Gaspésie

Last Sunday, we were the last vehicle on our ferry to cross the St. Lawrence and enjoyed our 2 1/4 hour crossing, but unfortunately did not spot any more whales. We spent much of the week on the Gaspé (sounds like gas bay) Peninsula - it was wonderful. Our good luck with the language continued, and we were able to get by with our basic understanding of French. Our first day on the peninsula we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset, though it was behind us as we were driving.

Piton loved the view out the back window. She is pretty good at noticing stuff - like the wolf we saw our first morning in the Gaspé region. For the record, Piton doesn't like wolves, horses, squirrels, or chipmunks.

Gaspé Sunset

We did stop several times to photograph the sunset (and of course by "we" I mean Ian).

There are a ton of lighthouses along the coast - apparently there were lots of shipwrecks back in the day. We did a tour of the tallest one in Canada, which is still operating.

Also on the Gaspé Peninsula, we spent a bit of time in Forillion National Park. Again we were able to explore the beauty of yet another of Canada's National Parks. Highlights from our time here include...

Pretty waterfalls

and lots of wildlife.

We saw a bunch of porcupines, and Piton apparently likes them. She found one on the trail out to the Cap-Gaspé (the point of the peninsula) that both Ian and I had apparently walked by. We also saw a huge bull moose one morning on our way out to watch the sunrise at Cap-Bon-Ami. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of it, but I've never seen such a moose with such a big rack!

We also headed over to Percé, which is known for its "pierced" rock and northern gannets (a type of bird). We did a boat tour out to Bonaventure Island (provinical park) to see the gannets, and the boat goes in close to the rock for a better view. You can walk out to the rock during low tide, but it's not safe because of frequent rock fall. I have a feeling you get a better photo when you are a little further back anyways - although it would have been fun to get your picture taken in the middle of the hole!

Perce Rock

The gannets on Bonaventure Island were a little overwhelming. They are beautiful birds with a wingspan of about 6 feet.

Gannet

The neat part about Bonaventure Island is that this is the largest gannet nesting colony in North America - there are over 150,000 birds here. This clip really only shows maybe a third of the birds on top of the cliff, there a bunch more living on the wall of the cliff - all on the east facing side so they get the morning sun to warm the egg and babies.

They are incredibly beautiful (assuming you can get past the overwhelming stench). It was definitely a worthwhile afternoon to hike across this little island and see the birds.

We stopped in the village of Gaspé to see the Jacques Cartier Monument National Historic Site. Reading his notes from the monument with my bias / morals, it's pretty shocking and racist, but as the 475th anniversary of his arrival in North America there was a bit of a to-do in town.

There are six of these large metal plates, with pictures on one side and different quotes on the other.

Our last major stop in Quebec was in the town of Bonaventure (complete different location from the island). We went to the BioParc, which although it's not normally my thing it was kind of cool. They had lynx, mountain lions, wolves and sea otters, among other animals. Although the lynx have a reputation for being solitary, they were quite social with us. We sat beside the fence and he came right over to check us out.

The other animal highlights...

A wolf that looked just like the one Piton found us only a few days earlier.

A mountain lion who actually seemed like it would like to eat us.

A moose who was a little distracted, he seemed more interested in chasing the two cows (female moose) around the habitat.

Caribou! Apparently we may see more of these in Gros Morne National Park over in Newfoundland!

We spent a day or so on Prince Edward Island, and didn't end up really getting that into it. We went to watch the sunset on the northwest corner of the island, missed it by a few minutes, but did enjoy this view:

We headed from PEI to North Sydney, Nova Scotia to catch the ferry to Newfoundland. When they say "book ahead" they mean more than 15 hours, so we ended up booking our passage on the 11:30am ferry Monday morning. We went over to the park on Saturday evening and spent the day on Sunday exploring the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We'll get those photos downloaded later another time and share those in the next post. In the meanwhile we are really amped about Newfoundland and planning on spending a week and a half or so out there.

La Côte Nord

La Côte Nord is the name for this region of Quebec, translated to "The North Coast", in reference to the St. Lawrence River. After leaving the Ottawa area, we travelled northeast to Quebec City. There's so much history there. For a brief synopsis (very brief I promise), way back in the day (in the 1500's) the French came to North America and set up a colony to be administered from Quebec City. Then in the mid-1700's the British war with the French spilled over into North America, culminating with the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (now a city park) just outside the fortified Quebec City, where the British claimed victory, but both their commander General Wolfe and the French commander General Montcalm were mortally wounded on the battlefield. A few years later, the war in Europe ended and in the treaty, the French ceded their North American colony to the British. Since some of the French had lived here for several generations and made homes in the region that is now Quebec, they stayed, while most of the new settlers were British. There's a lot more to it, and lots of cool interesting stuff to see, like the old walls around the fortified city, and the archeological dig (open to the public) where the original fort was built. You can also see the Governor General's residence, where the actual head of state lives, and has lived since the 1600's. Overall a pretty cool place, with a lot of interesting history behind it.

The Parliament of the Province of Quebec

Quebec City Skyline

Downtown in the old city (within the walls)

Touring the archeological dig at the site of the original fort

Poutine - french fries with cheese curds and gravy - a Quebecois treat! We figured, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? We thought about kidnapping a British diplomat and demanding safe passage to Cuba too, but that it was too 70's

After leaving Quebec City, we drove up the north coast to the town of Tadoussac, where the Saguenay River joins with the St. Lawrence. This is the heart of the St. Lawrence Estuary, where the river's fresh water mixes with the Atlantic Ocean's salt water. The result is an abundance of plant and animal life, from krill to whales. You can watch the whales from land, which we did, but to get a really great view you need to go out in a boat. We went on a 3-hour tour in a zodiac, and saw tons of whales from pretty close. By the time we continued north, we'd seen beluga whales, tons of minke whales, and even a blue whale (from a distance).

Minke Whale as seen from shore at Tadoussac

Another zodiac just like the one we were in

Minke whale

Harbour Seal

Minke whale feeding

Beluga whale - Meghan loves beluga whales

I'm telling you, she loves beluga whales

From Tadoussac, we travelled the highway north along the coast. It seemed as though every little town up there is very quant - the biggest building is always the church, and colourful little houses are surrounded by picturesque farmland. It's a very pretty part of the country. After only a few hours of actual driving time, we made it to Godbout, where we were to catch the ferry. The river is so wide at this point that the ferry crossing takes 2 hours and 15 minutes! We hit some unexpected construction on the way to Godbout, a couple of times actually, and ended up not getting there quite as early as we had planned. I'd say we got there at just the right time though - we were the last vehicle to get onto the ferry! Time to cross the river and continue the adventure - on to the Gaspé Peninsula.

Typical Quebec town - very beautiful!

Ontario

We crossed the country from Calgary to Ontario in a few days. We stopped at a few places, like Dinosaur Provincial Park. That was pretty cool. As a kid I wanted to be a Paleontologist, and had always wanted to see stuff like that. We also stopped at Reed Lake, and migratory stop for lots of birds, but for the first time in several years the lake was completely dried up. There's lots of other cool stuff too, like the Terry Fox Memorial in Thunder Bay and the big nickel in Sudbury. At the Terry Fox Memorial, we even randomly met up with some other friends from University, Laura and Mike, who were stopping by on their drive west.

Tree that looked characteristic of Northern Ontario

Terry Fox. I'm proud to have run a marathon. Terry ran a marathon every day for 5,323 km on one leg while cancer ate away at the rest of his body, raising money for cancer research. A true national hero.

Laura and Mike in Thunder Bay

Since then we've been traveling through Ontario, and have been busy making a few stops to visit family and friends who lived along our travel path. It rained for 48 hours as we passed though much of Northern Ontario, so that wasn't very exciting, but it stopped for us after we arrived in Elliot Lake, Meghan's hometown. She was born up there, and lived there for 10 years or so before moving south. We got to visit with some family friends, who fed us and took us on adventures hiking and ATV'ing. Having driven 30,000 km on a motorcycle last year, my brain is wired for counter-steering, whereby if you want to turn left on a motorcycle, you actually turn the handlebars to the right (in order to upset the balance of the bike to get it to lean to the left). On an ATV, to turn left, you steer left. When I was driving, I would be coming up on an obstacle on my left, and decided to steer around it by turning right. My brain did the math, and I would turn the handlebars to the left, aiming stright for whatever I was trying to avoid. It was a bit stressful, so I asked Meghan to take over. This was also a little stressful, but much better. Thanks to everyone in Elliot Lake for the warm welcome.

Meghan and I atop an ATV overlooking the town of Elliot Lake

Continuing south, we went to Lion's Head to do a bit of climbing. It's a gorgeous setting, with north-facing climbs on the cliff face at the edge of the Georgian Bay. For the majority of climbs, you rappel from the cliff-top to a bolted anchor partway down the cliff, then climb back up to the top. We got on a few routes, but typical of climbing in Southern Ontario, the guidebook is out-of-date and inaccurate, so instead of warming up on an easy 5.8, we interpreted a new (less than 20 years old and therefore not in the guidebook) climb as something else, and instead ended up at the hanging belay of a 5.10c, with no other choice but to climb our way out. This wasn't too much trouble, but was certainly no warm-up. We got on one other climb, but again it wasn't as easy as we thought it should be, and being a chilly day, we weren't enjoying it as much as we thought we would, so opted to go get dinner instead.

We stopped by to visit family on our way south, picking up lots of great chocolate chip cookies in Tara, and finished all our laundry in record time at Grandma and Grandpa Tyler's. We also had a great visit with Grandpa Mullin before heading to Waterloo to visit my parents. Our friend Ryan was getting married on the weekend we were passing through Ontario, so we were able to attend the wedding and see a bunch of friends from University. We also got to have a nice big homecooked meal at my parents' place, and my aunt, sister, and Adrian were able to come for the visit as well. It was great catching up, but we weren't sticking around for long, and soon headed east.

The Canada Goose at Wawa

The Big Nickel in Sudbury

Georgian Bay Coastline

The dog loves rolling around in rotting dead animals at the farm. She doesn't love getting a bath.

Congratulations Ryan and Jodi!

We stopped in Lindsay to visit more family along the way as well, and then up to Ottawa. Here we were able to visit our friends Gen and Peter, proud parents of 6-month old twins. We also got to tour around the city a bit, analyzing it as a possible home after our big roadtrip. We also checked out the climbing in the Gatineaus, just across the border in Quebec. There's some decent climbing around too. That's where we are now, just at the west edge of Quebec. In a day or 2 we'll be heading east again, towards Montreal, Quebec City, and beyond.

The Peace Tower and Parliament Buildings of Canada