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| View on way to Saguenay Fjord |
When traveling by boat there are many events or
interesting places nearby that are not easily accessible by walking, biking, or
using a public bus. This dilemma always
makes us think about renting a car. Unfortunately
not all cities have an Enterprise
Rental Agency that will deliver a car to us or will pick us up and take us to
their office. Sometimes we can easily
walk to a car rental office, sometimes we can bike to one and beg them to keep
our bikes until we return with the car, and other times we rely on other people’s
kindness and hitch a ride with a new acquaintance or convince the car rental
office to send someone out to pick us up.
Luckily in Quebec we could easily walk to the car rental office. We rented one for a week. Just think of the distance we can travel in a
car at 55 miles an hour, instead of our usual boat speed of 7 miles an
hour. We spent six days in the car,
enjoyed the change of pace, but were glad to return to the boat.
We first drove to the annual Wendake International Indian Pow-Wow. It is not something we expected
to see in Quebec, but we decided that it would be an interesting experience to visit a Native
American celebration. The Pow-Wow
featured Indians from the local area as well as from the southwest and the
northwest. These pictures from the
competition show some of the costumes and the dances that were performed.
The following videos show several different dancing
styles.
The second car trip we took had been suggested to us last
summer by a retired Royal Mounted Policeman whom we had met at an anchorage in
Lake Champlain. He had suggested driving
to the Saguenay River, visiting the Saguenay Fjord area, and taking a whale
watching tour on the St Lawrence River. The Saguenay River is about 130 miles northeast of Quebec City. It has one of the few fjords of North
America. Fjords are long narrow inlets
in valleys carved by glacial activity and the ones in North America are predominately
in Alaska and Canada.
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| Saguenay Fjord |
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| Entrance to the fjord, ferry boat on left bank |
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| Waterfall in fjord |
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| Entering fjord in inflatable whale tour boat |
The Saguenay Fjord
is 62 miles long and 902 feet deep. There is a scenic drive along the river and
through the National Park.
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| An intricately designed house on the river drive |
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| The Little White House that survived the flood |
The Little White
House was built around 1890 in Chicoutimi, Quebec. It was constructed on the lower water level of a 200 foot high dam. When
it was built large beams of wood were piled over each other to form the walls,
much like a log cabin. The house and
neighboring buildings received significant damage in the food of 1947. The owner rebuilt the house by linking a solid
foundation to the surrounding rock so as to prevent it from suffering major
damage from future floods. When a
second flood occurred in 1996, it destroyed all of the surrounding buildings, but
left the Little White House standing. It
is now a museum.
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| Another interesting house along the way |
Unfortunately
it was misty when we were there, however the mist added a different view of the
deep water and high cliff areas.
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| Some of the many lupine growing in fields and in gardens |
Besides spectacular scenery, this area is one of the best
places in the world for whale watching.
Four large migrating whale species are visible in the Saguenay-St
Lawrence Marine Park during the summer.
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| Prince Shoal Lighthouse |
On our inflatable boat trip, we were able to see three of the four different migrating whale species, the minke whale, fin whale, and the humpback.
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| Fin Whale |
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| Another fin whale |
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| Minke whale |
We did not see any blue whales which also frequent this area during the
summer. Besides migrating whales, beluga
whales spend the entire year in the St Lawrence Estuary, an area where salt
water and fresh water meet. We saw
several of these, but, due to regulations protecting this species, the boat was
not able to get close enough for us to get a good picture of them.
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| An inquisitive seal |
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| Quebec City Marina |
The week we left Quebec City many large multi-hulled sailing boats
were gathering at the marina in preparation for a big race.
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| Some of the early arrival boats preparing for the race |
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| More mono-hull race boats preparing for the race |
The
international sailing race that goes from Quebec City, Canada to Saint Malo, France started the week we returned from our car trip. The race is open to crewed mono-hulls
and multi-hulls of 40, 50 and 60 feet in length.
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| A trimaran waiting for race day |
In addition, there is a class for longer boats, called the Ultimate
class. The race covers 2,897 miles and
goes across the Atlantic Ocean. The
previous record was set in 1996 and was 7 days, 20 hours, and 24 minutes. This year a new course record of 6 days, 1
hour and 17 minutes was set by Spindrift 2, a 131 foot trimaran sailboat in the Ultimate class.
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| A picture of Spindrift 2 taken from the Internet |
We looked at all the boats and enjoyed the
music and festivities for several days before the race. The boats were
absolutely amazing. We have never seen such well equipped racing
boats!
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| A race boat that "found a whale" on its way to Quebec City. See patch where the right rudder is missing |
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| Look at all the lines leading into the cockpit |
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| Harbour Reach tucked in with the other non-race boats at the marina |
We left a few days before the race started and worked our
way back up the St Lawrence River to Montreal.
The current going up river slowed us down to about 4.3 miles per hour at
some points, whereas the downstream current had us going 14.8 miles per hour, not
bad considering our normal speed at the same rpm is 7 mph!
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| Another brilliant sunset at the marina |
