water. Over the years enough dirt has accumulated in crevasses of the cliff faces to support trees, dark pines, red maples, and yellow poplars. A finned whale breached a few times close enough to the boat for a good look – worth it to be on deck despite the cold and damp. From the mouth of the Saguenay at the St. Lawrence some sixty miles upstream there are few signs of humanity. Great power lines cross the gorge in a couple of places, and there were a very few scattered houses. But most of the land is a protected park until you’re nearly upon the one town on the river. We’re moored in the town of Saguenay, a center for bauxite mining and tourism, and we’ll be here overnight.