Chapter 6

The French Connection

"There is no Canadian patriotism; and so long as we have no Canadian patriotism, there will be no Canadian nation."

 

Henry Bourassa
Quebec parliamentarian and journalist

 

 

So it was, with some trepidation based on a prejudiced mind-set, that I crossed the Québec border.  I was still in my homeland, but lopsided learnings and fiercely separatist and anti-separatist rhetoric had led me to feel I was entering a hostile foreign land, infested by the Québécois, the “Frenchies” of my youth – the most arrogant, provincial-minded, rude, grasping, self-indulgent, whiny, shit-disturbing segment of Canadian society. 

I kept my feelings to myself: How dare they want to rip of a huge chunk of Canada to themselves!  And this “sovereignty association” bullshit – Canada is not a condominium!  How dare they set themselves above Canadian law!  Always wanting more, giving less.  And their damned repressive language laws – while Canada had been proclaimed bilingual (English and French), Québecers had effectively thumbed their sky-pointed noses at the rest of us by declaring their part of Canada unilingually French (I had pitied the sizable minorities that lived there).  Well, sacre bleu (whatever that means) to you too!

But lo!  Speak softly, and in French – you’re in the “country” that they consider theirs.  Damn!  If only I’d paid more attention in my high school French classes.  Well, I’ll show them – I won’t even use my French phrase book!

I was an ass to let my Dark Side mask my fear and ignorance.  My defiant attitude gave me courage but it was false, all mute macho bluster.  I believed my Bright Side, my open mind, would prevail and I would see things more clearly.  And besides, what did I have to bitch about?  This was May 1986 – separatist fervor had been subdued by the recent political defeat of one of its most eloquent proponents, René Lévesque, founder of the Parti Québécois (whose primary goal was to create a sovereign Québec).  He had been replaced by a vacillating Liberal, Robert Bourassa, who, at least when the wind blew right, favored the federalist view.  So perhaps this passage through Québec wouldn’t be so bad.

The truth was that the separatists were the embittered descendants of long-since conquered immigrants, the loudest voices of an introverted people whose provincial motto, found even on their license plates, was suggestive of retribution – Je me souviens – “I remember”.  They remembered the Conquest of 1759 that had left them harshly subjugated, they felt, to the present day.

It happened on September 13, way back in 1759, a particularly unlucky day for the French in the new land.  After a futile two-month siege against Québec City’s lofty defenses, the British redcoats, led by General James Wolfe, scaled the cliffs under cover of night.  By 10:05, under clear morning skies over the Plains of Abraham, 3,111 British soldiers had assembled three feet apart in two mile-long lines.  General Louis Montcalm’s hastily gathered French line – three divisions, six deep, 4,500-strong – charged wildly down a slope toward them, guns firing.  A soldier picked off in the British line was quickly replaced.  Guns shouldered, the British waited.  When the French defenders were only forty yards away, the British command was shouted, “Present,” – British guns were leveled – “Fire!”  The soldiers reloaded, advanced and fired again.  The acrid smoke lifted and revealed a field of mostly French fighters, dead or wounded or crazed in the midst of slaughter.  Those that could, fled.  Wolfe, who had taken a bullet to the lung, was carried to the rear and rested on a grenadier’s coat.  Advised of the rout, he ordered a regiment to cut off the French retreat.  He rolled onto his side and gasped, “Now, God be praised, I die in peace.”

General Montcalm, shot in the retreat, and dying that evening in the house of surgeon, said, “I am happy I shall not see the surrender of Québec.”

The battle that had largely decided the fate of Canada had lasted barely fifteen minutes.  But it was not over.  Ultimate victory depended upon whose fleet from the Old World would arrive first in the spring with reinforcements.  The British won, uncontested – the French did not bother to send a fleet.

British merchants then plundered the fur trade.  To them, the Québécois were conquered, French, and Catholic – useless, except as cheap labor.  The draconian but benignly-enforced Royal Proclamation of 1763 imposed English laws, customs and language on the conquered.  Catholics were barred from public office.  The Québécois retreated to their parishes and looked to their local priests for leadership and cultural salvation.  The Québécois increasingly became rosary-fingering, defiant subsistence survivors and they would remain largely that way until World War II.

Although the British North America Act of 1867, which created Canada, did recognize Québec’s special status, allowing it to have its own civil code and use French language in its legislatures and courts, with English as the province’s other language, resentment still ran deep and bitterness was bequeathed to following generations.  Their resistance took place largely in their bedrooms – "the revenge of the cradle”.  Their numbers jumped from 60,000 at the Conquest to over 5 million in 1986.  But with their birthrate now the lowest in Canada, did they fear ethnic dilution?  Were they now as desperate as they were defiant?

I remembered the terrorist campaigns of the FLQ (French de Liberation du Québec) which began with the bombing of the Wolfe statue in Québec City and culminated in the October Crisis of 1970 – the 55-day kidnap crisis that resulted in the “execution” or accidental death, depending on which side you believed, of Québec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, and with Prime Minister Trudeau’s reluctant invocation of the War Measures Act.

In 1977, the Parti Québécois had introduced in Québec’s legislature, The French Language Charter – Bill 101.   It declared that regardless where any child in Québec came from, it had to be educated in French unless one of its parents had gone to an English school in Québec.  It decreed that all English commercial signs, even bilingual ones, would be illegal by 1981.  Any towns, rivers, or mountains that had English names had to be renamed.  Companies with more than 50 employees had to undergo "francization” and get a certificate to prove that within its doors, business was done in French.  Declaring that French was Québec’s only official language – in violation of the British North America Act – locked it all up.

An English school board in Québec took the provincial government to court.  The court ruled that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms took precedence over Bill 101.  Chief Justice Jules Deschênes said the government’s argument “demonstrates a totalitarian concept of society to which the court cannot subscribe…” The Parti Québécois appealed.  

And that is where the matter stood when Melawend and I rode through – waiting.

But the defiance still raged like unrelieved constipation.  Just last winter, in a singular act of protest, Gilles Rheaume, a fervent indépendantiste, declared that he would march the 158 miles from Montreal to Québec City to piss on the statue of Wolfe.  He was upset that the party had put sovereignty on the shelf as the political climate had so favored.  However, when he arrived, Mother Nature’s cold climate compelled him to keep his dictum zipped.  And so he emplored his followers to consider his bladder emptied as such.

It seemed that Big Brother (Grand Frère) was alive and well in Québec, prodding everyone with the ­fleur de lis.  He bred picture-snapping vigilantes and “tongue troopers” eager to expose violators of the regime.   I would keep my head low and not ask too many questions.  I was just passing through, in a hurry.  Truly I felt I was entering a hostile foreign country.

My road map, published by the Ministere des Transport du Québec, was not reassuring.  I considered Quebec to be a huge, culturally diversified part of my country; rich in tradition and history that was part of the collective Canadian heritage (with Canada being home to some 70 ethnic groups).  The real estate that was within its borders was simply part of the entire landmass of Canada.   It was only one of our ten provinces and two territories.  The map suggested otherwise.  All place names were in French; for example, I would be travelling along the southern shore of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent.  I could live with that, even travel with it.  It gave me some of the French ambiance (ambiance: French for surroundings, environment and atmosphere).  But in the first paragraph under “Travel in Québec, written all in English, the province was referred to as “a country” five times; and nowhere was it referred to as being part of Canada.  The second paragraph is worth a reprint here:

"But Québec is above all, the home and cradle of the French culture in the New World, enriched with that of the adopted cosmopolitan minorities, and a privileged link between traditionalist Europe and modernistic America. Québec is mainly a “la joie de vivre”, for one day or always, among a sympathetic and hospitable population, greeting the visitor with the same warmth as kinsfolk.  In Québec, the tourist is never a stranger!"

 

Did it read “enriched” by its “adopted” minorities? …a “sympathetic” population?   greeting as “kinfolk” (so long as you weren’t from anywhere else in Canada, I thought).  Give me a break!   I took reality to be the opposite and so I steeled myself against potential adversity.

 

I had been fighting headwinds on the 417 and now, crossing the Québec border, I was just too weather-beaten to worry about anything but shelter, even if I had to ask for a free campsite.  It was open landscape, not promising of a sheltered camp and there were no definitive farms.  Finally there was a forested rise in the land, and an exit, Sortie 9.  The relief was immediate – a winding road and the modest homes of a peaceful-looking village called Rigaud.  There were a few cars being driven but the only person in the open was a dark-haired man in a tan jacket, walking along a sidewalk.  I drove through the village and found myself heading back into open country.  I thought of backtracking to the highway and searching for a regular campground but I just didn’t want to face those winds again. 

There’s got to be something here.

As I drove down through the village again, I passed as sign that pointed to a “Santuaire”, which I interpreted as sanctuary.  I stopped in the “Magazin General” as sign over the door read.  I was reassured by the Sherwin-Williams “Cover the Earth” paint sign hanging overhead.  It also told me that "A. Bertrand & Fils" ran the store.  The store was a simple rectangular building covered with insulbrick.  It had a wood plank porch and two large display windows in front.  Steel hand bars advertising 7-Up, Coca-Cola and Salada Tea crossed the weathered screen door.  Two big rusty Coca-Cola signs flanked the doorway.  A round broken thermometer promoted Weston bread.  In one of the windows there were two signs, side by side – “Cold Beer” and “Biere Froid”.  The porch roof was also a deck for a second-floor apartment.  The place reminded me of Papa Smith’s grocery store in Ridgeway, which Papa had run for forty-eight years.

Inside, I found what I expected – a large, long room with goods shelved, stacked and hung everywhere, everything from canned food to plastic hampers.  I needed information.  I picked up a small bag of potato chips to buy and took it to the counter near the back.  Behind it was a rounded man with a gray fringe of hair and glasses.   He was neatly dressed in dark blue dress pants, light blue dress shirt and a tie.  Pens rose in his chest pocket.  I was the only customer.  He looked up from his paper work.

“Allo,” he said warmly.

This was Alain Bertrand and he impressed me as a kind, grandfatherly man.

“Beautiful day,” I said.   “I like your store.  It reminds me of my grandfather’s store in Ontario.

He smiled.

“I’m travelling,” I said, pointing to the heavy-laden scooter parked out front, barely discernible through the jungle of goods.  “Do you know where I might find a place to camp for the night?”

Alains’ brother, Simon, was taking inventory nearby.  Alain looked at him and spoke in French.  Simon eyebrows furrowed.  He gave a slight shrug and said, “Sanctuaire.”  Alain nodded and said, “Oui.”

“You might try our Santuaire Notre-Dame,” Alain said.  He led me to the front porch and pointed up the quiet street.  “There, you turn, go up and then you turn right.  You will find it.”

Melawend and I climbed up a deeply shaded residential road until we came to a sign pointing to my sanctuary – “Sanctuaire Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes” – Shrine of our Lady of Lourdes.  In the traveler’s way, I discovered something truly unexpected.

I rode up the road to a parking lot and beheld through the trees a beautiful open-air place of worship anchored to the side of a small mountain.  A lean man wearing a security guard’s uniform met me.  In his mirrored sunglasses and cap, he reminded me of Barney Fife (Don Knotts) on TV’s The Andy Griffith Show.  I expected to be adamantly ordered out with a shaky arm pointing the way.

“Good evening,” he said.  “The Shrine is closed now.”

“Mr. Bertrand at the general store suggested that I might be able to camp here.”

His name was Maurice Guindon.  He listened as I explained my project.

“We don’t really allow camping here but you may camp down in that area if you like.” He pointed to a stony flat clearing below the road.  “It’s an old lover’s lane.  Maybe you will have company.”

I thanked him and drove Melawend down and found a spot for my tent.  It was peaceful.  I felt secure and already more optimistic.  I set up the tent, downed a hastily made peanut butter sandwich and grew sleepy.  I dozed off and awoke in darkness.  It was eerily quiet.  I looked outside for a moment.  Maurice was right.   In the dim starlight, I saw a small car parked on the other side of the clearing.  Its windows were steamed, but I could discern the occupants – a guy and a girl.  They were making out.  I felt my aloneness and envied the guy – You lucky devil!

In the morning, I was woken by the sound of lovely chimes. I later rose to a voice booming from a PA system from the buildings below, College Bourget.  I got out of the tent and stretched.  I felt relaxed here.   Where I had expected to find indifference or rejection, I was received with kindness.  And though I was not Catholic, I felt welcome.  I decided to explore the shrine, do some writing and stay another night.  I felt that something had guided me here.

Since 1874, this place had been one of pilgrimage. I walked along the wide center isle between green-painted benches that sat on paved ground beneath the trees.  The benches faced a stone chapel.  Under a pointed arch, there was a white altar adorned with flowers and candles in brass holders.  Behind the chapel, atop a rock cliff, there was a beautiful small domed chapel.  I found a pathway.  On the way up, I paused at a small grotto that had been built one hundred years ago.  It sheltered a lovely Madonna in prayer.  Up at the little chapel I was first impressed by the view – green meadows beyond the treetops and the twin bell towers of the parish church and the blue ribbon of the Rigaud River winding away to join with the Ottawa River.  Inside the chapel, there was a blue and white-painted altar on which stood another prayerful Virgin flanked with vases filled with long-stemmed roses.   Two devotional candles were burning.  On the wall, I saw a picture of Pope John Paul II. 

God willing, I thought, I will reach the Vatican, and maybe see the Holy Father himself.

I spent a long time in the chapel in contemplation – where I had been in my life and where I was going.   And what better place, I thought, to begin writing the journey articles for the Times-Review.   I opened my notebook and began: “Rigaud, Quebec, May 13, 1986.  It was late afternoon.  The winds were the fiercest yet on the journey…”

Near the gift shop, I met Father Paul Desilets, CSV, the parish priest.  He was middle-aged, gaunt and stood with a slight hunch.  He liked the concept of my journey and we agreed to meet later to walk to his church, Sainte-Madeleine de Rigaud.  I sat on one of the green benches and continued my writing.

 

“I have taught English,” Father Desilets said as we walked along a shady street.  “I tried, but some of the students could be so frustrating.   They understood the lessons but simply refused to accept English.  Knowing it, they would refuse to speak it.”

His face was drawn and serious but as we neared the church, he brightened.  “I find great joy in music.”

We went inside and he led me up to the balcony that overlooked the pews and the altar.  In the middle of the balcony, toward the front, was the church organ.

“It’s an unusual place for an organ,” he said, “and it can be loud up here.”

He took me to the rear of the balcony and led me into one of the cramped cubicles that housed the organ pipes.  He explained how wooden pipes were sanded to tune them.  We went back to the organ.  He sat down and began to play.  I saw in his face the intensity of a serious musician.  His hands flourished high and the passion in him grew as the genius of Mozart and Bach flowed through him to the keyboard. 

I was reluctant to leave the tranquility I had found in Rigaud but I had already found myself anxious about time.   I had just over a year to return to Fort Erie for the Friendship Festival – July 1 to 4, 1987.  When I stopped to imagine how many chance discoveries and meetings there might be in a journey around the world, I wondered if a year was going to be enough.  Being done on hope and a shoestring, the journey seemed risky, like walking on a frayed rope suspension bridge.

On the way out of Rigaud, I stopped at Bertrand’s store.  The curb on the opposite side of the road was sloped.  Top-heavy Melawend tipped over.  Simon had seen me and rushed over to help me get her up and stable.  I bought some groceries and stowed them in my saddlebag galley.  I got on and waved to Alain who was standing in the doorway of his store.  I lost my footing and Melawend fell over again, taking me with her.  Alain disappeared into the store and returned with a ball of twine to help me secure the load.

 

“They drive like maniacs!” an old friend had told me of drivers in Montreal.  But the worst I saw, heading into the city’s outskirts that sunny morning, was a short old Frenchman in a red Toyota as he ran a stop sign.  Drivers were no more but no less aggressive than those you encountered in Toronto.  In New York City, however, you found a different unyielding animal. And in Rome!  (Whoa!  I’m getting ahead of myself.)

At a gas station in Dorval, a suburb of Montreal, I talked with a young fair-haired attendant.  He was Anglo-Saxon and I asked him what it was like living in “French” Canada.

“Ah, it’s not as bad you might think,” he said.  “A lot of my friends are French and they hold nothing against the rest of Canada."

But he was more interested in what I was doing.

“Nancy Greene was through here and I got her autograph.  May I have yours?”

Nancy Greene was the Canadian who won the gold medal in the Giant Slalom of women’s alpine skiing at the Winter Olympic Games held in Grenoble, France, in 1968.  Hers would have been a worthwhile autograph – but mine?  I had not accomplished anything of note.  Yet in his asking, I felt a renewed sense of responsibility to my enterprise.  I happily obliged him.  He rushed back into the station and brought back a CDN sticker and a coffee mug that Shell was giving away as a promotion, though I had bought only three dollars worth of gas.  (Now twelve years later, I still have that mug.)

In looking back, any traveler has regrets of places left unexplored.  My first major regret of the odyssey was Montreal.  It was the cultural hub of French Canada and was the largest French-speaking city in the world, next to Paris.  An island-city with its own mountain, it was the stopper in bottleneck of the St. Lawrence River.  It was rich in history and ethnic diversity and had the best of the old and new world – from the clean rubbly charm of its quartiers, to its towers of steel and glass, to its international seaport, theatre, jazz and film festivals, and everywhere cafés and clubs.  Cultured, cosmopolitan Montreal – I saw none of it.

I had been intimidated by cities – the noise, the congestion, the feeling of being trapped in a labyrinth of streets and alleys and towering pigeonholes that was teeming with jostling, indifferent, ratty people. (Wasn't that why people moved out of cities – to escape "the rat race"?)  To explore Montreal meant I would have to stay overnight, cheaply, in its unknown recesses.  And night had a way of bringing out a city’s predators.   I did not yet know how to handle a city, let alone how to overcome my trepidation and enjoy a city. 

And did I mention that I was in a hurry to get to Halifax?

I had wanted to go over the Pont Honorè-Mercier to see the Rapids de Lachine, sardonically named for in 1535 they had stopped Jacques Cartier in his quest for a westerly water route to China.  But the subsequent loop shown on the map looked too long.   I ducked out of the city over the Pont Champlain.

Melawend and I scooted along route 132 to 20 through Longueil then back onto 132 for the run up the St. Lawrence…I mean, Fleuve St. Laurent.  

Along the way, I stopped at a service station in the open windy outskirts of a large town.  The attendant was dressed in grease-stained overalls and blackened work boots.  He wore a brimless cap that had once been white.  He was about forty and was lean with a large forehead, a stubbly oil-smeared face and black beady eyes.   He never looked at me.  He drew the nozzle from the pump and cradled it in his dirty hands.

“Parlez-vous Anglais?” I said, struggling to remember my French.  But it seemed redundant to ask someone in French if they spoke English.

He did not respond.   He just looked indifferently at Melawend.

“This might take a minute,” I said.  Why was I being so polite?  He could see that it would take time for me to expose the gas tank. 

This was a delicate operation.  I had made a hinged platform from scraps of plywood, pine and cedar and bolted it to the small steel rack that jutted back behind the scooter’s seat.  On the platform, I had secured the heaviest items and had finally arranged things for the lowest center of gravity where a passenger would have sat.  Two saddlebags hung low on either side of the scooter connected to each other by two broad Velcro straps that rested across the passenger contour of the seat.  I would lift the heavy platform back on its hinge and, while balancing it with one hand, peel the Velcro straps apart, letting the saddlebags drop, to be held by their lower ties.  This freed the seat.  Then I would have to unlock the seat and lift it up and forward on its front-mounted hinge while still balancing the platform.  Did I mention that the platform was heavy?  Then I would carefully bring the seat and the platform together, forming an open triangle over the now-exposed gas tank – and pray that it would not collapse.

Maybe it was the wind, but I was having a hell of a time going through those motions.

“I could really use a little help with this,” I said.

He did not respond.

I was loosing it.   The platform tilted back hard.  If it fell back, it would surely snap off its hinge and perhaps break the little steel rack.  I also had to be careful that it didn’t fall forward and cause the scooter to tip over.  It was tricky and strenuous but I kept it under control and formed the triangle.

“Fill it up?” I said hopefully.

He nodded and filled the tank to overflowing, leaving me to wipe the tank dry.

It was mid-afternoon.   I had passed through some lovely riverside villages with the single or double steeples of a church dominating the skyline of each one.  In one village, quaint pastel-colored shops with apartments above were packed tightly together very near to the narrow street.  This made for narrow sidewalks but gave the hamlet a warm intimacy, enhanced by the total absence of people.   Did the French love to huddle cozily in their abodes?

Views of the St. Lawrence winding its way between forested shores speckled with villages made for a blissful ride.  I felt incredibly lucky to be riding along this historical river in the wake of explorers who opened up this continent.  I wanted to find camp early that I might savor these feelings unhurried.  The road regrettably took me away from the shore of Lac Saint-Pierre; the twenty-mile-long widening in the river where, at its west end, Cartier had been compelled by the shallow waters to leave L’Emerillon moored and continued up river to Hochelaga (now Montreal) in longboats.

At Leclercville, I spotted a single-steeple church on a bluff overlooking the village of Rivière du Chêne where it emptied into the St. Lawrence – a beautiful spot to camp, if I could.

I knocked at the door of the rectory, which was a framed house near the edge of the grassy bluff.  There was no answer.  I tried a nearby home where a small foreign car was parked.  A black cat outside stared at me.  No answer.  I went over to the church.  It was a small brick church, painted silver in front and red on the sides.  The spire was ornate around the bell.  High above the door was the statue of a saint tucked into an alcove.  Lettering above the door said the church was built in 1863.

I knocked at the front door.  No answer.  I was about to leave when the door creaked open.  A ruddy-faced middle-aged woman wearing a bandana stood in the narrow opening, wiping her hands with an old towel.  Her look said, What do you want?

“Good afternoon, Mam.  Do you speak English?”

“A leetle,” she said, wincing.  Still wiping her hands, she cocked her head toward the rectory.  “Zey speak Engleesh but zey not home.”

“I’m travelling to Halifax,” I said, pointing to Melawend.  “I was wondering if I might be able to camp here tonight.”  I indicated the lawn near the edge of the bluff.

She frowned.  She shrugged.  She looked annoyed.  I made a triangle of my arms.

“Ah camping,” she said.  “Camping ici, non.”  She shook her left index finger side-to-side at me.  Then she pointed with a sweeping motion in the direction of a bridge that crossed the river.

You’re telling me there’s a campground ahead?  Or that you want me to leave?  I nodded politely as if I understood.  She gave me a staccato nod and leveled her frowning lips in forced acknowledgement.  Without further adieu, she spun on her heels and closed the door heavily behind her.

I let it get to me.   As I motored over the bridge, I felt somewhat alienated from the pastoral beauty that surrounded me.  You can look but do not touch. Québec was at once naked and beautiful but also hard like a few sourpuss strippers it sent to the Sundowner.

I began to feel that I had only one true constant friend on this journey – the peppy little machine that had carried me from Ridgeway so solidly, without complaint or request for even a drop of oil.  Motoring along, I began what would become a habit in times when I felt most alone – I would stroke the curved bit of faring by the large left signal light with my index finger, saying aloud things like, “Thanks for being here, Melawend." and  "We’ll make it.”

My second regret of the odyssey came quickly – Québec City.  I was on the wrong side of the river but I could see its high cliffs surmounted by La Citadelle and, above the trees atop Cap Diamant (Cape Diamond), the elegant lines of Château Frontenac.  I would regret not scootering over the Pond de Québec and following the shore on Boulevard Champlain, past the Plaines d’Abraham and into the lower town, to the Place Royale, to the Quartier Petit-Champlain, then going up the funicular to the Basilique Notre-Dame and walking the broad promenade called Terrace Dufferin.  There, I could have perhaps reflected like Charles Dickens who wrote: “The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of North America, its giddy heights, its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn, is at once unique and everlasting.”

The city had recently (in 1985) become a United Nations World Heritage Site, recognized as North America’s only walled city north of Mexico and the fountain of its French culture.  (Maybe there was some truth to the text on the map.)  I did remember something of Québec’s capital from history classes and from those images of forest-clearing, sod-turning colonists from France.  I remembered pictures of Euro-coveted beaver pelts piled high in the Indian canoes of burly bearded trappers – the hide-wearing coureurs de bois.   I thought of the original Indian village, Stadacona, and of Cartier, the discoverer; Champlain, the city founder; Montcalm, the defender; and Wolfe, the conqueror.  This fallen city had been the capital of Nouvell France, the independent-minded colony that was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.  The present city, that flying fortress, was the thriving survivor, the sanctuary of French culture, the bastion of French joie de vivre ("zest for living").

I imagined that it might seem a bitter irony to the Québécois if the belief of the eminent historian Samuel Eliot Morrison was true.  In his book The European Discovery of America; the Northern Voyages A.D. 500 – 1600, he said he believed that the name “Canada” was derived “from the Iroquois-Huron word Cannata, meaning a village or settlement; and, specifically, the village Stadaconé at the site of Québec.”

For whatever beauty or historical wonder there was waiting to be discovered in Québec City, my heart was still hardened toward cities.  I whizzed by.  Besides, shadows were getting longer – I had to find a campsite. I wondered, Will I be so lucky as in Rigaud?  Or would each village ahead be another Leclercville?  I could not afford a regular campground.  A church still seemed the best option.  I wasn’t Catholic but I did believe in God.  Perhaps that would be enough.

At Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies, I found a beautiful stone church that had been built in 1849.  It had two ornate columned steeples.  In the yard to the left of the front door, on a high stone pedestal, there was a statue of Christ with a halo of electric lights.  Behind the statue in the distance was the river.

 

I knocked on the door of the rectory and was greeted by a kindly man, Father Pierre Pelletier, who readily said that I could camp beside the church.  His wife spoke no English but smiled and offered to fill the canteen I was holding.  I managed a few trite phrases that included “Si vous plais.” and “Merci beaucoup.”

I set up on the river side of the church.  It was quiet and I was alone.  I photographed the statue of Jesus, backlit by the setting sun, which also reflected off the calm river.   I watched the sun disappear and the dimming light turn the Laurentian Mountains lavender.  I found peace of spirit and slept like a happy puppy.

It was cold in the morning and I awoke with sniffles.  I packed up and thanked Mrs. Pelettier who waved from the porch and said, “Bon voyage!”

I was relieved that I would be leaving Québec today, but in my scant exposure to it, I had come to love its visual beauty.  I had been warmed by the kindness that I did find.  I vowed to myself that I would come back.  The Québec I had glimpsed had had the allure of a beautiful, proud, single-minded woman who could be friendly or bitchy.  As I sped down the St. Lawrence toward Rivière-du-Loup, picked up the Trans-Canada Highway and turned southeast, away from the river, and away from Québec, I wondered: if I had tried to be more open, if I had tried to speak her language and been both more caring and objectively questioning – would she have allowed me to know her better?  Or was she hell-bent on divorce?  Would I learn from this experience?

 

(Writing this ten years after the odyssey technically ended, I do have a better understanding of Québec, but I remain confused.  We, as a nation, are still suffering the bitter legacy of the competitive colonialism of the England and France that existed 200 years ago.  They pretty much settled those disputes in 1814 on the killing fields of Waterloo.  We, as their estranged children, having amicably left our parents long ago, squabble more loudly now.  We have not grown up yet.

Our native people – our First Nations – here before the colonial invaders, and lost in the shuffle for so long, finally seized the opportunity in recent bungled attempts at constitutional reform to say, “What about us?”

After the bizarre elections of October 1993 which left an even more defiant and self-pitying separatist party, the Block Québécois, as the Official Opposition Party of our federal government; and after their narrow defeat in a referendum over separation held in Québec in 1995 (with another referendum threatened), we seem no closer to our destiny.  The bickering continues. 

Such a divided house.  What do the neighbors think?

 

Chapter 7

Eastern Passage

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