CHEMIN DU ROY

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I had an early start this morning and by now I'm hungry. And I can't think of many places nicer places than this to sit and eat my bagel with strawberry jam and maple syrup and to read a book. I'm parked in a lay-by at Pointe du Lac just a few miles outside Trois Rivieres and the view is gorgeous and the weather is beautiful.

Yes, the St Lawrence opens out really wide just around here and then narrows again. That part of the river is known as the Lac St Pierre.

Beautiful and gorgeous the weather and the view might be, but on the other hand this is not so nice.Big Brother is watching us all and proud of it too.

The Fascists today in charge of the Western World have succeeded in scaring to death all of their citizens with scare stories about the Terrorists in the same way that mummy and daddy would scare you about the bogey-man and the big bad wolf and so, frightened out of their tiny minds, the poor citizens rush to embrace the concept of invasion of their private lives and are quite happy about it.

Hermann Goering once famously said
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country"
And how relevant that quote is today. Anyone remember the Dixie Chicks?

Modern Western leaders have learnt quite a thing or two from the Nazis. Compare this speech
"There is a serious security threat to this country. It is important,therefore, that we take the necessary measures, while respecting people's liberties, to protect the nation's security"
made by Tony B Liar in 2005, with this speech
"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland"
made by Adolph Hitler on forming the Gestapo in 1923.

And we all know what heppened subsequently to British people's liberties under the Tories .

The whole Western world is really getting up my nose now and if I could find a place to where I could flee where they couldn't get me, I'd be off like a ferret up a trouser leg.

At least when the Communists were spying on their citizens in Eastern Europe they were pretty open, upfront and honest about it, not like the west that is using fear, subterfuge and other means to the same ends.

If you are having to disguise your activities like this then clearly you are ashamed of them, and that says it all. Spying is spying and that is that. When is someone from the West going to stand up and admit that, despite the 50 years that the West spent in trying to destroy Communism, the Communists were right all along.

So abandoning another good rant for the moment I need to be pressing on - or pushing off. Not 50 yards from where I'm parked there's a sign to tell us to turn off Highway 138 because the Chemin du Roy turns off here too.

Up that road is the town of Pointe du Lac or whatever it is called. Founded in 1656 and if you missed me when I drove through there in September 2013 or there was no film in the security camera, you can folllow my voyage on these next pages.

Having found a place to park, I can leave the Dodge and go for a wander around. First thing that I do is to look back at the view behind me. That was the direction from which I came and the St Lawrence is down there at the bottom of the road.

You'll probably notice too that only bicycles with roofs are allowed to use the right-hand lane here. Clearly everyone around here is a big fan of the Prisoner.

But before I wander too far away from the car park, let me drool over this vehicle.

An ordinary common-or-garden banal GMC Safari, you might think, and what is so special about that? Apart from the fact that it reminds me of Caliburn, my own trusty steed , this is right up my alley for my voyages around North America. If I could find someone in the Montreal area who had something like this to hire out, I would be in my elephant

I'd heard it mentioned that there was some kind of historic mill here at Pointe du Lac and so I went for a butcher's.

This must be it, I reckon. A nice fieldstone building rather over-pointed, which destroys the beauty of the individual stones (since I've started to build things in fieldstone I've been less-than-impressed with what I've seen in Canada) and I don't think much of the evidently period- reproduction galvanised steel roof.

Peering through the trees round the back and being dazzled by the sun reflectiing off the roof, I can see that I've found what I'm looking for. This is indeed the Moulin Seigneurial of Pointe du Lac.

Although the town was founded in the mid-17th Century, construction of the first flour mill occurred in 1721. That was something that took me a little by surprise as I understood that it ws the duty of the Seigneur to construct a mill (and also a church) as soon as his land grant was confirmed, not 60-odd years later.

The rapid increase in population quickly outgrew the capacity of that mill so construction of a larger mill began in 1765. And you can be forgiven for thinking that it was a project of the local Council, because it took 20 or so years to build. Mind you, when you look at the extent of the dams and canalisations that were necessary to provide enough of a head to give sufficient power to the mill, then they might be excused.

And they needed as much power as they could obtain from the water because this was at one time the sixth most productive mill in the whole Province of Quebec and was still milling grain in 1965.

The original Seigneur in this case was of the family Godefroy de Tonnancour, although in 1795 the domain passed to the businessman Nicholas Montour. It's said that he was responsible for the industrialisation of this area, something that lasted until as late as the mid-20th Century.

Part of the mill is a sawmill. But this part is not original. It appears that the original part collapsed in 1932 and was rebuilt by the Frères de l'Instruction Chrétienne - the Brothers of Christian Instruction - in 1949 and worked until 1986.

And the Frères de l'Instruction Chrétienne? More of them anon.

That large chain there was used to pull sawdust out from the mill. The local inhabiants saved that and subsequently dyed it with all kinds of varous colours ready for Corpus Christi Day in June.

On that day they would make a carpet of sawdust with all kinds of motifs in all different combinations of colour and there would be a religious Procession that would walk on it. This was a custom that began in 1915 but died out during the 1960s. It just goes to show that it's not just in France that rural arts are dying out.

So let's go for a wander around the grounds and see what we can see. Loads of stuff, I hope.

The first thing that we notice as we stand by the sluice for the sawmill wheel is the huge lake at the back of the mill. As I said, this mill required an enormous amount of power. Rene Godefroy du Tonnancour, the who organised the building of the mills, diverted the River St Charles to flow into his artificial make in order to apporter enough eau to his moulin.

And for the first time ever, I have ever seen something formal and official about the risks of lakes silting up against man-made barriers and dams and thus reducing the water flow. As you know, this is a pet theme of mine and that's why I reckon that the Quebec government's huge hydro-electric projects up on the Manicouagan and the Outardes will all eventually end in tears

That's where I was standing just now - by the side of where that barrier is in the water. That's presumably to stop logs, branches, coureurs de bois kayaks and future Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church of Quebec falling down there and jamming up the water wheel.

Yes, future Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church of Quebec. I bet that you are thinking that I'm joking too, but I'm not. One of the claims to fame of this lake is that Thomas Cook, the first Bishop of Trois Rivieres and whom we shall encounter a little later, fell into it when he was only 2 years old, and was rescued by a dog.

You may have noticed in one of the earlier photos that there seemed to be some kind of lighthouse on the edge of the lake. With a little bit of judicious "crop and enlarge" I can produce a close-up and you'll see that I'm not joking either.

But why on earth would there be a lighthouse here on the lake? My first thought seemed to be that it's a wreckers' light designed to lure oil tankers and container ships off the St Lawrence into the lake so that the Frères de l'Instruction Chrétienne could supplement their meagre incomes with a bit of wrecking, looting and pillaging.

But not raping of course - they have taken a Vow of Chastity. Although with what we've been learning in the early years of the 2&st Century about the sordid activities of some of the members of the Catholic Church, a vow of Chastity wouldn't necessarily have put the brake on anyone's behaviour.

The lighthouse was however such an interesting artefact that I went over there for a closer look. And as it happens, it has the air of being a dummy lighthouse with nothing but false windows and they were all boarded up. But you knew that anyway. You weren't ever really expecting anything else

But I had a close look at the metal bridge that went across to the lighthouse, and to my untutored eye the metal beams that support it are from old railway line if you ask me.

Finding my way back around the side of the building, I can take a nice photo of the mill race at the side of the mill. You don't need a slide rule to work out that the water that's cascading down there is coming at a terrific force.

And while I muse on that, it does occur to me that I haven't mentioned anything to you about the Frères de l'Instruction Chrétienne. I had better put that right.

This was an organisation founded in St Brieuc, Brittany in 1819. They came here in 1886 and bought the old Seigneury, which they converted into a school. This underwent numerous programmes of expansion until the inevitable happened in 1994 - yes, the place was overwhelmed by a conflagration and only the gymnasium survived.

The Frères aimed to be totally self-sufficient and assumed the operation of the mills here. They exploited a forest around here and constantly replanted it in order to keep up a continual supply of timber for the sawmill, but the building of Highway 40 cut a huge swathe though the forest and that, dear reader, was that.

Next to the complex of mills we have the buildings of Maison St Joseph. These are the buildings of the Frères de l'Instruction Chrétienne - or, at least, those buildings that managed to survive the conflagration and whatever they have managed to build since then.

I did have a little smile to myself though when I thought of a line out of the film The Pure Hell of St Trinians
"There's sure to be trouble when there's arson around"

Anyone who followed the St Trinians films will know that that school burnt down more often than a Quebec edifice, and the frustrated headmistress, Miss Fitton, unable to obtain fire insurance, was heard to remark to her brother in The Belles of St Trinians
"I can no longer afford to have all this arson about in the schoo"

This is l'eglise Notre Dame de la Visitation - the Church of Our Lady of the Visitation, and dates from 1882, so I wonder what happened to the previous church. There would certainly have been one - every Seigneur given a land grant had to provide a chuch.

It's said to be renowned for its little "clocher", or steeple. And if that's a little steeple, I wonder what a big steeple looks like.

It's another one of these churches where nothing at all is allowed, thus making a total mockery of "... forgive those who trespass against us". Apparently visiting the graveyard is one of those things that is not disallowed. So off we go.

Here's Victor Pothier resting here awaiting the resurrection, so he's going to have a very long wait, isn't he? At least, he'll be in fighting fit form if and when it ever does actually happen.

And I've heard some extravagant claims before but this one surely beats the lot of them. Here lies Joseph Milot, son of Noah. Presumably by Noah's second wife Joan of Arc, I suppose, so après moi le déluge

And surely can't be anything worse than looking at a gravestone and seeing your own name on it, as Thérèse and Elizabeth must be doing each time they come here to check up on Daddy.

This big building opposite the Church is the Something Bethania, and it's an addicition centre for drugs, alcohol and gambling.

One thing that I did notice was that the car parkhere was ram-jam full. I hope that the cars don't relate to the alcohol addiction people. And another thing that I noticed was that when you say bonjour to people in this part of Québec they don't reply.

Now while I was musing on that, a light started to flicker in my head. Bethania? Surely I've heard that before.

And I have too. Leaving aside the Biblical references, the Villa Bethania was the name of the home of Beranger Saulniere at Rennes le Chateau. He was the priest at the centre of the scandal concerning the modernisation of the Parish Church and it was alleged that he found some documents that one of his predecessors had hidden there for safekeeping at the start of the French Revolution - documents relating to the Blanchefort family which was the leading noble family of the area at the time.

The significance of whatever was in the documents has never been satisfactorily explained but there is no doubt that it led to untold wealth being brought into the tiny decaying town - not least by the tourists bent on solving the riddle of the documents. And more books have been written about the area than probably any other place on earth.

Now the reason why the Chemin du Roy takes this kink in its track here probably relates to the fact that the village and the first mill were already here before the construction of the road. It seems logical to me to have the road pass by the mill rather than taking the easier straight course along the bank of the St Lawrence .

But anyway, that was a pleasant diversion on a Sunday morning in the beautiful weather. There was certainly a great deal to see here. I wonder what the rest of the day has in store for me.

But if you are an Anglophone and don't understand French, don't waste your time coming here. It's another one of those places that is a fine example of the petty-mindedness of the Province of Quebec, where all the signs are in French and nothing is in English.

So abandoning yet another good rant, I rejoin the modern Highway 138 and my drive of 2012 in the bitter, freezing weather that we were having that April.

Here we have a little good luck as I manage to catch a rather impressive-looking vessel sailing, or is it steaming, or is it even dieseling up the St Lawrence? And this photo took some taking too with me thrashing around in the undergrowth down at the end of a muddy dirt track for God knows how long.

She's called the Leyden, a bulk carrier of 17000 tonnes built in 1995 in Toyohashi, Japan by Shin Kurushima Toyohashi Shipbuilding and is registered in Valetta, Malta. Her owners are Nordstrand of Athens.

The Leyden is a ship that moves around quite a bit, having been sighted in every corner of the world. Probably her most exciting and unusual load was the one that she picked up in Varna, Bulgaria on 10th October 2009 - a load of sunflower seeds in bulk.

As I have said on many occasions, having a decent camera and a high-quality lens means that you can crop lumps out of photos and enlarge them without having to worry too much about the loss any potential quality.

The photo of the Leyden was cropped from a wide-angle photo and this is another selection from that particular image, showing the houses all set out neatly on the south shore of the river. When you realise how relatively narrow the river is here and the depth that some of these enormous ships need, you don't need much imagination to work out just how steep the submerged edges of the river must be.

And I suddenly realise the implications of the sharp drop in temperature that I had been noticing throughout the morning of that day in April 2012. Would you believe that here in the outskirts of Trois Rivières right now it is actually snowing!

Right on cue, my friend Rhys in South Carolina sends me a text to tell me about the glorious weather that they are having down there.
"Lucky you! It's flaming well snowing here where I am"
"Of course it's snowing where you are. You're in Canada, you pillark!"

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