Day 6: A full day docked in Baie-Comeau,
Quebec
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A morning coach ride along the
scenic coast to Franquelin
and an afternoon exploring the sights of Baie-Comeau.
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Overnight, we sailed
155 nautical miles and arrived at our berth in the port
of Baie-Comeau before breakfast. |
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We decided to join the
morning excursion; a drive along the coastal road as far
as Franquelin to visit the "Village Forestier d'Antan"
(Forest Village of yesteryear), a typical lumberjack village
with a forest interpretation centre. On the way back, there
was to be a stop at a scenic lookout point overlooking the
Havre St. Pancrace.
School buses were provided to transport us... well there
has to be a first time for everything! The seats were bench-style
with limited legroom, but apart from that they were fine. |
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Our bus drove non-stop
from the port to Franquelin. On the way back we stopped
at the St-Pancrace lookout point (Belvédère
Baie St-Pancrace). To avoid overcrowding at the village,
the other bus stopped at the lookout point on the way out). |
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Sue, making sure that
we were all present and correct! We were really pleased
to see her again on this trip after first meeting her in
the Azores in May. |
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This is quite an interesting
video about the history of the forest village. It's all
in French, but you can go to the settings and auto-translate
it into English. (This video isn't ours obviously and the
link may not work in the longer term). |
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We were given a warm
welcome by the team in the village. |
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After our musical welcome,
we were ushered into "The Cookery". |
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After a short talk, a
small sample of a traditional lumberjack meal was served... |
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...accompanied
by locally brewed 'caribou'. |
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The lady responsible
for preparing our food today. |
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The traditional entertainment
resumed as we sat eating. No video clip, unfortunately. |
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Afterwards we enjoyed
a bit of warm sunshine outside on the terrace. Despite it
being a beautiful day, there was quite a chill in the air. |
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We didn't follow the
guide, preferring instead to look into the individual huts
ourselves. |
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It was interesting to
see some of the office equipment used during that time,
some examples of which we both used ourselves! |
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After our informative
experience it was time to get back on our school bus and
head back in the direction of the port. |
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On the way back, we
stopped at Belvédère Baie St-Pancrace, which
overlooks the 600m high St. Pancrace fjord. It is an isolated
spot, and was a popular delivery point for contraband liquor
during prohibition in the 1930s. |
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To get a better view,
there is a lovely nature walk nearby, but we were advised
by our guide not to walk up to the higher levels because
some of the steps were steep and in need of maintenance.
Of course, we followed his advice... some in our party didn't. |
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Back on the bus for the
final leg back to the ship, where lunch was awaiting us. |
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Geoff was delighted to
find gigantic whelks on the buffet for lunch. Bruce avoided
them! |
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After lunch, we could
have taken the afternoon schoolbus excursion into the town
centre for a guided walk and tour, visiting the church and
a hotel for afternoon tea. Alternatively, we could have
taken a regular shuttle bus into town. We chose neither,
deciding instead to walk into the town and discover it for
ourselves. |
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It was a fair step into
town, but well within our abilities. As a bonus, we got
to enjoy the views along the way. |
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The city of Baie-Comeau
and specifically, Place La Salle, "a charming commercial
thoroughfare in the heritage district of Ste-Amélie,
where you can visit stores, souvenir boutiques, art galleries,
restaurants and bars". Now, perhaps being a Sunday
afternoon made the difference, but there were very few people
around and most places were closed... |
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...apart from this place
...and what a treat it was to go inside! |
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A short walk from the
centre of town is the Church
of Sainte-Amélie. We arrived at the same time
as a party from our ship arrived, which was fortunate, because
the church wasn't officially open to visitors today, but
we got to go inside with the group. We were pleased we did
that. The interior was worth seeing and featured pink granite
and a 1,500 square metre fresco. |
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We tagged along with
the group for their visit to the Hotel Le Manoir, where
afternoon "tea-with-a-view" was being served. |
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The cake/pastries didn't
tempt us (as an aside, nobody does afternoon tea like we
get in the UK), but the view from the hotel terrace was
beautiful. We could tell how far we had walked, because
we knew that our ship was around the corner in the middle
distance, but we couldn't quite see it. |
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Decision time. Do we
stay at the hotel for another half an hour and go back to
the ship, on the bus, with the group, or do we walk back
by ourselves? We decided to walk and so we set off without
further delay. |
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Looking back, we could
see the hotel and the terrace we had stood on earlier. |
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Forty five minutes after
leaving the hotel, we approached the port. |
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Once back on the ship,
we relaxed before dinner. At 5:00pm, we sailed. |
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