If you pass by some scenes without stopping that is a sin. I think this is one of them. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of the town. To avoid the taint of sin, we stopped to take a photograph of what at one time was a mill (I believe). There was no longer any sign of the mill but it was a lovely Quebec scene. I could not drive by without taking a photograph. That would have been a sin.
I used to think Quebecois were snobby, ill-tempered and totally dismissive of English tourists. Not anymore. Everyone I encountered in Quebec laughed at me, rightly, for my pathetic lack of French. But they did not insult me or ignore me. They were actually polite and courteous. Even gentle.
It was a bit humiliating to ask Christiane constantly for translations. But that just shows up my ignorance. In Europe everyone speaks multiple languages and make no fuss about it. My German is terrible and my French non-existent. No doubt, I am ignorant and the French tolerated this without objections or mockery.
The French in Quebec have done quite well at preserving their language in the face of the overwhelming English language domination across all of North America. It really is a remarkable achievement that should be celebrated, even though they had to take some Draconian measures to make it work. Like language police. But I like that they were able to do it. Almost everyone speaks French here. And many speak English too. Many more than those who speak only English. They like me, are in the ignorant minority.
I like the feeling of being in a different country. I know some don’t like it. I do. If you don’t, you should not go to Quebec. Then you are the snob..Snobs are in the eye of the beholder.Literally.
I must admit this photograph was taken of a church in Quebec town the name of which I neglected to take down. But I would be willing to bet it was named after a Saint. Quebec has hundreds of towns name after saints. I never knew there were so many saints. We don’t have any in Steinbach unless you count Andrew Unger.
You would be forgiven if you thought Quebec is a very religious province. This is an illusion. It once was, but it is no longer. It’s not just that French women don’t want to have a lot of children anymore. Though that is part of it. Quebecers also want expressions of religion, particularly by government officials, to be kept private. They want a secular state. I agree with that to some extent.
The state should not impose any religion. No religions should be official. In fact, if you like religion, you should ensure the state stays out of it. The United States is one of the most religious countries in the world, and I think that is partly because it has insisted right in the Constitutionon that no religion could be “established” there. It is called the non-establishment clause. Many people think that because no religion was allowed to be established by the state each religion had to compete for adherence. Hence those religons have remained vibrant. In states where there is an official religion, often it does not have to compete and hence the approved religion quickly loses its luster. Freedom of religion leads to robust religions. Established religions lead to stuffy religions. Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion and that is for the best, even for religions! Freedom from religion is important for others besides atheists.
In Quebec they try had—some would say too hard—to maintain a secular state. Just like France, eventually people rebelled against the dominance of the Catholic church and this spelled the doom of the church.
In Quebec I often get the feeling that art has replaced religion. They are religious about art. They take art very seriously. Religion not so much. Artists are everywhere and usually well respected. Priests and nuns are a dying breed mainly of old people who are literally dying out.
Yet Quebec also have magnificent churches. I took many photographs of them on our trip across Canada, and I usually tried to write down the name of the church. This time I failed to do that.
Notre-Dame-des-Neiges
One church I did take down the name was the church called Catholic Church Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in the city of Trois-Pistoles, Quebec on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. It was built from 1882-1887 and the architect was David Ouellet. The town is said to have been named for a silver goblet worth three pistoles, an old French coin, that was lost in the river in the 17th century. The coin is long gone. The church remains.
While in the Ottawa area, we learned about bullying on Parliament Hill encouraged by the current leader of the opposition, and no doubt, soon, the Prime Minster of Canada,Pierre Polievre . Bullies are popular in modern society, as shown clearly by our American neighbours. They are content to have one as a president.
I always thought Canada was a little better than that. Now I don’t believe that anymore. Pierre Poilievre aggressively insulted Jagmeet Singh the leader of the NDP who have entered into an agreement to support the Liberals as long as they would bring about a public dental plan for Canadians with a dental health plan. Poilievre said Singh was a phony and fraud for not supporting the Conservative non-confidence vote which would have ushered in an election if it had passed. The mob on the hill was quick to join in the fray to harass Singh with foul language. These foul-mouthed bullies are MAGA Canadian style.
We live in the age of bullies. Even in Canada.
As we were leaving Ottawa, I phoned my brother-in- law for suggestions on how to get through Montreal. He recommended we avoid the 401 at all costs, as it was always jammed with traffic. In Ottawa we got lost and had to rely entirely on our GPS to get us out through Gatineau. He suggested a highway that was “sort of a Perimeter” and would be slightly better. Slightly better than the 401 is all we could get. We encountered what we considered serious traffic jams, but were glad not to experience worse.
After being in a virtual crawl for about an hour we almost missed our exit to get off the freeway. My French navigator woke up just as I was about to go by it, and told me to hurry to the exit because a slow highway tractor was allowing me to dart in. I had to cross a solid line to do that but my navigator was very insistent. As only French navigators can be insistent. Unfortunately, a local traffic constabulary was parked around the curve and immediately engaged in hot pursuit of me. When I stopped the car to take my lesson, the cars that passed honked and hooted with mirth. But then my French navigator proved her worth. She batted her eye lashes at the officer and explained we did not know that was not allowed in Quebec. As a result, the officer let us off with a warning. No ticket.
As a result, we took what we called ‘the River Road.’ It was very interesting. It really was a long line of small towns without breaks almost all the way from Montreal to Quebec City. It was a very slow but very pleasant drive. We were content. There was much to see and we were meandering.
We finally got off the freeway east of Montreal near Trois-Rivières where we got onto the road that followed the St. Lawrence River. We could not make time on this road, but we are not in Quebec to make time.
Time was much too valuable for that. As Jimmy Buffet said, “Time ain’t for savin’, no, time’s not for that.” I would say time I is too important for savin’.
In our modest Ottawa hotel we had the fanciest breakfast we ever ate. The hotel had what I would call a Persian Restaurant. We were the only customers. Our server was a striking Persian woman in an elegant black dress. The entire restaurant was in pink. Almost everything was pink. One wall was entirely pink with artificial pink flowers, candles, and fans. Asians know how to do fancy. There was a vast array of tables each with leather seats, but only one was occupied, and that was by us, and frankly I felt entirely out of place. I didn’t belong here, but I tried to graciously accept the lavish attention to our every need. Not just needs. Even for things we would not have dreamed of needing. There was a video monitor with gorgeous scenes constantly changing. The cutlery was gold. Not silver, gold! Probably not real gold but looked extremely expensive. And in the background the most incongruous music—country music! I was blown away.
We were given buttons to use to electronically summon the waitress whether to pay or request further service. I had to admit it was efficient. The breakfast looked too good to eat. It didn’t seem right that such food would be served to peasants like us. The food was excellent. She served us Persian tea with cardamon flavour. I had never heard of it before but it was delicious.
This entire meal was an otherworldly experience. We felt like we were in Iran dining with the richest people there. We felt like bacteria in this pristine and elegant establishment. It was one of the most unusual breakfasts we ever had.
Is it possible to have to much luxury?
Canada never ceases to amaze.
First, we again spent a leisurely morning on the rooftop of our B&B in Brockville.
We started our drive to Ottawa with various stops along the way. Our first stop was at Prescott another lovely riverside town. We parked along the river and walked along the lovely riverfront and went for stroll.
We passed Shakespeare’s Garden which had some lovely flowers. Always worth a stop in my opinion. I love gardens. Sadly, I am too lazy to garden.
After that, I made a series of mistakes.
Then we saw 2 lighthouses. I also love lighthouses and we saw many of them in eastern Canada. first one was Prescott Rotary lighthouse named after the local Rotary Club no doubt. It is a rather small lighthouse and I doubt it ever operated.
The second lighthouse we saw was the Prescott Heritage Harbour Lighthouse.
Later I realized we had missed the best lighthouse of all, the Windmill Point Lighthouse. It is located on a height of land near the town of Prescott not in the town so we missed it. We would have had to travel a bit farther east, but had I known about it, I would have meandered there. So it was the fault of inadequate research that I did not know it is there. A little advance research on a place is usually well worth the effort. I was bad again. That was mistake no. 1.
This was not the last mistake I made this day. Not by a long shot! But first we stopped for lunch at an Irish Pub. That is never a mistake. This one was called O’Heaphy’s Irish Pub. And here we did something truly remarkable. We did not purchase any liquor. Just lunch! It was sacrilegious to avoid liquor in an Irish Pub but we did it. And the lunch was great.
I ate chicken tenders and Chris dined on bangers and mash. A friend of mine once said all Irish food is abominable, but this is a slight exaggeration. We had to eat inside the pub, rather than the patio because all the tables with chairs were taken. That was pity, because it was a beautiful warm afternoon. Inside the pub, there were 3 television sets going in sports bar style. I hate that style. Huge TV sets everywhere you look. No matter how diligent you cannot avoid these huge moving screens which draw your eye to them no matter how hard you don’t want to see them This bar though had sports on only 1 of them. The other two played religious preaching, but thankfully without sound. Sermons inside an Irish Pub really would be too much. That would also be sacrilegious too.
Maybe none of this should be surprising because earlier I misread a sign: as “God and Country Club.”
After that we set out for Ottawa our destination, where we had arranged to join my niece Shannon, her husband Colin, and daughter Teddy. But half-way there when we stopped at a Tim’s for a donut and coffee, I realized what my big mistake of the day was. I had left my credit card at the gas station in Prescott earlier in the morning. I couldn’t reach them on the phone so had to drive about half an hour back hoping they found it. This was not my kind of meandering. And here I learned a valuable lesson. Most people are honest. A customer had spotted my card at the gas pump where I had self-served gas and the staff had it waiting for me to came back. Needless to say, I was very grateful. People are good.
After that we continued on to Shannon’s home where we had a delightful meal with them and their parents Harv and Barb Lane who had been at the same celebration of life. Here we had another kind of celebration. She and Colin are outstanding cooks and hosts. Colin also took me for a spin in his BMW electric and show me how fast it could accelerate silently. It went 0 to 90 km. inside one city block in an instant. It was frankly, astounding to a rube like me. The future is here.
Life was good again. Thanks to good people. Even though I was sacrilegious.
A great source of pride in the community of Brockville to this day is the tunnel built for the Brockville and Ottawa Railway to join the timber trade of the Ottawa valley with the St. Lawrence River Ship route. It was blasted underneath the city in 1860. It is called the Brockville Railway Tunnel, or the Brockville Tunnel.
It was the first railway tunnel built in Canada. Since 2017 it has been opened to the public as a free seasonal tourist attraction. It was in actual use until the mid-70s.
I was a bit apprehensive to walk through the tunnel because water was dripping from the ceiling, but I learned on our short walk that the tunnel was designed to leak. Those engineers must know what they are doing. Right?
To me it seemed weird to have a tunnel is exists right under the city with water constantly leaking into it. How can that possibly be safe?
Samuel Keefer; who at the young age of 30 had been appointed to the highest engineering position in Canada and became the chief engineer of the Board of Public Works of the United Provinces, and he was opposed to the tunnel project. Instead, he recommended the rail line run around the high grade of the town from the west side of the city avoid the main hill and avoid going under the city. That would have sounded a lot simpler to me.
However, in those days, Canadian railway builders were adventurous and decided to build a tunnel. Sometimes it seems those builders loved tunnels. They managed to convince the town of Brockville and other municipalities who would benefit from the tunnel to contribute to its construction. And it worked though financing was always in trouble right up to the time it was completed.
The bottom third and top third of the tunnel are lined with stones that are held together in part by water lime. held together by water lime. The middle third is unlined and because water drips constantly it has created colourful formations along the walls.
The tunnel was built between 1854 and 1860 to allow the fledging Brockville and Ottawa Railway to connect the Brockville industrial waterfront area to the outlying areas lying between the St Lawrence and Ottawa rivers.
In 1853 a company was hired to construct it and signed a binding contract with them to do that. However, the next year they ran out of money and there was no federal government to guarantee completion as so often happens in modern contracts. A public celebration was held in 1854 with full masonic honours, but that was not good enough to guarantee completion. In 1855, notwithstanding the contract they ran out of money. Surprise, surprise, the projections were wrong. The municipalities had to pour in money to complete it.
Yet despite the problems it was completed and became the first of many railway tunnels in Canada.