Toronto :: Canada
Another trip into the French bit. Includes whales.
Places: Montreal, Quebec City & Tadoussac.
Coolest thing I did: Saw whales with my own two eyes.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Whales mate whilst several metres above the water. Man, that sounds hard.
Whilst most of this post is about the trip myself and Yvette just undertook over the Thanksgiving weekend to Quebec to see things we wouldn't see in downtown Toronto it has to be mentioned that we've been hosting Grantos recently. He's returned to Canada for the very last part of his Working Holiday visa, but to do more holidaying than working. I was slighly embarrassed that he seems to know more Canadians in Toronto than I do but as a happy side effect we were introduced to another source of ultra cheap jugs of beer at a student pub called Eiensteins. Viva life.
Hockey returned to Canada last week and it's made people quite happy (well, those that give a toss about hockey, which is most men my age at least). Grantos and I spent and evening in front of the TV at one of the only real pubs close to my place observing the locals observe their national sport. Due to the year off and several rule changes as part of the deal to end the players strike they seemed just as confused about what was going on as we were. We saw the Maple Leafs (I know, it's a crime against English but that's how they spell it) play Ottawa into a penalty shoot out and no one in the bar could agree on the actual rules of penatly shoot outs. I felt a little less clueless as a result. Good fun and hangovers were the result.
As an incredibly subtle segue I'll now mention that we went on to Quebec mostly so Yvette could observe the leaves (not leafs) change colour. I admit to being initially a little unsuportive of this endevour but have since reneged my leaf teasing ways. It was something else to see the rolling hills of southern Quebec (the province, not the city) ablaze with various reds and oranges. The fact that different trees changes at different times means there is a whole splash of contrasting colours to observe. Ok, it's hard to explain but it is cool. It would want to be because the drive between Montreal, Quebec City and Tadoussac is a long one.
The return to Montreal really smacked me in the fact with just how utilitarian a city Toronto is. I've alluded to being able to find Toronto's hidden charms over time but Montreal is so obviously superior in every way that it's made me question again why Toronto was the place to settle. Then I remember I can't speak any real French and the pseudo French I do know is strangled so badly by my Australian accent that no one can understand what I'm attempting to stumble over anyway. But I digress. After dropping our bags off and walking up Rue Cresent for a beer you could see just how much the place had come to life in summer. It was a happening strip when it was subzero degrees and snowing but add decent weather and it was already pumping by 10pm. Better buildings, better beer, cool European stylings, just way, way, way better than Toronto. Come to think of it Vancouver was way better too, and the speaking French argument won't hold there. But I digress.
So the next day it was off down the senic route to Quebec City. I like Quebec City, but it has nothing in common with Montreal. It's the only walled city remaining in North America so should appear stuck in the past but it does have a certain cool added to it by a high student to real person ratio. It reminds me of all those old University cities in Germany that have populations of 40,000 and it's 80% students. In our two stints in QC over the weekend we did managed to leave the walls and go have some food and beers where the students do and it was a very chilled vibe to be hanging out in. Except for that crazy bloke hanging out the window yelling "I'm smoking the fucking drugs!" to passers by. That was more hilarious than relaxing.
QC has not one but several Chateux based on the Fairmont hotel school of architecture. In most Canadian cities you'll find a castle like structure that looks like it should be somewhere in the Loire Valley, only made out of grey stone with green roofing. These are mostly owned by the Fairmont hotel chain and used to be the stop off point for monies 19th century individuals who wanted to travel in luxury on these new fangled 'train' things. The one on Lake Louise is the most famous example but the one looking out of the St Lawrence river from QC is supposed to be the most photographed hotel in the world (the LP says building but I reckon the Pyramids or Taj Mahal would have to take that cake). Add to this the narrow cobbled streets at the base of the wall and it looks like the French did their very best to recreate post medieval France in North America. It's a nice attempt but you really can't create that layered effect of building one house on the rubble of another if you only start in the 1600s. It did, however, get many flashbacks of middle Europe while walking the streets. It's funny how these memories sit lodged somewhere in the back of your brain until a little cue like cobbled streets set them off. It was very nice.
The drive from QC to Tadoussac is a whole other expressionist painting. I mentioned the leaves were very nice to look at earlier, well north of QC they are nothing short of spectacular. OK, as spectactular as leaves can possibly be. Rolling hills stretch off to the horizon and these are just chock full of firery hues. You see less and less of the evergreens and more stark contrasts of red on orange and yellow so it looks almost unreal. Yvette just sat curled up on the car seat and said "pretty" a lot. I guess it was worth going up there for.
Tadoussac is a small little hamlet and was the first French fur trading post in North America (this may not actually be true, but thats what they told us) that is now really only famous for one thing: whales. While it is very nice, remote and must be reached by ferry I can't imagine too many people come up just for the scenery. I think it's a small miracle that it isn't more tourist-centric than it actually is. We stepped into the tourist information place (they use '?' instead of 'i' so it's a little confusing) and the woman got a bit of a smirk on her face when we said "we'd like to see the whales". Not too many people would come in asking for giraffes, would they? It took very little effort to get on a boat for the next morning.
Our host at the B&B we stayed at was very friendly and wanted to make sure we squeezed the most out of the stay. I've decided looking for whales involves lots of being cold. We hiked out to the narrowest point over the fjord that meets the St Lawrence at Tadoussac to watch the sunset and hopefully see some whales. We did not but it was nice. We then climed the hill overlooking the town to watch the sun rise and hopefully see some whales. We did not but it was nice. It did not, however, set me up to be that hopeful of actually seeing whales on the boat. We scoffed down a bread and butter pudding breakfast (which I didn't know as a valid breakfast item, but hey, it was nice) and then rugged up in all the clothes we had for the boat.
Lucky we did because it was the coldest I've been in a while. With nothing to stop the wind between Tadoussac and the Artic it was bloody freezing out there.
The whales (minkies apparently) did not disappoint. At first they are just sprays of water on the horizon but as the boats close in they seem to have no problem with the poeple around and will quite happily show themselves at the surface to breathe. It's not a "hey, take my picture" kind of happy, rather more like a striptease, with the whales not giving any clue as to where they were going to show up or what they were going to do. Lots of flashes of black followed by spouts of water and then slinking back under the water. I did learn that the blood rushes to the first bit of whale to surface so if the white belly is exposed to the air it can be quite pink, almost red. That was very cool.
We then had a nice cruise into the fjord. Either side has sheer stone cliffs with patches of plant life clinging to every vertical surface and the occasional waterfall trickling down in a narrow stream, slowly digging away. It isn't as staggering as the Fjords in Norway, I think the scale of it makes it far less dramatic but it has it's own charms. While the guide told us Fjord was a Scandinavian word meaning "narrow waterway formed by the movement of glaciers over thousands of years" I was somewhat skeptical. It's got to be too compact a word to say all that, doesn't it?
I would recommend Montreal (again), Quebec City and Tadoussac to any potential Canadians when they arrive, it was a weekend chock full of French accented goodness. It renewed my faith that Canada is made a far more interesting country by the loose coupling of the Provences, allowing each distinct group to retain their own quirks and culture (like speaking French for instance). I tend to see North America as a whole as a big, indivisible lump of US cluture and it constantly proves to me otherwise. I like being proved wrong in such ways.