Thursday, May 13th
The Fjords
When you start your journey, you go and meet your driver
You shake his hand, and hope he’s feeling well
The things to come may be somewhat unfamiliar
Like eating herring where the sun does not go down— Crash Test Dummies, Our Driver Gestures
I wake up about four thirty with a rather stiff neck. I can delay the inevitable, but shortly before six I get up. As I open the curtains, the sun is up already and the sky is utterly blue. As I also open the door, a harsh cold is rushing in. I pack my stuff and am on the road quarter past six.
Here is my dilemma for now: decisions. If I hurry, I could be in Chibougamau by the end of the day. Should be around six hundred kilometres. But if the Curse of Sept-Îles strikes again, Chibougamau is a really bad place to be in. The next town, Val d’Or, is three hundred and sixty kilometres away. Instead, I can take my time, detour a bit and make Roberval my destination. I wouldn’t spend the night in Chibougamau, but then again, it is probably not worth it, anyway.
On the way to Baie-Comeau, I come across a road construction site. Here in Quebec they don’t use flagman, but rather traffic lights. Below the green light, they have a counter affixed that counts down the seconds until green. Very handy.
Baie-Comenau: Big factory, apparently an aluminium plant. Below is a port with two medium-sized and one monster bulk ships moored. There is another factory, this one steaming. Next to it is the town centre, about two blocks in size and full of red brick buildings. Up on the hill, overlooking this are the Palais de Justice, some more government buildings and a church. A huge school, Polytechnique des Baies, sits in the suburbs, an oversized aluminium breadbox with tiny windows.
As it is around seven by now, I look for some breakfast. The parking lots of Tim Hortens are overflowing, so I continue. The settlements go on for about thirty kilometres, then there is sudden wilderness again.
It seems this morning I am stuck in regret, things I should have done or handled differently. Thankfully, there are not too many of them, but one or two are rather big. Big enough, in any case, for the mind to just go over and over the same things. Seems a rather pointless exercise. The past is the past and no amount of pondering can change it. And even if it could, there is no guarantee that things would be better. A healthy dose of fatalism often comes in handy.
What also comes in handy at such times is a healthy dose of coffee. I stop in Forestville at the petrol station and get some, and sandwiches too. Then I continue down the road for maybe ten minutes and find a lovely rest stop right by the beach. I sip my coffee while the sun is glittering in the Saint Lawrence. Once finished, I go down to the beach and have a little walk. Return to get the camera and have another little walk only longer because of the picture taking.
Back in the car, I soon reach the junction for Saguenay. Just before it, the road leaves the shore and climbs up into the mountains. It runs by a few lakes. An electronic notice board is turned off, which counts as good news. The junction itself isn’t very well signed. If you miss the little plate, you are off to the ferry across the Saguenay River and further south. But I catch it and am now on the Route du Fjord, more specifically the Vallée de la biodiversité. The fjord in question is the Saguenay River coming down from Lac Saint-Jean.
As is common with Catholic churches, a statue of the saint stands in front of the church of Sacré-Cœur-sur-le-fjord-du-Saguenay (to state the full name). This one is equipped with a fully functional, neon-powered halo. Too bad it is morning and not late night.
After the town a big sign points to L’Anse-de-Roche. I shoot by first, but then change my mind, turn around and then off. The road goes by a little field where a sign announces the Festival du Nuit Blanches. That may be a bit much, we are not that far north after all.
The road serpentines down to the fjord. Which is very pretty indeed. And may indeed look the tiniest bit like Norway. There is a little harbour, l’anse meaning a little bay, with a jetty from which in summer tours of the fjord start. There also is a little restaurant. But now everything is closed and the jetty is used to park a sail boat on (yes, on not by).
As I return up the hill and go by the small village, I think that maybe this all reminds my of Norway so much because of the houses, which here as there are white or coloured wooden houses of similar styles. (And musing about this some more, it occurs to me that the thing I have going with Norway is a kind of first love. The country was the first place I ever expated to and that forms a special bond. Those last sunny days in October five years ago changed my life in so many ways.)
Back on the main highway, I see a blue car with ‘Quebec’ written on the bonnet decorated with the province’s four lilies. Which is to remind us that Saguenay is the homeland of Quebec separatism. In both referendums, approval rates were highest up here, far away from the rest of Canada.
The highway follows the Rivière Sainte-Marguerite about ten kilometres north of the fjord and separated from it by a mountain range. Eventually, it leaves the valley and goes up into those mountains. It finds some lakes which are beset with small houses.
A sign points to the Cap Jaseux Adventure Park and I try that. The road there is an unpaved path madly going up and down and ending at the entrance to the park in the middle of the woods. Of course, the park is closed. Across the fjord, on the other side is La Baie des Ha! Ha!, a bay of the Saguenay River.
I return to the highway and continue to Chicoutimi. A couple of years ago it was merged with three more cities and two municipalities to form the new city of Saguenay (and by now I can also spell it without checking). I fill up the car and when the attendant asks some long French question and I reply asking if he maybe could do that in English he looks at me blankly. Whether my request was offensive or whether he really didn’t understand my bit of French, I don’t know. The people from up here are said to have such a severe accent that they are very hard to understand even for people from France. (But then, French people from France seem to be almost offended by the Québécois French, which may be a contributing factor.)
It should also be noted that KFC is known as PFK in Quebec. Should be easy to figure that one out. But Quebec also has its own chicken fast food chain, St-Hubert. And separatist or not, Tim Hortens is very busy in Chicoutimi as well.
Continuing along the north side of the river towards Lac Saint-Jean, the landscape gets a rather strange, glacial shape. Everything above a certain height is sheered off. Below that height you have a normal landscape with hills and rivers and so on, but once the hills reach that height, they become flat.
On the north shore of Lac Saint-Jean is the Parc National de la Pointe-Taillon, where the National refers to Quebec, not Canada. I drive up to its eastern entrance. On the way, I have to emergency stop for a bird sitting in the middle of the road. My bumpers must almost have touched it, but it didn’t bother to go away. I have to reverse a bit and drive around. In the rear-view mirror I can watch it still sit there as I drive away.
The booth collecting the entrance fee for the park is closed, but a large and elaborate sign indicates a complex ceremony to pay your fees, but my French isn’t good enough and certainly there are no English explanations. So, in order to avoid being yelled at by a ranger, I just turn around.
Up here, the landscape looks a lot like that of the Brandenburg area around Berlin. Pines and birches on sandy ground. It smells a lot like it too. The main difference is the presence of warning signs for moose. But as Newfoundland shows, it only takes about six of them to fix Brandenburg in that regard.
I suddenly get rather tired and can hardly stay concentrated. The double town of Mistassini-Dolbeau has a river gorge at its centre and thankfully a little rest stop right next to it. So I stop and rest and have a little nap before driving on.
Just a few kilometres more and I am in Roberval. The landscape up here is rather flat. The last town is Saint-Prime which has a church spire painted in silver that glisters in the sun. And then I am in Roberval. To make sure I have Internet, I book myself into the better hotel which is also the congress centre. It also has the indoor pool right in the lobby. Very practical.
Beer of the day: Noire de Chambly (a really dark ale, quite a lot of hops, very smoky and fizzy. Unibroue, God bless them, ships it in a 0.75 litre bottle with a Champagne cork.