back home

I did not think that I would be washing windows today. All nine, the ones that separate the kitchen from the porch. They just seemed dirty. Even Ed commented on it.

So ho hum, we’re home. Tired, so tired that I even slept during the drive from Milwaukee, waking occasionally to ask – Ed, are you okay? Sure you’re okay? Go to sleep, he’d answer, rather predictably.


This morning, I did the first think you want to do when returning to a farmette. I surveyed the state of the crops. Well, not really crops -- we don't grow those, but we do have a fine share of tomatoes creeping around the wood chips. Here's today's haul:


 


...and there are the perennials, the ever faithful, ever expanding and reblooming perennials.   And the nasturtium. Monet would be proud of me.





In fact, the entire farmhouse looks, to me, so very splendid. Dappled with color...





...but also ready for the next stage of renovation. We had stared at front porches and entrances up and down the Gaspe Peninsula and came to the conclusion that the easy way out may not be the best way out for the farmhouse. There are some pretty porches out there and we ought to do well by the farmhouse. So we are imagining and drawing plans.

But let me repeat, the place, in my eyes, is lovely already.


Isis greeted us as we pulled into the dirt driveway. Atta cat, Isis. Loyal to the core. He’s been hanging with us all day as I, well, washed windows, pruned plants while Ed worked on installing a windshield on my Rosie.

And I spun out to the store on Rosie, and she felt smooth and wonderful, and my older daughter came over and we all went out for a snack at the Oasis, and can I be any more enraptured with the everyday?

Nope.


P.S. I received a lot of feedback on my bear encounter on the Canadian hiking trail. And I read how so many would never venture out to the parks here, or in Canada without firearm. Well now, I have to respond. With two points. First, I consider myself to be an okay marksperson. I learned at army training camp (in Poland). But no way would I think that I, nor anyone could shoot at a charging animal while hiking. Oh! Bear! Let me reach into my pack and get out the gun and aim and fire! Such fantasy. Second point: between 2007 and 2009, 446 pedestrians were killed just in New York City.  About 148 per year. Between 1960 and 2009, 55 people were killed by black bears in Canada and the United States combined. True, most of those were in Canada, but still. You gotta have perspective.

By the way, Ed uses similar data comparisons to convince me that my fear of being struck by lightening in a storm while hiking is irrational. There are fifty deaths per year in this country from lightening strikes. You could say one per state per year. All of Canada has, on the average, 3.4 lightening related deaths per year. He runs that statistic by me and it has no effect. When I am hiking and there is a storm raging, I want shelter. Fast.

out with a splash

There is a festival in Quebec City right now. I cannot remember being here when there wasn't a festival. Lobster festival, ice sculpture festival, and this time there is something combining music and beer. But, as we descend down to the old port section of the city late Saturday night, we ignore it all. Food -- we're very much in need of food. Somewhere along the way the should have had a breakfast and a lunch, but here it is, almost 9 in the evening and we've had neither. Long bus rides can be very disruptive to your eating habits. No matter, we find a place now that serves moules frites, in any one of twelve different ways. You could not make Ed happier. Nor am I complaining. Mine, in a Provencal broth -- mmmmm.

The walk back up to the inn is summer warm. The streets of Quebec are filled with strollers.





So satisfied and satiated am I after dinner that I again doze off before posting. I wake up at 3 and finish the half written paragraph. Travel can really wreck your writing habits too.


In the morning we wake up to rain. Not just your pitter patter kind of shower -- real rain, big splotches of wetness streaming from thickly gray skies. We have only this one day in the city and though neither of us feels compelled to sight see (I used to come to this place often enough in my young adult days and even though I'm an old adult now, I can't say that it has changed significantly), still, I feel we ought to move some. When you've been hiking, it's hard to just stop and recline.

We borrow umbrellas and head out. Upper city, then lower city. And oh does it rain! The vendors are having a slow day.





The streets have few hardy souls, but not many.





The St Lawrence looked sadly gray, so unlike the radiant blues we'd gotten used to.





The boardwalk -- slick and so bare, considering it's Sunday.





In the lower part of the old town it's like that as well. A few determined souls, holding tight to their umbrellas.





Still, I keep thinking how easy this walk is. The luxury of the umbrella, of a place to dry off -- indeed, thousands of places to dry off, the smooth walkway, all of it. So it's raining. Big deal. Makes the roofs all shiny and bright.





And the window displays are unaffected. Here's pleasure, on a plate.





We had wanted to eat a big lunch as it would also be our dinner for the day. We have a bunch of evening flights and then a night drive home from Milwaukee. Best to fill now. There is a sweet little place that serves savory buckwheat crepes. That was the goal. But we come to be distracted by the market. Yes, I know, it's not Saturday, not market day, nor am I in need of vegetables, but this is a huge covered market of local products and if you aren't, say, into the berries...





...you may admire the syrups and honeys and all the other foods from the province. And there are tables off to the side where you can eat some prepared sandwiches, or you can put together your own meal from market foods. Ed and I do just that.

Gravlox from the fish vendors.





Tomatoes, a baguette, then, a return to the fish vendor because we see someone eating cupfuls of the delicious little shrimp that are so abundant here. We want those as well.





A shame to pass on these... (I remember how in France this June I asked if the lobster on the menu was local. Oh no, the waiter said. Too expensive. We get ours from Canada.)






But we do add a delicious pint of strawberries (they are in the thick of the strawberry season here right now), and also, I cannot neglect our very first purchase -- the superb wild blueberries, that remind me of my summers in my grandparents' village home in Poland.





We eat very very well.


And now we're bumping along the cloud saturated skies over Canada, heading home, happy as anything with our Gaspesie week and happy, too, to be almost home.

oh Canada, how short the summer months...

The skies are misty blue, the air is still. The wind turbines are quiet. We hike to the central gas station in Cap-Chat. It's where the bus will stop on its way west and south. A Saturday morning in what I must now call late August. I get the feeling somehow that there aren't many summer days left here. That suddenly it will be beautiful, all orange and gold in the mountains and then, equally suddenly, there will be the beginning of the longest season -- winter.

Am I imagining that people are in a hurry here? As if you'd be foolish to waste these precious warm days of an already fading summer?

I look around me. Salt bags. I can't figure them out.





Not for snow. Let's not be ridiculous here. And what's sulphur moose salt? And why does this bag have salt with apple flavor? When you end up in small communities far far from where you live, you try to imagine what it would be like if fate placed you here instead of, say, in Madison. Would I be saying 'salut' to the people that come and go, filling tanks, containers, motorbikes with gas? I give hugs to the town boys? Would I smoke cigarettes?

And would I be sick of crabe, crevette, and homard on all menus? Would I learn to say dejeuner for beakfast (instead of petit dejeuner, as they call it in France) and diner for lunch (instead of dejeuner) and souper for dinner (instead of diner)? Would I have great upper body strength from shoveling snow?

One last look over the calm as can be waters of the great gulf...





...and we're off. The bus is nearly full today. The ride is long, with a change in Rimouski. By 6 in the evening we are in Quebec City.

oh Canada, coastal roads

Thursday

Another summery Gaspesie day. We're pokers this morning. Catch up on the computer, pack up the tent, take showers after the youth hostel rush has come and gone. In the meantime, I sit on the futon couch, noting that the cloth is torn and the sponge stuffing is coming out. The guests leave in batches: an extended family of thirteen, speaking French and Persian, with their own frying pans and eggs, taking off for a drive through the Gaspesie in three black cars. The older women greet me every time they pass me. A very young woman with many tattoos and no shoes looks for her mate. Another young couple pores over a map. The receptionist, who herself has many significant body piercings and strands of pink hair gives advice. Basic stuff. This road goes here, you cant drive here, and so on.

Ed asks if I want breakfast. Sure. He boils water outside on his little stove and makes me coffee and instant oatmeal. Life is good.

But by noon, I think life will be even better if we use the next hours on walking rather than futon lounging. We're going to be taking the late afternoon bus out, but there's time for a small hike. Though choices are limited. We're in the tiny village of Cap-aux-Os and there isn't anywhere you can go except east along the road in the direction of the park, or west, moving down the southern Gaspesie coast. We choose west.

And here's a chance for us to look closely at the village houses along the coast. I quite like the simple look of a typical Quebecois house: it so often is small, with a metal roof and in colors that are harmonious but not at all tame. Pretty. Very very pretty, in my view.




















And you can't help but note the weather vanes:






We scoot down to the village beach, too. Though it's too cold for swimming. Even for Ed. In fact, we're getting quite lazy. When a stream separates us from the coastal sands, neither feels like taking shoes off. I wobble over on a log, Ed hesitates. As usual, he builds his own bridges.











I watch Kids dig in the sand. Three boys set out with sticks and other paraphernalia of boy play on a hunt along the river's edge.





And everywhere, there are the purple flowers of the Gaspesie.











Back on the road now. We pause at a church up the hill. I'm wondering how old it is. There's no date on the outside -- just signs warning you to stay clear of the falling ice.







The church yard looks out over the bay. I get into a ponderous mood, Ed falls asleep. That is often how things play out between the two of us. [Upon occasion, Ed will get that faraway look in his eyes. I'll ask then - what are you thinking? He'll say - you, I'm thinking about you, that's all I ever think about. Never once have I gotten a different answer. I take it as a kind way of saying - your thoughts are your own and will always remain thus.]












And now it's time to head back. We need to flag the bus as it zips by the hostel. Good bye hostel.







After the bus leaves our village, it crosses the peninsula, then turns around and retreats west again, but this time along the northern coastal road, following it all the way down to Quebec City. But we're not going that far on this day. We're breaking the return trip more or less halfway, in the equally small village of Cap-Chat. For the first time since leaving Madison, we'll be sleeping indoors, in a cheap motel. And if the bus pulls into Cap-Chat before 9 and if we find a ride to the motel from there, we'll be able to grab dinner at the adjacent restaurant. They say that they make a fine Gaspesie bouillabaisse there.

The four and a half hour bus ride is stunning.










The sun is setting now and the waters of the gulf of St Lawrence reflect the oranges and reds for a long long while, even after the sun sinks down below the ocean horizon.






As we approach our destination, I'm thinking that we are getting dangerously close to the 9 pm closing of the restaurant. I ask the driver if he will let us out before the bus stop, close to the motel.
I don't know that motel, he tells us.
It's just three kilometers outside the village center. Nothing like telling a driver to stop a certain distance before getting somewhere.

But we all crane our necks and we do spot it and the driver breaths a sigh of relief with us, as it is ten minutes to nine. We will get our dinner.


Saturday

A classic basic motel. I think how back home, we've moved to chains at highway exit ramps. Inns that offer suites and have imposing drive ups. Not here, not this one.





Ed looks at the shower stall. It's old and not a little tattered. He tells me - that's the most basic model. $129 at Menards.

But it's a private shower and it feels luxurious to have access to it at any time. And we sleep well, despite the traffic noises outside.

Breakfast is of the backpack type though: instant coffee, instant oatmeal again. And now we have a whole day before us.
What's there to see here? Ed asks.
The mountains are bigger here than in the Forillon Park, but you need a car to get to them.
On the motel website it says that you can visit the wind turbines. There is a vertical one -- largest in Canada, or the world, or something.
How far?
Just up the road!
How far?
Oh, a handful of kilometers.

Out we go. And it's not unpleasant to hike the road here. There are wide shoulders and the sounds and smell of the ocean waters of the Gulf are quite energizing. And, too, we pass the occasional small shop. Like this old man's moccasin house. He makes all the shoes by hand, from local deer hide. His Indian girlfriend showed him how to do it.





Does she still make them too?
No, she went off some years back. But I stayed. With my dog. He plays the piano, want to see?




Where are you staying? he asks me as I admire Mr. Beethoven.
The Fleur de Lys motel.
The man at the desk, the owner's son, he wears my moccasins.
This is the kind of village where you know who wears your shoes.
I'll stop by on my way back. We're heading for the windmills.
That's far! Good luck with that!

I'll say this: it is beastly long, but at least it is an interesting walk. We stray off the road a bit, along the water's edge. And when hunger strikes, we are lucky to come across a sign that advertises fresh vegetables. The group of farmers, new arrivals to this region, are taking a lunch break...





...but they pause and scramble to sell us a few tomatoes, cucumbers. And a jar of pickled relish. For future use.





And we pass too, a park with a lighthouse...





... and with an unusual set up. This is what Canadians enjoy doing in their spare time:





Ed is tempted to try, but I urged us on. The turbines. We still have to get to the darn turbines. On top of some hill or other. Requiring a climb.

They are waiting for us at the wee little wind turbine station. We're the two English speaking visitors, walking all the way from the Motel du Lys. Crazy.






We have our own guide, because we're the only English visitors this day. He's a local man who served in the military for several decades before deciding, when his wife got sick, to give up work that required travel. To Afghanistan, for instance.

Our guide has his work cut out for him. You have no idea how curious Ed gets about the details.
Just wait, I'll get to that part, our guide will say.
Okay, but why...







I do love his presentation. And his casual, unassuming manner. I'm not an engineer, he says, even as he overwhelms me with the details of wind electricity.






I learn a lot. Not only about the mechanics of windmills, but also about their introduction here in Quebec, where energy is linked more to water than to air.
See that broken one? That stands on my uncle's land, he tells us. Well, my uncle died three years ago, but when he signed the contract, he agreed to take $3000 per year for the use of his land. Now they're paying farmers $10,000 per mill!

We ask how many tours he gives each day. Many. I work 9 to 6, seven days a week. But it's seasonal. Only the four summer months.
And during the other months? Oh, I sort mail at the post office. And I occasionally carry the dead bodies to the cemetery. What do you call that in English? Ah, a pallbearer. I always wondered.

He gives us a ride back to town. Such a kind man. Saved us a dozen kilometers on the road.
Do you get tired of living up north here?
People who come from outside, like from Montreal, stay two years, then head back. Too quiet for them. Me, this is what I know. My wife and I have a daughter. Keeps us busy.
Oh, lovely...
A Chinese girl. She's thirteen. She'll be going back to school next week.
And in the winters, is there snow?
Is there snow! Four feet one day and you shovel it and you get four feet the next day! The only thing is, you have to drive so much. You need a doctor, you drive to the big town. That's just fifteen minutes. But you need the hospital, it's three hours, or to Quebec City, that's five hours.

Back in Cap-Chat, we pause at a bistro pubbie type place and get refreshed with a Quebec apple cider. Of the harder kind.





And we walk to the motel and then back again to the pub, adding the kilometers: ten, fifteen, twenty. That's okay. Legs are strong now. And the sound of the ocean waters is ever so good for the soul. As is the lobster sandwich. With fries and plenty of mayo.

oh Canada, oh my!

Some days just heap the rewards, one after another, boom boom boom! I'm going to say that this day was one such runneth over day.

Take the weather. Normally a ho hum subject, but when you have sloshed through wet terrain, you are dazzled when, upon waking, you find a perfect sky. A brilliant, stunning, crispy blue. One they haven't seen at the Gaspesie for a long while.

A good morning photo, taken across the road from the youth hostel, where we pitched our tent:





And one of the hostel itself:






Breakfast -- well, it's a hostel with food on its mind. Good eggs, toast, fruits. I'm looking around the room. Not surprisingly, a young crowd, though with some salt and pepper types as well. We need a ride to the point where we left the trail. That's some ten kilometers up the road from the hostel. Ed thinks I should announce in the dining room that we'll pay someone's entrance fees to the National Park in exchange for the ride to the park. Yes, sure! Graduate students from Montreal. They'll take a free anything. (Most everyone here is from Quebec, quite a number from Montreal.)

And so we pick up the trailhead where we jumped off the IAT yesterday. We're now close to the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula and not surprisingly, we have some day trippers here. It's the place to go if you're in search of the most stunning view this side of the Mississippi. And on this day, this clear and brilliant day, you are in for a heady trip if you follow the portion of the trail that leads up to the observation tower at Mont Saint Alban.

What a view. What a beautiful, beautiful view.





To the north, the wide gulf of the St Lawrence, with Newfoundland on the horizon.





To the east - the Cap Gaspe, our final destination and the end of the IAT. Beyond that, the ocean.





To the south, the coast of the Gaspesie.






To the west - the Appalachian chain that we had walked the past three days.





Most come for the view, then turn around and hike back to the parking lot and so as we continue up and down the IAT, we have the delicious pleasure of a few quiet kilometers. And yes, we see tracks again. As a commenter pointed out, the Gaspesie is uniquely fortunate to have both caribou and moose and I cannot say whose hoof prints we continue to pick up but they are fresh. And large.

(Just so you know, we never on this day run into either.)

As the peninsula grows thinner, the IAT jumps the road and hugs the shore for a bit. We pass an old Gaspe farmstead, recreated to show what life was like for the settlers who came here (from England, France, Italy and shockingly, Poland) to fish in the previous century.





And we continue along the trail. And we are rewarded with something I did not hope to see - a whale, breaching, hump and fin out for the world, or at least for us to see. I was not fast enough with the camera. But, here he is, retreating into the water.(Forgive me, I don't typically post failed shots, but this one has meaning for me.)






Still marveling at the incredible luck of a whale sighting, we continue along the lovely path, through a thicket of firs and meadows of flowers...






...except, something is there ahead of us, an obstacle of sorts...
Ed, that is a black bear!
We pause. He doesn't see us, he is busy eating. But he's advancing toward us.






Act big, Ed they say that you have to act big if they approach!
I am big. Stand quietly. Wait.
I stand quietly, but with arms out, hoping that I seem big to the bear even if he could nicely tear me up with one swipe of his paw.
But he doesn't do that. He looks at us, hesitates, turns around and goes back, veering off the path into the thicket of flowers, with one last soulful look in our direction. The Ferdinand of bears, lost in his world of flowers and berries.





We continue and now I'm just so psyched for wildlife. A whale, a bear, what next?

A porcupine. Retreating as we walk down the trail.





And now is the time to concentrate on the flowers, the cliffs, the deeply blue waters that are a constant presence on this portion of the IAT.





I never got tired of it. Each turn delivers a view that was exciting, fresh.





We've been hiking for some six hours and we cross the road again and start climbing for what is the final ascent. Up up the last of the Appalachian summits, with a pause on a beautifully positioned wooden bench, just before the last decent.





And then suddenly, there is the lighthouse. The end of the IAT.





And it catches me in the throat, in a really satisfying way. The end of a fifty kilometer journey, a breeze today, more like a hurricane the previous days. But always majestically beautiful.

There is a map of the entire trail -- the blue northern stretch is where the AT changes to the IAT.





As we look around the lighthouse and gaze out toward the waters of the choppy ocean, someone points to a dozen seals playing in the water, just to the right of the rocks.





They add a lovely closing moment. The sun is now mellow but still warm. We are surrounded on three sides by water. And the seals play and romp as if there is nothing particularly special about this moment or this day. It is just the way life is.

We have hiked for a long stretch today (without packs we cover twice the distance) and as we walk now along the road toward the park's parking lot, taking in the strong fragrance of golden rod and who knows what else...






...we're also hoping that we'll find someone to give us a ride back to the hostel. And we do! A lovely Italian couple who save us a few hours of walking along the shore road.

It's our last day at the hostel and in the Forillon Park. Thursday afternoon we take the bus half way down the northern shore of the peninsula. They say storms are moving into the region. Funny how inconsequential this is for me now. And how unsettling it was just two days ago.

We eat dinner at the hostel. Tomato soup, seafood, chocolate tarts.

After dinner I want to post, but I cannot stay awake. My thoughts stray. I think back to the bear and the look of indifference in his eyes. Preoccupied with his own food search. He did not know I had a nice trail mix of nuts and raisins and seeds in my bag. Likely he didn't care. Content with what he had before him. A meadow of plants, a breeze from the ocean.