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| CANADA |
THE BAIE DES ROCHERS
We're back now on Highway 138 and it's starting to become exciting along this road. At kilometre 526 I come across another one of these wayside shrines, the kind that I saw all over Labrador when I was following the Trans-Labrador Highway last year.
It's just after St Siméon where you think that you might be starting to get into the traditional Upland Canada - the Canadian Shield. You could well be correct too, because we are now starting to encounter scenery that looks like this.
Here we are at Lac á Pitre at the beginning of May and this is a typical upland scene. And the bare trees give the whole area some kind of ghostly effect.
Now here's a thing that's quite exciting. I've just overtaken a 4-wheel drive vehicle that was pulling a caravan, and both caravan and vehicle were sporting German number plates. I'm going to see if I can get to talk to these people somewhere along the route and see how they managed this. I see all kinds of possibilities opening up before me.
If you came with me on my 2011 journey to Canada you will remember that I took a few aerial photos of the ground underneath me when I was flying over this region. One of the photos that I took was of the view where we picked up the St Lawrence by that enormous sandspit, a sandspit that could only be in my opinion somewhere very close to the confluence of another river.
I had a look on a few of these aerial photo sites on the internet and didn't find anything that might have resembled what I was looking for but here quite close to the mouth of the Sageunay River, looking back westwards towards St Simeon, I find a sandspit that might fit the bill.
And while I was stopped here photographing the scene, that German car and caravan have just gone past me. Now I have them right where I want them to be - in between me and the river. If I can"t head them off at the Pass I'll catch up with them at the ferry.
Back on the road, there's another sandspit even closer to St Catherine's Bay and the mouth of the Sageunay. This may well be an even better candidate for my sandspit but I don't want to stop and investigate right now. I need to stay in touch with these Germans just in front of me.
That means that I likewise don't stop to have another look at that Kelley's coach - the one that came up and parked by me at my overnight rest stop in the hills about Baie St Paul .
It's definitely the same coach - I recognise the crudely-painted L done in primer. I don't understand why they did that - a nice modern and expensive coach like that. It would look far better and give a much better impression if they had lashed out the few dollars on having a professional job done.
But we are going to have a brief pause, and don't worry - the Germans are not going to get away, because they were in 2011 and at the moment I'm in 2012.
And if you think that this is confusing, imagine how I feel, and I wrote it!
While I was driving along Highway 138 in 2011 I noticed a sign for the Baie des Rochers, pointing off the main road down to the river, and I thought that it looked interesting. However I didn't stop because I was too busy chasing Germans as you know.
I made a mental note to have a wander down here the next time that I was passing, and in fact I almost forgot. It wasn't until I saw the sign again that the light went on and I just about managed to stop in time.
Down here at the bottom of the road at the Baie des Rochers, I was struck by its resemblance to Harbour Le Cou
that we encountered in October 2010 on the south-western coast of Newfoundland. Home from home, you might say.
There's quite a quaint little story about the bay, and while you look around at the beautiful scenery I shall recount.
It concerns a young gentleman by the name of Jean Savard who, at the beginning of the 19th Century, made his girlfriend, Félicité Therrien, pregnant. Back in those days (and even in quite modern times, as I recall from my own youth in rural England) this was a heinous sin and punishment was severe.
Savard and his girlfriend were excommunicated from the church and expelled from their community.
And as no other community would be likely to take them in, they took to a boat and sailed, or maybe rowed - history does not record which - along the coast, exploring bays or coves to find a suitable place to live where there was no other inhabitant, and eventually settled here, down near the shore in what they called their vrai petite merveille - their "veritable little marvel".
On my drive down to the bay I'd seen quite a few interesting things and so on the way back to Highway 138 I resolved to stop off for a closer look.
One of the objects that had caught my eye was this little waterfall and I reckoned that this might well be something interesting. Managing to reach it for a closer look would be interesting because of all of the ice everywhere about, but that all adds to the excitement of the journey.
There was a handy car-parking space, but it seemed that this was intended for visitors to the pathway just here. This is the Chemin de la Croix, the "Path of the Cross" and somewhere down there is a wooden cross dated 1818 and erected by Savard to commemorate his arrival here
Mind you, seeing how the Church had treated him earlier, I think that a cross would have been the last thing that I would have erected in similar circumstances.
I didn't go for a look, though. I wasn't feeling up to going for a tramp in the woods and I would probably not have been able to catch him.
Being a Pisces I was far more interested in the waterfall and was eager for a closer look.
There is only one way of having a closer look than this, of course, and I nearly managed to do that. I've recently bought some new boots and they are heavy and awkward and uncomfortable at times, but they were worth their weight in gold just here. The rocks are all damp and frozen going down to the waterfall and I lost my footing a couple of times. Had I not been wearing a decent pair of boots with good soles I would have been in the waterfall myself.
A little higher up the road, the valley opens out and you can see that not only do we have space to move around, the soil and the vegetation give an indication that it might be possible for agricultural activity to take place here.
It's not therefore surprising that Savard and Félicité decided to settle here. and it certainly worked for them as Félicité produced 9 children. Remember that back in those days before television and ice hockey, there was nothing else to do in the long winter nights.
It's said that Savard, Félicité and their children populated this valley all the way up to Highway 138 - something that took me quite by surprise as I didn't realise that the Highway existed in the mid-19th Century.
But to be serious ... "for once" - ed ... it's not difficult to see why they were happy here. Good farming land in this neck of the woods is very rare indeed and here is the best that I have seen for quite some time.
I'm intrigued to know what it is that they grow here, though. Food would be quite important of course, but I reckon that even a Combrailles courgette would struggle to get going here.
So now that I've dealt with the Baie des Rochers let us return to Highway 138 and travel back in time in our pursuit of these German tourists
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