24 August 2015

from Saguenay to Øresund

24 August 2015

The North Atlantic Arc Home

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Monday 24 August 2015--Jacques Cartier named l'Isle-aux-Coudres in 1535, coudrier being an old French word for hazelnut tree. The first seigneurie here was granted in 1677, but settlement did not begin in earnest until 1728. The island's three townships--Saint-Louis-de-l'Isle-aux-Coudres, Saint-Bernard-sur-Mer, and La Baleine--eventually merged into one municipality with the archaic spelling Isle-aux-Coudres, although apparently the official name of the island itself is Île-aux-Coudres. Since the area of the island and the municipality are identical, either spelling works in most circumstances.

We make the tour of the island this morning. It doesn't take long, partly because it's not very big, and partly, perhaps, because we aren't feeling as curious as we ought to. We spend more time at Cidrerie & Vergers Pedneault than anywhere else. I buy more cider and ice cider, some for the cooler, and some to take home.

After lunch, Marc elects to take some down time; it's the first chance of his vacation to simply relax, after a busy work week. I go to look at the old mill--mills, actually, because a windmill and a watermill stand side by side, a unique setting in Canada. Apparently the locals changed their minds, more than once, on which better suited their needs. The wind, of course, can be a bit capricious, but water is iffy, too, on a small island with no real watercourse. A wooden dam here holds back a small mill pond, with water being released down a flume as needed.

I have a look around the village of St-Louis, spending some time in the church, said to be a replica of the one at Ste- Anne-de-Beaupré that burned down in 1922, and the processional chapels at either end of the village. At the western tip of the island, I look across Baie-St-Paul to Le Massif.

Dinner is at Hôtel La Roche Pleureuse, in La Baleine. (The Weeping Rock, a stony outcrop with groundwater perpetually seeping out and dripping down its face, is what passes for a tourist attraction around here.) Two busloads of tourists from Indiana are in, and I quiz one about their itinerary. Stops in Montreal and Quebec City make sense to me, but a visit to Île-aux-Coudres is surprising. My experience in the tourism industry tells me that long bus trips are sold on famous and familiar points of interest, and a night on an obscure (to Americans) island in the St Lawrence would only take time away from some other stronger selling point. I suppose it serves mainly as the endpoint to the real attraction, a trip through the lovely countryside of Charlevoix.

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