Gaspesie

For the geographically impaired, (of which I counted myself until we started traveling around), the Gaspesie is a peninsula of Quebec with the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the St. Lawrence River on the other.  In actuality, it's a trip into rural France.  The only real highway hugs the coastline and goes through a seemingly endless series of small, small towns (usually with populations under 1000, and often under 500).  Each town is dominated by its Catholic church complete with gigantic steeple which towers

over the town and can been seen for miles.  Nobody really speaks English; however, with lots of pointing and charades we managed to eat.  It's amazing how much French I can understand now - well, reading it - can't understand a word beyond Bonjour when these folks talk.  We came up here to see two things:  Forillion National Park and the Sanguenay Fjord.  One was wonderful (the park) and the other a disappointment (the fjord).

As we drove through, one of my favorite things about the towns of the Gaspesie is the fanatical level of neatness, cleanliness, and lovely decoration of all the homes and buildings.  I've also become a devotee of the Halte Municipal.

Those are each town's public restroom facilities, usually little wooden buildings sitting on a lawn overlooking the ocean/St. Lawrence, usually with newly painted picnic tables.  These are not crappy, bug ridden, dirty unkempt pit toilet facilities, but rather just the opposite - always clean, usually with some type of flowers or other decoration sitting on the sink area, clean flush toilets, and always with soap and paper towels.  By the second usage, I was in love.

This is the one we hiked UP

Another big surprise was how mountainous this area is.  It's not the Rocky Mountains, but rather very big hills, maybe 350 meters.  (That's around 1000 feet for you Yankees.)  I struggled up while Drake hiked to the top of one of these tall hills.  The entire center of the peninsula is a series of one big national park (Forllion) and a series of smaller provincial parks.

Yes, I'm still red as a beet from the climb, but I made it         

And here's what we saw; so worth the effort

We also managed to picnic after the big uphill hike, and when we looked up from our table, I was in awe how far up I'd hiked.  If you look closely, you can see the observation tower on top of the cliff - I WAS THERE!  Aren't you impressed?  Well, I was.

If you're a fisherman, this place would be heaven since the numerous rivers with their snaking bends around mountains/hills followed by rippling rapids are loved by salmon and their catchers alike.  In one park, you could 'rent' your numbered spot with a little trail leading to a spot on a river to fish.  There were 65 sites just along the main roadway.

Another myth fell by the wayside in the Gaspesie. We can also no longer believe in the 'moose conspiracy'.  For more than fifteen years, we've been positive there were no moose either in New England or in Canada.  Our experience has always been some planted stranger saying, "Oh, there's a moose just around the bend of the trail", or just up the river, or grazing in the next field, etc.  We were sure there were people at a distance walking on all fours in moose suits as well as those walking around upright stamping moose tracks attached to sticks for the tourists to find.  We are now willing to admit we may have been wrong about the conspiracy.  As we rounded a bend in Forillion Park, a cluster of people were gathered looking at SOMETHING.  (We learned in Yellowstone when you see a cluster, it means some animal has been spotted.)  Quickly pulling to a stop, what did we find but this:  

Yes, it's a moose, and boy oh boy, these are BIG animals - this was was size of a large draft horse.  Now, it's easy to understand all the moose warning signs as well as actual 8 foot high fences along some portions of the Canadian highways.    If you hit one of these guys, it could easily be curtains for both the moose and the people and too often is.  Speaking of which, Drake has become a Bambi killer.  Instead of a moose, a very young deer, hardly older than a fawn because it was only the size of a large dog, jumped out of the brush on the side of the road and directly into the right front bumper of our car.  I was reading a guide book at the time, and all I heard was a BIG THUMP.  By the time Drake got stopped, checked the damage (minimal, thank heaven), and turned around so I COULD TAKE A PICTURE OF THE DEAD DEER, the deer was long gone.  We never did find it, but I'm sure it's dead somewhere back in the heavy brush.  I was so grateful I didn't have to record for posterity, Drake's 'kill'.  There's no way it could have survived.  As Drake put it, "That deer was committing suicide via car since it literally jumped in front of me.  There was no way I could react fast enough to avoid it".  We were extremely lucky.  Nothing mechanical was damaged - just a fog light and the window washer bottle.

The most famous landmark of the Gaspesie is the Perce' Rock.  We had a very enjoyable evening sitting out on our 'patio' in Adirondack chairs drinking a bottle of Pinot Noir recovering from our dead deer day and speculating what size boat could go through the hole.  The question remains unanswered since we didn't see ANY boat try it.

Our final experience in Gaspesie was the Jardin de Doris at Matane.  Yes, that's the Gardens of Doris, although I never found out who Doris was or is.  She does have a fab garden which is even more awesome when you consider the climate.  This place was seriously gorgeous, and they even had a cactus garden - which get's 'taken in' during the winter.  My favorites in this garden were the peonies which were just starting to bloom.  

Leaving Gaspesie, we took ANOTHER ferry from Matane to arrive on the Quebec City side of the St. Lawrence River.  The St. Lawrence is the Canadian equivalent of the Mississippi River, so big and so economically important.  It's time to see the urban portion of New France and the place where the British finally defeated the French to take control of North America.  

If you want to see more of Gaspesie or more of Jardin de Doris, click on the pix!

https://goo.gl/photos/9gdz3gpLWMsCZek69  (Gaspesie)

  

 https://goo.gl/photos/wG9LG1acRXQYVwFe6  (Jardin de Doris)