Gaspé to St. Anne des Monts

We had a good breakfast at the Adam’s Motel restaurant and got a fairly early start on

Somewhere between Gaspé and Farillon National Park 

another weather friendly morning.  The motel is close to the highway so we were able to leave the city quite quickly.
Just a word about my preconceived notions about the Gaspé Peninsula. I’m not aware of the basis for these preconceptions but I had pictured it as mostly flat with some hills and populated by a few folks living in tiny villages.

And there are, of course,  lots of small villages but there are also cities like Rimouski and Gaspé which are bustling places with lots of traffic and fast driving Québecers.

At Farillon National Park

And the topography I, obviously, had completely wrong. I had no idea, for example, that the northeastern tip of the Appalachian mountain chain extends from the south eastern USA to the Gaspé Peninsula and beyond, even to the Scottish Highlands, apparently.

Boardwalk at Forillon National Park

And, while these mountain are only a shadow of their former height due to erosion over a few hundred thousand years, some are still pretty high - Mount Jacques-Cartier in the Chic Choc’s,  for example, reaches 1,268 m.

First Lighthouse - note sure exactly where.

But onward.

Not long after leaving Gaspé we stopped at Forillon National Park at the far eastern end of the Gaspé Peninsula. Near the Park entrance and information centre there is a fairly extensive, very sturdy looking board walk. We decided to see how far this easy walk would take us and about 20 minutes later we were at the end. This is a large park with many kilometres of excellent walking/hiking trails but for many reason we are, unfortunately, not really able to make use of them, so we terminated our walk at the end of the boardwalk and returned to the parking lot.

As we hadn’t identified additional specific locations to visit, the remainder of our journey to St. Anne des Monts was punctuated by lots of stops at places where we hoped to find yet the perfect spectacular view and photo opportunity. The photo above on the left was made at what we thought might be place for lunch combined with a nice view. But the gazebo and the general area were not really very attractive so after this photo we moved on.

One of the towns mentioned below.

I think it worth saying that, while the trip was terrific and I certainly enjoyed it, it turned out, from a photography point of view, to be less rewarding than I had hoped. The weather was a major contributing factor with lots of rain and cloud in the early days.

Passing through...

Also, driving and hoping to find excellent views is tricky as so many of the “ones that got away” did so because they appear suddenly and fleetingly as we pass at 80 km/hr or so and there was no place to stop in any case.

On some roads there was little traffic so it was possible to stop and back up or turn around and reasonably safely pull off onto the shoulder long enough to make a quick photo or two but not really time to think it through carefully.  Another difficulty is presented by the time of day during which we are on the move - mostly during hours in which the light is not the best for good photos. Not excuses, just observations.

Second Lighthouse, not sure of the location.

During our Cabot Trail drive we were promised, by signs, that we would at some point come to a lighthouse, but we never did find one. On the Gaspé route, however, though there were no signs announcing lighthouse  we actually came across 3 of them.

As we had left Clifton Park on May 2 we have now been on the road about 20 days so, as you can imagine, note taking is less precise and the blur of time and places tend to make it difficult to match the photos with the exact location. 

We know that we visited Rivière au Renard and the towns of Saint Maurice-de-l’Echouerie, L’Anse-à-Valleau and Grande Vallée but which of the photos here were made near which of these places we can’t be completely certain. And, in the end, it probably doesn’t really matter.

We were there and enjoyed seeing everyone of them. The small villages nestled down in valleys at the water’s edge (obviously for practical reasons) all presented a lovely romantic image to passers by like us.
At this point we are still travelling through a pretty mountainous area so, as you can see in a couple of the photos, we often had a view from well above the villages.  One of the things you may also have noted in a couple of photos is that in each village, seemingly no matter how small, there is a fairly prominent church with steeple visible from afar.

The mountainous topography continues on to St. Anne des Monts, as indicated by the name, but before we reached St. Anne the road made its way out to the edge of the mountains and down very close to the shore, so the drive and the views along the ocean were much different from earlier images.

I have included a few images made from along the shore, one which shows a gathering of Gannets and we are both quite sure that the group of Gannets was near Riviere la Madeleine.

Around 4 pm we arrived in St. Anne des Monts and the Hotel&Cie, an unusual name but it was a nice motel and all arrangements were in order.

A cluster of Gannets

This was our most expensive place so far, partly because their fee for the dog was $35 per night! Again, by far the most expensive dog fee.


One night there so not time for two increasingly weary travellers to do much more than rest for tomorrow’s drive to Notre Dame de Neiges and the Motel Trois Pistales where we found ourselves in the most spartan of accommodations so far.

Carleton sur mer to Gaspé

I enjoyed our brief stay at the motel in Carleton sur mer. Funny how circumstances change how one feels about something  Initially I was quite disappointed in the somewhat “long in the tooth” motel in which we found

ourselves.

However, the cheerful friendliness and helpfulness of the owner and hearing her story about establishing the motel and now running it, essentially single handedly, made me see the place in a different light.

So, on a beautiful sunny morning we left in a buoyant mood after a simple but enjoyable breakfast and looking forward to the trip to Gaspé which included passing through Percé, home of “the Rock”. More about the rock later.

The inside of the church taken through a window

Ruth had found another heritage village near New Richmond which was a short drive from Carleton sur mer. This initiative is a memorial to the United Empire Loyalists who emigrated to this area during the US war of independence. This is a pleasant place but less developed than the previous heritage villages we visited. There were a few buildings, including a church from the period, brought from Stellarville, if I recall correctly. Beside the church was a small pile of snow which delighted Kita!

She doesn’t look delighted in the photo but she defintely was excited, running, rolling and burying her nose in the snow! The property also offered a very convenient and attractive place for a much appreciated walk, which we did.

We continued on along the south coast of the Gasperie stopping frequently to try to capture in photos the spectacular topography but, as impressive as some of these images might be, photos fail to convey the visual experience of actually being there. Better photos might come closer but whatever the quality of the two dimensional photograph, it will still fall short of being there.

We stopped for lunch at a “viewing site” near Bonaventure and while enjoying some food and the sun, we noticed some gulls, or what we took to be gulls, cruising above the bay. A couple of them seemed particularly enthusiastic in their pursuits, circling about then diving at full speed crashing into the water, surfacing, then scrambling off the water to get airborne, circling again before repeating the dive and crash into the water. Not typical gull behaviour we thought. Then Ruth noticed the black wingtips - our first experience with Gannet fishing techniques! 

Sorry - no photos of the Gannets.

Back on the road we stopped briefly in New Carlisle, the birthplace of René Lévesque, the once influential and still esteemed Québec Premier. I know, I said in the previous blog that we were in New Carlisle, but I was wrong. Memory of what we saw and when we saw it is not always accurate. Which is why Ruth’s notes are usually necessary to minimize the blur of places and times. In any case, I also previously mentioned that there is a life size statue of Lévesque in a small park, actually a children’s playground, in his home town of New Carlisle. Now, Lévesque was a fairly short man and the statue, being life size, reflected this fact to the displeasure, I have been told, of some of his more ardent admirers. They apparently felt that statue should be more like the man, larger than life!

We left the life size Monsieur Lévesque in New Carlisle, moving east to another heritage site at Haspebiac which Ruth’s perusal of the books had revealed. This one is a tribute to the cod fishermen who laboured for decades under the harsh conditions presented by the ocean and the brutal behaviour of the fish processing and distribution industry. It is an impressive project with some beautifully restored historic buildings on a very

attractive site which is uniquely integrated with a gathering of currently active fishing boats.

Among the unusual artifacts that attracted me was a “skeleton” of what I assume to be an old fishing boat - an opportunity for a couple of potentially interesting photos!

At this point we were getting close to a place of interest that I was really looking forward to seeing - Percé and the famous rock! Now, as we are driving we are constantly on the lookout for places that we can stop for viewing and photos, some of them “official” and some,  just areas that we can safely pull off the road. For the “official” areas there is often a sign a couple of km in advance informing us of an upcoming “official” site and, as we had just seen one of these advance signs, we were anticipating the turn off.  We came to a fairly sharp turn in the road and there immediately in front of us was the turn off which we managed to negotiate. This turn in the road, we learned later,  is called La Côte Surprise, and we were indeed surprised because there in front of us was the famous Rock!

This is NOT the Percé rock.

T

This is the Percé Rock

Percé Rock (Rocher Percé, "pierced rock") is a huge sheer rock formation at the tip of Gaspé Peninsula off the Baie de Percé. It is one of the world's largest natural arches located in water and is considered a geologically and historically rich natural icon of Québec.  It's difficult to grasp the size of the rock which they say is 88 meters high. The last photo with the building on the nearby mainland may provide some perspective on the size and the map locates the rock and the larger nearby island in relation to the mainland.

Fortunately, here we found one of few open information places so we were able to get the information we needed to best see and photograph the rock. At one of the recommended locations there was a boardwalk in a sad state of repair due, I learned in an extended conversation with a local man I met on an intact part of the boardwalk, to serious storms this past winter.

During this delightful conversation we also exchanged some information about our personal family histories and each of our careers! He accommodating, as we Anglophones generally assume they will do, to my inability to communicate in French.

I have to say that on this trip I have found it particularly embarrassing that I cannot speak French and I that come into a French speaking community automatically assuming that, since I cannot speak French,  they will accommodate by speaking English!  It’s an arrogance of a large part of the English speaking world and I am not happy to be one of those, especially in “bilingual” Canada and especially since I have French roots! Thankfully, most folks here are willing and able to accommodate.or this trip would have been much more difficult for us.

On to the city of Gaspé and our motel, the Adams Motel, where I was informed the they do not accept pets! Here is my opportunity to vent my view of the "middle men",  both those on line and through 800 numbers. These groups, I have found during this adventure, to be much less than helpful.  My experience has been that they know nothing  about the location of the motel/hotel, or about the facility for which  they are supposed to be arranging a reservation. And, if a reservation is finally completed it may well not be what you expect. The Adams motel incident was only one example of problems we had with these folks who are far removed from the accommodation. On several occasions I gave up in frustration. When we could find a phone number for the actual facility, which is often not possible if the facility is not in the CAA books, things went smoothly. At the Adams motel, an exception was made so, in the end,  we were able to stay.

Beresford to Carleton sur mer on the Gaspésie

Hoorah! Wednesday morning, departure day, we woke to a sunny day and warmer temperatures than we have experienced for some time. So, we are leaving for our next destination - Carleton sur mer in the Gaspésie. (We have learned that Gaspésie is the “official” name for the Gaspé Peninsula and that the origin of the name "Gaspé" comes from the Mi'kmaq word gespe'g, meaning "end", referring to the end of the land.)

Remember to click on any photo to see a larger version.

But, before talking about the trip I want to say that, while this trip has been a joint effort, Ruth has done the lion's share of the work. Without her organization both at the outset and throughout the trip it would have been abandoned before it started or very early en route! And we have become increasingly efficient at moving our relatively large amount of stuff into and out of car and motels so that we can accomplish it quite quickly. So, my thanks to her for all of that, and for reviewing my blog before it gets published with all of the typos. And one other thing that made this trip possible was our acquisition of a small refrigerator which works on the car battery and on 110 volts with an adapter. If you are ever planning a trip like the one we have been on, especially with an 80 pound dog on a raw food diet, I highly recommend this terrific device! And, it’s made in Canada.

The fossil cliff at the National Park of Miguasha

The drive to the Gaspésie took us along the New Brunswick coast, and more quite lovely scenery, spoiled around Belladune by a smelting plant and a large generating station both belching out almost enough emmisons into the air to resemble Hamilton’s steel plants.  In Campbellton, New Brunswick, we stopped at  Sugarloaf Mountain provincial park where, we were told, we should experience the spectacular view from this rather unusually large mound of rock seemingly misplaced on an otherwise relatively flat landscape. But we failed to experience the view as, true to our experience so far with such attractions, it was not yet open.  But we did stay in the parking lot and eat our lunch. 

View from Mount St. Joseph in Carleton sur mer

Shortly after entering the Gaspésie Ruth, in perusing the bits of information we had gathered, noticed the extremely small National Park of Miguasha, also a UNESCO World Heritage site, which we learned was a world renowned source of important Devonian fossils - fauna in transition from water to land forms. There was a short walking trail which allowed access to the beach and the shale wall which has been the source of the fossil evidence for which this place is so well known in the world of geology and palaeontology. I visited the wall but failed to find any fossil forms. After our visit to the Park we went on to Auberge de Caps motel in Carleton sur mer.

From Mt. St. Joseph - sand bar extending into the
Bay of Chaleur

In searching for our accommodations in the Gaspésie we have learned that the towns and/or regions, are spread

out along the road and the coast with a few houses here and there, for quite long distances. So when you think you are in the town you are looking for, you may not actually be there yet.  In fact, you may find that you have to drive for several kilometres before you find your destination.

The Auberge de Caps was an interesting place: spartan, but with rooms looking right on to the

Baie de Chaleur!

More Mount St. Joseph

The reception area was small and the receptionist was a very friendly and helpful person who offered to help us bring our belongings into the room! We declined the generous offer. She also was extremely helpful in informing us about places to eat - including recommendations about the quality and price of each - and things of interest around Carleton sur mer.

Park in Carleton sur mer

She also explained that breakfast would be in the adjacent room at 7 am.

Sand bar and water basin - Park in Carleton sur mer

We had brought food for dinner so did not try any of the places that she had recommended. When we went for breakfast, there she was again, having set a table for us with bread and spreads for toast and offering coffee and orange juice.  We were the only ones in the room which was simple but clean and well equipped with dishes and appliances which we could have used to prepare our own meal. She puttered about, sweeping the floor and chatting.

Park in Carleton sur mer

We learned that she is a retired nurse who, with 2 partners, turned this former retirement home,into a motel in 1992. She now runs it on her own with one hired maintenance man! And, she loves her job! One of the points of interest that our motel friend mentioned was Mount St. Joseph, a 555 meter high site in the centre of Carleton sur mer. I decided to take this steep drive to the top for a quite spectacular view! After a moderately unsettling drive down I went to the park - an area within the city which is protected from the bay waters by a long sand bar which provides not only protection but a lovely walking area.

More Park in Carleton

Thursday after breakfast of toast and our interesting talk with motel owner we set off under clear skies for our next destination, the city of Gaspé which is close to the eastern end of Gaspésie.

Sackville to Bathurst/Beresford New Brunswick

Well, we arrived in Beresford, New Brunswick on Sunday May 15 after a rainy, windy drive of just under 4 hours. 

But, before saying more about now, I want to go back a bit.

The day before we left the Hunter Mountain area we drove for a couple of hours on a “scenic” drive along one of

the “Bras” of the Bras d’Or Lake. It turned out to be a fairly low key scenic drive but we did find the Iona  Highland Village, an initiative which is committed to developing awareness of and sharing the heritage of Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia. And it certainly gave us some interesting insights.

For example, Gaelic as a unique Scottish Highlands language apparently evolved from Irish Gaelic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and it accompanied Highland Scots who emigrated to what is now Nova Scotia. At Confederation in 1867 Gaelic was the third most common language spoken in what was then Canada and in 1900 over 100,000 people in Nova Scotia still spoke Gaelic as their mother tongue. In the this heritage village there are several renovated and preserved historic buildings from the Nova Scotia Gaelic era, including a unique round stone and thatch “house” with

stone steps built into the wall (presumably to minimize the difficulty of accessing the thatch roof for repair), and a small but prominent white church sitting high on the landscape. I’m not sure of the denomination of the church but as the Highland Gaels who emigrated to Nova Scotia were predominantly followers of either Roman Catholic or Presbyterian churches, it could be either or represent both.

The discovery of this village was definitely the interesting and informative high point of the drive for me.

Church at the Gaelic Heritage site.

Now I’m sitting in a comfortable room at Danny’s Inn, Restaurant and Conference Centre in Beresford, New Brunswick, with the all day rain continuing to fall. The folks here are very friendly and accommodating (very few customers at the moment). The place is quite nice and we are ready for another "rest" from driving and unpacking and re-packing every day. So, before pressing on we will likely stay here for a couple more nights.

So far the weather here has been pretty unpleasant with persistent cool and rain so not much exploring. We hope to get to one of the Parks here in Bathurst.

Acadian Village home.

Another bit of clarification. When we started this trip we intended to go from Nova Scotia on to Newfoundland but a number of factors contributed to our decision to scratch that part of the plan. First, though it is nice to have her along, travelling with a dog presents a number of difficulties. It is not always easy to find accommodation that accepts pets. And travelling with a dog on a raw food diet adds an enormous complication as the food has to be kept frozen or cold.

Acadian Village Grist Mill and dam

We have a neat refrigerator that works in the car and on 110 V systems in motels but we are still limited by the amount we can carry. And the sources of raw food along the way are relatively few.  And, though we found a source in Newfoundland, other factors precluded this part of the trip. The ferry ride of about 8 hours presents its own complication. The dog can be accommodated on board either on deck in a hard plastic crate or in the car. No one is allowed to stay with her in the car and we would not have access to the car during the trip to "The Rock".

Acadian Village Grist Mill

Neither of these options was acceptable for us, so, sadly, the Newfoundland visit was not possible.

Back to Bathurst.  One of our 3 days there was rain free and as there was a threat of sun, on the advice of a tourist information person (at a not yet open information office) we decided to drive to Miscous Island, relatively close to Bathurst (about 60 Km or so) where there are said to be spectacular views. It turned out that the

School and Church

original destination was a bit further than we thought and, with our usual stopping and starting, time prevented us from reaching our goal. But, one of the stopping places, an historical Acadian Heritage village, proved to be a lucky find! Once again, not yet open - but there were lots of folks around working hard to have the park open by early June. In spite of the time pressures they were facing and that the park is actually closed, they were extremely friendly and went some pains to make it possible for us to walk through the heritage

Acadians seem to have had Credit Unions!

village! A bit like other such places, the buildings have been moved from their original locations in different areas of the province and placed here in their original compass orientations and in relation to each other to create a semblance of an authentic Acadian village. The walk through the entire village was about 2.5 Km and we really impressed with the buildings and the overall ambience of the entire village.

Tinsmith's Shop - taken through the closed window

Tavern

So, here we are preparing to depart from northern New Brunswick for the Gaspé Peninsula where finding accommodation is a bit tricky for two reasons. Once again, finding pet friendly places that fit with our driving schedule has not been easy and secondly because many places are not yet open! 

But, having said that, I am happy to say that we have found and booked places for the first 3 nights on the Gaspé Peninsula.

Nest stop, Carleton sur mer, Province of Québec.