Cote Nord Adventure

So we are back from our Cote Nord adventure. For those that don't know exactly where that is, we crossed to the north side of the St. Lawrence River and headed as far north along the coast as we could go! To the end of the road! To kick things off, we spent a day at the "chalet" of Sylvain's family before heading out. Never stressful!! The leaf colours around the lake were beautiful!


Rejean (Sylvain's dad) in front of the chalet.

We were headed to the Lac St Jean region of Quebec. Sylvain wanted to see if it was really true that there were 7 girls for every guy there (wasn't too apparent on the streets!). It rained like crazy that day and night - the nearest river rose 6 feet overnight!!! It was a little ridiculous!

After all the rain, we decided to push through and spend the night in Tadoussac. It is the whale watching headquarters for Quebec. Well, at least the whale watching TOUR headquarters!

If you look super close at the picture below, you can ALMOST see the beluga whale I photographed!!!!

One of the things I have always wanted to see was Eastern Canada during the autumn - with all the colours in the trees. So I was pretty pumped to take this little excusion. However, after going a bit north of Tadoussac, it became quite apparent that we were leaving the maple tree area (the ones with the pretty red leaves in the fall) and heading into a decidedly coniferous forest stands!! Not too many colours there!!


The weather finally cleared up - at least for a day or two! We found the prettiest roadside pull out in Canada so far - our own private beach with the St. Lawrence just in front of us!


We came across a few interesting things while en route - one was Kena! He has been quite sick lately, and usually just sits on the back seat of the van and sleeps while we drive. One time, he all of a sudden appeared beside us up front! For about 5 minutes we were all like, "Oh, he wants to cuddle! He is so cute!" Then Sylvain says, "Oh my god!!! He farted right here!!!" And proceeded to unroll the window... I, however, looked back... and...

This is what I saw...


Let me tell you - it was none too fun to see. Or rather, to clean up! Poor dog though, wasn't feeling well, trying to tell us, and we insist on petting him and giving him love!

After that, we insisted that everyone use the outhouses that were provided - as this picture shows. Sylvain in, Kena waiting his turn. If you look closely in the window, you will see the famous "Turcotte Smile"!!

We spent some time up around Sept-Iles. Very nice people there! The people in the town really reminded me of Whitehorse, save for the Gortex! The rest of the drive was rather uneventful - however the scenery was amazing. We were lucky to have mostly sunny days for the rest of the drive to Natashquan.

It is currently hunting season in Quebec! All along this northern road, there were hunters! You can tell them instantly, as they are driving about 20 km/hr and are wearing bright orange vests!!! It is almost like they are trolling for animals! It IS illegal to shoot from your car, isn't it?!! We had assumed that they were hunting for moose - but it wasn't until we actually SAW a successful hunter that we knew for sure. How did we know for sure? Because it seems to be the "thing to do here" - to put the moose head on the front of your vehicle like a hood ornament, then drive back to your respective town! We have seen moose heads on the front of jeeps, little cars, jet-boats, pick ups... Sylvain swears he even saw a moose standing up in the back of a pick up with it's head resting on the roof of the cab!!! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them. I think it is just more apparent where we were simply because there was only one major road!



We made it to the end of the road. The scenery there really reminded us of around the US customs in Fraser. Short stubby trees and lots of rock every where. As soon as we got to Natashquan - the end of the Cote Nord road - and I mean as soon as we crossed the Welcome to Natashquan sign, we heard a TERRIBLE noise coming from Poops!!! It is one thing to REACH the end of the road, and it is another thing completely to be STUCK at the end of the road! However, we were able to "solve" the problem. A leak in our power steering fluid!!


Sylvain here is exercising his mechanic muscle!!! But due to this new problem, we decided to just head back. We have to send our business application in, fix the van... And, plus - IT WAS POURING RAIN AGAIN! I guess that is fall in Quebec! But luckily, we are back in time to see the fall colours of Eastern Canada! Unfortunately, as soon as we turned off the highway at the "Victoriaville" exit - the smell of shit from a farm burnt our nostrils. BLECH. I swear I won't get used to it! It is like a punch in the nose for me!!!! But, enough complaining! ;)

All in all, the Cote Nord may be my favourite place in Quebec so far. I really found the people to be quite genuine and super friendly. The Parc du Saguenay looked incredible - next time I will get out and spend some time exploring. And Charlevoix is beautiful and relaxing... But I think that maybe the Cote Nord won - simply because you could actually SEE nature, and there wasn't the constant urban sprawl. Come and visit!

Back from the Quebec Tour

Hello again!

Just a quick update to let you know what is going on with us out here! We just made it back from a trip around Quebec - pictures and details of the trip will be online soon.

We are back in Victoriaville, and will be based out of here for another couple of months!

More news to follow - soon, I promise!

Victoriaville, Quebec

Hello everyone!

Well, here is our first entry in our travel blog. So far we have made it to our first destination - la belle province of Quebec! We arrived exactly three weeks after we left the Yukon. We had a great time heading across Canada - we are in love with our little van! However, we do have quite a few little maintenance projects to do while we are here to make the van top shape for our next adventure!

I am sure a lot of you have crossed Canada before, so I will spare you the details of the trip. It was fun, we swam in lakes almost every day, camped in pretty cool spots, and were almost always settled before sunset. Which, by the way, was quite a bit earlier than we were used to up north! We went to a wedding in Whistler, and at one point it was really dark out, and I was feeling quite exhausted. I was about to bail on the wedding party and drag my sorry butt to the van for some sleep, when I decided to ask what the time was - no later than 9:15pm!!! The power of sunshine to give you energy!!! Of course I did not surrender to the van once I found out the time!

This is a quick shot of us waiting for our van to get "fixed" in Vancouver... Vancouver, BC.


The prairies are not my favourite part of Canada, although I did try to see what prairie people love about the prairies. Sadly, I did not find it. The 4 or 5 days it took us to cross Alberta, Sask, and Manitoba were quite painful for us as we could not go any faster than 90 km/hr. I think the only one of the group that was happy to be there was the van! We had our best fuel consumption there!



Sylvain's artistic shot of bales of hay (that is what they are called, right?!) Somewhere, Saskatchewan.

We arrived in Quebec about 2 weeks ago, and have made the transition quite nicely. We are eating cheese like maniacs - I think I had a problem before anyways, but being in the cheese capital of Canada, I am really out of control. We have to continue traveling or I am just going to turn into a little cheese curd!

This is us, with a little Kena in the background, at the beautiful Ignace... Ignace, Ontario.

Sylvain did a pentathalon on the weekend. It is a rock climbing, kayaking, running, mt biking and roller blading competition. He came in 27th in total (awesome!) and he rocked on the bike! I did the mt bike for a team as well. The MOUNTAIN bike course was a little different than out west - it involved a farmer's field, cows, horses and a lot of grass! And, to top things off, it smelled like shit! No one can convince me that once you have grown up smelling fresh mountain air that cow shit smells nice!!! DISGUSTING.


This is the local "mountain" in Victoriaville on which the mt bike race was held. Victoriaville, Quebec.

That is about all for right now. Hopefully this week we will head "up north" to the Lac St Jean region and the northern end of the St. Lawrence - something new for both of us!

Also, we will be doing two blogs at the same time. One in english, one in french. And they will have different pictures, but will be about the same time period. So, you can practice your other language!!!

Take care and we will write more soon!