25 August 2015

from Saguenay to Øresund

25 August 2015

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Tuesday 25 August 2015--We have coffee and pastry at Boulangerie Bouchard, and then go get in the queue for the ferry, right behind the buses from Indiana. We've satisfied our curiosity about Île-aux-Coudres. It's a peaceful, bucolic place, and I wouldn't object to another stay, if occasion called for it; but I very much doubt it will. (The faithful reader will be forgiven for thinking that the lack of a pub is a factor in our lack of enthusiasm for the place.)

Drive through Les Éboulements on route 362 to La Malbaie, where we rejoin route 138, which takes an inland path from Baie-St-Paul, following the ring of the crater. Champlain named "The Bad Bay" in 1608 when his ship went aground at low tide. European settlement did not occur until two Scots, John Nairne and Malcolm Fraser, established estates in 1761. Marc and I visited the nearby Manoir Richelieu, a hotel in the Fairmont chain, some years ago, to have a peek at the casino that had been opened there, part of a plan to boost the local economy. At the time, Marc had never been in a casino, and he was curious. We anted up five dollars each, and ran a ten-dollar roll of quarters through a slot machine. When the roll was done, we scooped up the quarters in the tray below and counted them up. $10.75. "We're winners," I said to Marc, "let's get out of here." $5.25 apiece--a five percent return on investment--and a quarter for the coat check. Mr Tattie Heid is not a casino person. Anyway, that's as far as I've been down the north shore of the St Lawrence before now.

We are in St-Siméon at lunchtime. There's a ferry from here to Rivière-du- Loup on the south shore (although it must be noted that the St Lawrence runs more northward than eastward here, and the south shore ferry terminal is actually farther north than the north shore one). There is also a tantalizing view of the increasingly rugged shoreline ahead. We will be going farther downriver in a few days, but we will miss the stretch of coast between here and Tadoussac. We turn inland instead, along the Route du Fjord, toward the city of Saguenay.

The road passes through typically rugged Charlevoix countryside. Some miles along, the village of Sagard slips by, almost unnoticed. Entirely unnoticed is any sign of the nearby estate of Paul Desmarais, said to be the size of Manhattan. Desmarais, who died in 2013, was one of the wealthiest and most influential Canadians that folks in the US never heard of. As a young man fresh out of business and law school in the early 1950s, he took control of his father's foundering little bus company in Sudbury, Ontario. Having turned that around, he acquired bus companies in Ottawa and Montreal, then a small electric utility, then branched into media and insurance. In 1968, he took control of Power Corporation of Canada, a conglomerate with holdings in literal power generation, finance, and media. He took an interest in politics, of course, and had links to every major political party in Canada. He undoubtedly had his say on any potential legislation affecting business or finance. He hobnobbed with world leaders--both George H W Bush and Bill Clinton were guests at his estate, playing golf on his private course. Yet, despite being the Canadian poster boy for oligarchy, he was well respected, known for personal integrity and lavish philanthropy. The photos I've seen of his property are astonishing--it's as if an 18th-century French palace had been dropped into the middle of the Charlevoix forest, formal gardens and all.

Well, as I said, there's no sign of it to the casual traveler, which is undoubtedly as intended. The road eventually turns westward, parallel to the Saguenay River. A side road leads down to the village of L’Anse-Saint-Jean. We find a quiet little fjordside holiday town, with a couple of inns and a marina. On the other side of the cove, a road leads up to a lookout high on the cliffs. Here we get our first real impression of the fjord. There's an echo of Norway, certainly, but the landscape is unmistakably Charlevoix, long-distance hydropower lines and all.

We stop briefly at the visitor center for the Parc National du Fjord-du- Saguenay at Baie-Éternité before making our way to Chicoutimi. This, the urban center of the region, has been folded into the municipality of Saguenay, along with the towns of La Baie and Jonquière. Our downtown hotel is just across the intersection from a brewpub called La Tour à Bières. Good luck, that. We have dinner and a few pints there before retiring.

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