Stepping Back In Time At Quebec’s Île D’ Orleans
PURSUING PHOTOS AND PROSE
With Kayaks, Mountain bikes, Backpacks, Daypacks, Walking Sticks, Fishing Poles—and an Airstream Travel Trailer
Bert Gildart: Some of the best information we have received while here in Québec has come from people working the desks at the two campgrounds at which we’ve stayed.
No one, however, has provided as much as has Nicole St. Pierre of Camping Transit, a campground just off Interstate 20, and conveniently located for the ferry to Vieux Québec. When Nicole wasn’t busy welcoming and signing in new guests, she helped me with translations and suggestions, and with information regarding her heritage—and that of Canadians in general.
Nicole said that both her great, great (“My many, many greats,” she inserted), grandparents came from a small village in France and there they were called Pepin. “They landed on the Isle of Orleans,” said Nicole, “and changed their name almost immediately to LaChance, implying this was going to provide them with ‘a better chance.’
“That’s what so many did, and it’s where you two should go if you want a flavor of old France here in Québec.”
Nicole continued, adding that the island was isolated until the ‘40s when the government built a bridge, but it still has a very rural setting (first photo).”
With that she outlined some of the places we had to see.
Île d’ Orleans requires crossing a long narrow bridge which spans the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Upon crossing, we were struck by the rural setting, and the fact that we’d chanced onto the island at harvest time. Farmers had set up their produce into what almost amounted to a 30-mile long farmer’s market, the length of the rural road circumscribing the island.
In between the stands were gorgeous fields of crops to include fields of sunflowers that Janie and I as photographers simply could not pass up.
But Île d’ Orleans features more. It features one of the area’s first stone churches; windmills, art and craft shops—wooden or stone cottages in the Normandy style, and homes that produce some of the world’s most delightful tasting ciders.
Cider was one of the island’s big commodities and we stopped at the Domain Steinbeck, mentioned in a Lonely Planet guidebook. We remained for almost an hour, sampling pâté of duck and washing it down with ciders of all descriptions, leading ultimately to our purchase of two bottles, one described as being “very hard.”
Just past the Domain Steinbeck we saw a lady waving a sign in French: Viens mon Cueillir. Though the meaning of the words was vague, we stopped and later learned that Marie Thivierge’s sign asked that you: “Come Pick Me Up.”
With her humorous sign what she was really asking is that you visit the Les Vergers Laval Gagnon farm and that you “pick up” some of the man’s corn, blueberries, apples, strawberries, or perhaps some of his potatoes. We couldn’t resist the charm of the sellers and “picked up” a large box of blueberries.
One of the last stops we made was at the Drouin House, which, as we soon discovered, featured not just one of the first stone houses built on the Island (in the 1730’s) of Orleans, but also featured living history demonstrations that rivaled those we’d seen in many Canadian and American national parks.
Demonstrations were provided by men and women engaged in a number of activities to include the preparing of meals and the cooking of those meals over a hearth.
Men wore squire-styled hats, white shirts and black pants, while the woman wore full-length dresses and the somewhat colorful and daring bodices representative of the mid 1700s.
The costumes were appealing and imparted to these French woman a certain mysterious and romantic look—that certain Je ne sais quoi about which I’ve previously spoken.
Our trip to Île d’ Orleans was made from Quebec’s KOA, the second campground at which we parked our RV. From it our drive required about 30 minutes on this very busy Labor Day weekend. (Yes, Canadians celebrate Labor Day too.)
The visit rounds out our trip to Quebec and in the next day or so we’ll be traveling to Maine where we hope to climb Mount Katahdin, weather permitting. The mountain is located in Baxter State Park and the summit is the eastern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, which runs all the way north from Springer Mountain, Georgia.
