to Moncton
2011/09/11
Today was a short hop because there were two time-consuming side trips I wanted to make.
The first was to try and relocate an old home. When I was two years old my parents bought 50 acres near Harcourt, New Brunswick, and my father built an A-Frame house on it:
It had one room downstairs for living/kitchen/dining, and one room upstairs for sleeping. No running water – the outhouse was in the woods beside the house.
We lived here until I was four, at which point we moved to Calgary. Here’s me in the winter. That’s my dog Coal in front of me (she was born here) and the thing behind me is a “Big Scoop” snow shovel – the snow got deeper than I was tall here.
I have only a handful of memories from this place. My uncle Roland built a cabin of his own not far away. There was a stream crossing the laneway further down from us, and in the summer I remember seeing a horse leech (huge, disgusting thing) in there and in the winter the ice and snow covering the edges of the stream were beautiful.
Anyway, today I went to try and find the remains of the house. It was very difficult. First was a half-mile drive down Harley (“Hardly”) road, which looks like this now:
Then our house was some distance along the hydro line right-of-way. There was a laneway at the time, but the ROW now looks like this:
Young trees at just the right height to be a nuisance, and lots of tall plants. I slogged through this for perhaps 1/8 of a mile, but saw no sign of anything familiar. The going wasn’t getting any easier, and I was afraid of running into wild animals since there was nobody else around for at least half a mile. Perhaps I didn’t go far enough, but I doubt I would have spotted anything anyway. There was no sign of my uncle’s house either, and it should have been much more obvious.
My main memory from this place concerns the woods on the side opposite our house:
These woods are the only place I can remember ever getting lost. Once when I was three or four, I wandered in there and before long I realized I was disoriented and didn’t know which way led back to home. It was a little frightening since there’s nothing but more woods in most directions. This is the first case when I can remember deliberately employing knowledge and reasoning to solve a problem – I remembered roughly the direction of the sun when I went into the woods, and combining that with the certainty of which sides of the laneway and stream I was on, I was confident of which way I had to go to reach the laneway. And it worked. All told I was in there for perhaps an hour – definitely less than two – but it was scary and I resolved never to get lost again. And I haven’t. After that I put effort into developing my navigation and cartographic skills, and I maintain them to this day.
On the way to Harcourt, I passed a site I didn’t know existed: an internment camp. The base of the water tower is the only structure that remains now:
The sign says that Winston Churchill asked Canada to stow some Jewish refugees from Austria and Poland here for a while during WWII. After that, POWs were housed here – German and Italian merchant marines, and Canadian sympathizers including the Mayor of Montreal.
After getting my hotel room in Moncton, I headed further south to check out the Hopewell Rocks. Unfortunately the park was just closing as I got there, and I wasn’t allowed to go down and walk among the rocks. I did get some pictures from above, though the light was poor:
Further along the shore there is a huge mud beach. My photos don’t quite capture it, but all of this mud in today’s light looked just like melting chocolate – and it all comes from the equally brown Chocolate River, which looks like chocolate milk. Mmmm… chocolate…
I could sure use a Dairy Milk bar right now…
Also, Foadstools!
Overall today was a letdown – I couldn’t quite find the old house, I missed the best part of the Hopewell visit, and I made a disappointing decision that I’ll blog about separately. Trying not to let it all get me down too much.
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to Fredericton
2011/09/10
Drove from Quebec City to Fredericton today. Bit of a long haul, but it was a fast, easy road most of the way.
No pictures today – there was no place I really felt like stopping to take photos, so other than snack breaks I just drove through.
I rather like the landscape I’ve seen in New Brunswick. It’s a lot like the foothills around Calgary, with rolling hills, a few large hills and the occasional rock outcrop, but there are a lot more trees here.
In lieu of pictures, let me fill in some comments I meant to post on previous days but forgot.
Comparing the cores of Quebec City and Montreal: The old buildings downtown Quebec are really nice – they’re kept in good shape and very clean, but it’s very clearly a tourist zone. Montreal has as many interesting buildings and as old, but they’re much more lived in; they actually see use outside of tourism. I was surprised to find that the basilicae in Quebec mostly seemed smaller and less ornate than those in Montreal. Quebec is definitely gorgeous to visit, and feels like what I imagine some European cities must be like, but I think I like Montreal more.
I was asked if I still think Montreal drivers are insane, and I do. Vancouverites are speedy; going 10km/h over the speed limit is universal. People across the country do generally speed a bit, but not as uniformly as Vancouverites, and in other provinces the speeders tend to go much more over the limit. Torontonians are generally pretty sane, except when they’re on the freeway – then they speed excessively, and change lanes rapidly with inches of clearance. Torontonians also seem unable to understand the consequences of their own impatience, leading to universal gridlock at rush hours. Torontonians also use their horns more than anyone else, and usually in situations where it does no good – ie as a means of expressing frustration rather than the intended function. Montrealers speed everywhere, make dangerous lane changes everywhere, and do this to avoid traffic jams – usually successfully from what I’ve seen. They’re less respectful of traffic rules than anywhere else I’ve been – though given the complex rules on the island of Montreal, I can’t say I blame them. They’re also more given to shouting and gesticulating at each other.
When I was in Niagara Falls, one morning when I checked my oil I found a dead praying mantis in my engine compartment. I had no idea mantids lived in Canada.
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Quebec City
2011/09/09
Today I took the bus downtown Quebec City to see the sights. I’m glad I decided to take transit because (a) as expected, there is little parking to be had and (b) it turns out there was some kind of bicycle race on today, and some important streets were closed, causing traffic snarls.
Circled the Quebec Parliament buildings for photos.
Lots of statuary around here, but I’m not going to bother posting photos of all that. I was surprised though to find a bust of Ghandi, who I didn’t know was a major player in Canadian history.
Wandered over to the Citadel, but it was closed today so didn’t get many interesting shots.
Some shots of the nice buildings in the upper city:
There is also a street of artists selling their works here:
I took the funicular (in this case, more like an elevator with a slight tilt) down to the old city.
Wandered around the old city for a while, visiting shops. A bunch of the streets down here are pedestrian-only and there are tons of interesting shops and cafes. The streets themselves are very pleasant too. A few photos:
Here’s a shop for me:
Heh:
I went to the Museum of Civilization. Outrageously, they forbid photography, so no pictures. It was a pretty interesting museum, if small – about one third the size of the ROM, at most. The science & technology wing had a VIC-20 on display – that being the computer I learned to program on, I simultaneously felt a bit old and liked the recognition of its historical value.
Walked around a bit more after that, but it was past 5pm and everything was closing down, so I decided to call it a day.
I’m a little disappointed I didn’t have time to visit the Quebequarium – it would have been interesting to compare it to the Vancouver Aquarium. But it’s not a huge disappointment – maybe I’ll be able to fit it in on my return trip, but if not perhaps some other time. I’m already thinking I need to make additional trips to Toronto and Montreal in future.
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to Quebec City
2011/09/08
No photos today, and not a whole lot to comment on.
I drove to Quebec City via the old Chemaine du Roy highway, which is slower but more scenic as it hugs the St. Lawrence river more closely than the express highway.
Some nice areas along here – a few so reeking of picturesque quaintness that I can’t imagine actually living there. You know, the ancient barn beside colorful farmhouse sort of thing.
Every town has a gorgeous stone church that you know took them many years to build. I was thinking about that a bit – looking at shared religion as a security blanket, what does it say about the times these towns were founded that they invested such a huge effort in erecting the place to house said security blanket?
I saw a crazy number of Spyder roadsters today. I’ve seen the occasional one on other days of this journey, but I saw over a dozen on the road today, and not all at once either. I wonder why they’re more popular here. Perhaps because they resemble skidoos, which are hugely popular in winter here? Actually, someone should invent one that can be converted to a skidoo. I don’t get the appeal of these roadsters though – they offer less freedom and excitement than motorcycles, and less stability and protection than cars.
On arrival in QC I just looked for a room, did my laundry and settled in to catch up on my accounting and blogging. Tomorrow is the big tourism day.
Speaking of tourism – I am now east of Montreal for the first time since I was four years old. I only have memories of two places east of here. One I don’t know the location of, and the other I will be attempting to find in a couple of days. Other than that, I’m fully a tourist until I reach the end of the country.
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Montreal day 3
2011/09/07
Today is my last full day in Montreal.
I started off with one more short outing with Claudette and Gaëtan. We went up the funicular that rides the back of the tower above the Olympic pool I mentioned yesterday. Turns out there is a much better view of the city from there than from Mount Royal:
My attention was also directed to the so-called Pyramids, which were athletic housing for the 1976 Olympics and are now high-priced condos.
We also went to the adjacent Biodome, which is a small zoo/conservatory inside a large domed building. By far the best part of that was the very tame and curious puffins and penguins who were watching us as much as we them:
After that, I went downtown alone to have lunch with my cousin Angela Rose. She’s the mother of my second cousin Ayla, whom I met for the first time on my recent arrival in Toronto. It’s kind of weird – the last time I saw Angela, she was less than half Ayla’s present age. Time flies.
We caught up over burgers and poutine – first time I’ve ever had that. It was all right but I prefer ketchup to gravy, and the cheese probably would not go well with that.
It was good to see Angie again and find out what’s up in her life these days. Between her, Tanya and Claudette I’ve learned more than I ever previously knew about my father’s family history.
I spent the afternoon relocating my stuff to a hotel, then went downtown again to have supper with the Shaws – my former co-worker Stephen, who now works at Ubisoft in Montreal, and his wife Lisa, who is now working for a famous designer here. We had a great chat over pub fare, and then it was time to call it a night since I was tired.
(Aside: The island of Montreal has by far the most complex traffic regulations I’ve encountered on this trip. If you’re going to be driving here, you might want to look them up first to avoid accidentally breaking a bunch of laws. For example, there are lots of places where you’re not allowed to turn, but there’s no sign saying so – that information comes from the stoplight and is time-dependent. No parking zones move depending on the day of the week ( I had to learn the French day-names to deal with that). Green stoplights have a couple of phases not seen elsewhere in the country. Et cetera.)
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