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.