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POINTE AUX ANGLAIS and RIVIERE PENTECOTE
From here, we turn off Highway 138 a little further on into the village of Pointe-aux-Anglais. And the first thing that we notice here is the church of St Paul.
In fact, it would be very difficult to miss this church. And I'm not quite sure what to make of it either. It's certainly different from all of the other churches that one sees in Quebec and which are all copies of some other church somewhere else.
I've never seen anything else quite like this, so I suppose it's hats off (or chapeau, seeing as we are in Quebec) to the architect for trying something new.
You don't need me to tell you that the church is modern. In fact it dates from 1962. and the story goes that during the construction of the church, 120 parishioners each brought 40 stones to the construction site from a beach 5 kilometres away.
The story does not record whether they carried them all at once, or one at a time.
You probably noticed the graveyard attached to the church. That is said to be over 100 years old, and so this implies that there was a previous church on the site.
No mention of what might have become of the church, but anyone who has travelled any distance around the Province of Quebec with me would be able to have a shrewd guess.
We have to go for a wander around the cemetery to see what we can see. We have some quite imposing gravestones here, but every now and again we evidence of some informal ones of the artisan type or of the primitive school. It's clear that on some occasions there have been some issues with the stonemason.
But as for this gravestone, just look at the spelling of février. That's rather embarrassing.
My eye is caught by the rusting artefacts on display in this garden - and in particular, the old cannon. You might be wondering whether there is a good story behind this, and I can safely say that indeed there is.
And if you are wondering what it might be, let me give you a clue or two. Not for nothing is this place known as Pointe-aux-Anglais, and not for nothing is the main street known as rue Walker.
While you are pondering on the above, I walk down to the foreshore, and it wouldn't surprise me if the rocks that the parishioners carried to the church came from around here, because as you can see, there are thousands and thousands of them just here.
My guess would be that this is where a glacier came to a shuddering halt and was taken away by the river. The presence of the glacier would explain the boulders and how rounded they are as they have been ground against each other by the action of the moving ice, and that would also explain the presence of all of the sand for which this area is famous, as this would be the debris that had been ground off the boulders.
Two more things that you might notice and which have some significance in the history of the area are the cross and also the fog.
As for the fog, it was bright sunny weather just 15 minutes ago but all of a sudden this fog-bank has come rolling in and taken me quite by surprise.
Having experienced this amazing phenomenon for myself, I can understand how it was that the Empress of Ireland came to grief over on the southern shore near Rimouski, and I can also understand the tragedy that befell Rear-Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker on this spot in 1711 and which, I imagine, the cross commemmorates, although the significance of what seems from this distance to be "1995" has escaped me.
So who was Rear Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker then?
He was a British Admiral of the fleet who, as a Commander during the War of The Spanish Succession 1701-1714, had had something of a roller-coaster career of glorious success mixed in with miserable failure.
During the period round about 1709-1710 the war was not going too well for the British after Marlborough's setback at Malplaquet, and it was feared that any armistice terms that might be applied might not be to the British benefit. A few quick victories would restore the British advantage.
An easy victory over the French at Annapolis (the French Port-Royal) in Nova Scotia in 1710 lulled the British into a false sense of security, and feeling that other easy victories might be obtained in Nouvelle France, and expeditiion was kitted out, under the command of Walker.
The expedition, badly under-equipped so as to mislead French spies as to its ulitmate destination, set sail for Boston where it was hoped to obtain further supplies and, more importantly, local seamen with a thorough knowledge of conditions in the St Lawrence. Unfortunately, neither was forthcoming and the expedition sailed on 30th July 1711 with what it had managed to scrounge - destination Quebec.
The better pilots that Walker had managed to persuade to sail with him were less-than-enthusiastic and quickly grew cold feet about the voyage. And, unbelievably, Walker did not force them to continue. He continued on his way with a very motley crew.
Miles off his supposed position, he became caught in a fog bank. And when his crew caught a glimpse of land, he believed that it was the southern shore so he gave the command to his fleet of about 70 vessels to tack to the starboard - the right hand side.
However it was the north bank that they had encountered and by giving the command to tack to the starboard, he had them all sailing full-tilt towards the rocky shore.
Had it not been for an equally-dramatic shift in the direction of the wind, he would have lost a great deal more than 9 or 10 of his ships and 900-odd of the men under his command.
And so yet another British expedition to capture Nouvelle France comes to an ignominious end without a shot being fired.
"Lost in Rock Formations", as Neil Young said on "Thrasher" from the absolutely excellent Rust Never Sleeps
It's not quite the end though, because some people say that in the fog you can sometimes see a ghostly British frigate just offshore trying to find its bearings.
That's not all either. Somewhere out there is the St Laurent - a ship of that name, I mean.
She was one of the coastal shuttles operated by the Holliday Brothers that ran between Mingan and Quebec, and went down on the rocks off Pointe-aux-Anglais on 9th October 1903.
But then, look at this!
Turning round I notice that this place here seems to have suffered a tragedy. And quite recently too.
It's clearly burned down in a conflagration but not only that, the woodpile is still smoking. Is it old enough?
And thinking on, we talk so much about buildings in Quebec being lost to the flames. This is in fact the second one that we have witnessed on this visit - the other one being at Baie St Paul about 7 or 8 days ago .
Our next stop just a handful of kilometres down the road is what has been rightly described by Yours Truly as the Jewel of the North Shore - the little town of Riviere-Pentecote. This is in my opinion the most beautiful place along the whole of the coast.
But never mind the view for a moment, because we'll be seeing so much more of it - just look down at the foot of this cliff at the size of that guy's woodpile.
And never mind the woodpile for a moment either, just look at that wonderful sandbar.
If you've been with me for any length of time on this journey, you'll know that I'm looking for a certain sandbar that I saw from the air as I flew over the St Lawrence in August 2011 .
I had very, very high hopes for this one, but it is pointing in the wrong direction. Never mind - it's still beautiful.
Of course, my eye is immediately caught by a historic building over there at the foot of the cliff. And not only is it historic, it's also built of stone and brick, and doesn't that make quite a change from the typical wooden building that you find (or no longer find because it's burnt down) around here.
I wa curious to know what it might have been. Of course, it can't have been built for the purposes of defence because attackers could simply stand on the cliffs above and drop rocks on it. I assumed that it must therefore be something industrial, and more than likely, connected with the lumber industry.
I was right too, but then it didn't take much guessing. It's a sawmill formerly operated by the Gagnon Brothers, whoever they might be, from 1883. The company closed down in 1928 but reopened in 1937, as did much of this area's timber industry in the late 1930s as we already know.
By the 1960s the industry here was in something of a decline, and in 1970 a major scandal erupted here. It seems that company that owned the operation here, the Canadian International Paper Company, diverted the river without the authorisation of the Government or the approval of the people.
The fall-out from this was effectively the finish of the company, which ceased operations in 1975.
This beautiful area down here which seems to be now a campsite, picnic spot and playground was formerly the site of the village.
However, as you can imagine with the beautiful sandbar that you see at the mouth of the river, coastal erosion here is a constant menace and so the village was moved up to the top of the cliff just there in the background, from where I took the first two photos of the site.
With this being an important industrial site in the past, you would expect to see a quay close by where the ships that would take away the output of the mill would tie up.
This here is what I found, and you can see the rotten timbers interlacing the pile of stones. This certainly gives credence to the idea that this was the old quay.
It's quite silted up around it now, as you can see. but this is presumably due to the controversial change of course of the river.
And here's an astonishing thing.
There's part of the quayside that has fast-flowing water running beside it (as, of course, you might expect) and I was standing on it, concentrating on a notice that I was reading, when I happened to glance down at the river that was flowing underneath my feet.
It seemed to me at that moment that it was the river that was standing still and the quayside that was hurtling along at a rapid rate of knots.
I've never ever had an experience quite like that.
There are plenty of fishermen out there today, which is hardly a surprise seeing how nice the weather is (the fog had disappeared as dramatically as it had arrived).
I wondered whether it was salmon for which they were fishing, but in fact it's sea trout. The salmon aren't ready for another couple of weeks.
As an aside ... "you'll become accustomed to this" - ed ... there are restrictions on the salmon in that you can't keep them if they are over 63cms in length. These are the adult breeding salmon.
You may be wondering how the river here earned its name. This is due to the fact that Cartier anchored his ship here at Pentecost 1535 - and not 1635 of course, as I once saw written somewhere.
The other claim to fame of this area is that the first newspaper to cover events of the North Shore - the "Echo of Labrador" (and note the "Labrador" after what I was telling you yesterday ) was launched here in 1903.
Its promoter was Joseph Laize, an Eudist missionary.
And the Eudists? They were followers of Father Jean Eudes who was a French priest out here in the 17th Century and for whom the cathedral in Baie-Comeau is named.
I haven't quite finished yet with the area around Riviere-Pentecote because I encounter yet another waterfall, and quite a pretty one too it has to be said.
That's the one thing about here, all of these waterfalls. No wonder that there has been a great emphasis on hydro-electric power round here, and the availability of this power has led to much of the economic development of the region.
And so the verdict of our the detour to Riviere-Pentecote? Absolutely unmissable.
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