Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 14:08:25 -0300
Reply-To: Malcolm Stebbins <Malcolm.Stebbins@MSVU.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Malcolm Stebbins <Malcolm.Stebbins@MSVU.CA>
Subject: Quebec’s Gaspé: Trip report
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Patricia and I have both been to Quebec’s Gaspé (Gaz-bay)
peninsula before but never together. So we decided it’s time
to “do it together”. We loaded up the VW camper and headed
off last week (Sunday 14 July). We headed north out of
Halifax through New Brunswick (NB) and timed our trip so
that we could take the slow road. After driving through cute
little towns with interesting names (Shediac, Grande Digue,
Bouctouche), we arrived at NB’s seaside Kouchibouguac
National park just about dinner time. If you’d like to follow
along with a map, try pointing your browser to:
http://www.tourismnbcanada.com/web/english/maps/ . Our
photos are located at http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/mwstebbins/
and the “album” is called Gaspé trip (or some such name).
Next day, as we were not in much of a hurry, we were late
getting started and took as many 2 lane back roads up NB’s
Acadian east coast as we could, poking around the interesting
Acadian peninsula. Again the towns reflect the French
heritage with names like Paquetville, Caraquet, and Laméque,
where we had lunch. We went so slowly that on day 2 we
were already a day behind schedule, but cared not. We found
a camp ground on NB’s North coast – on the Baie des
Chaleurs -- and had a place within spitting distance of the
ocean.
Monday was a bit foggy and rainy, so it was mostly a driving
day. We headed west, right along the coast to NB’s
Campbellton, through places like Petit –Rocher, Nigado,
Belledune etc. where we crossed over to Quebec’s Gaspé
Penn.
Again if any of you like maps, try:
http://www.tourisme-gaspesie.com/en/index.htm
and click on Maps (at the bottom of the page) and then on
Road Map on the next screen.
Once in Quebec, we headed right back east, but this time
along the northern shore of the Baie des Chaleurs along 2 lane
roads hugging the shore line. Towns with names like
Paspébiac, Saint Siméon, Saint-Thérèse-de-Gaspé. Our goal
was the town of Percé, as there is an interesting rock
formation on the coast here; also, Bonaventure Island, just off
the coast of Percé, is a conservation area, a bird-sanctuary.
The whole of the area was shrouded in fog as we arrived and
we could see nothing of the rock or island. As we were
making arrangements for our campsite, the campground
attendant kept assuring us that in the morning there would be a
grand view right out our camper window. He was right, the
next morning was clear and we had a splendid view.
New Brunswick is officially bilingual so we were able to ease
into French through the unofficial Franglaise ( a mix of
French & English). Quebec is, of course, Francophone. Pat
speaks French but is VERY rusty and she hates to make
mistakes so she stumbles on verb tenses and male/female
forms of nouns. I have some phrasebook French and I don’t
care much what comes out of my mouth (careful!). On top of
all of that is the Quebec accent, and then the local Gaspé
vernacular. For example, Oui comes out sort of like “Wa”
with the “a” sounded like the ‘a’ in QUACK. It is one
challenge to put together a coherent question, and quite
another to make sense of the answer in the local French
dialect. But this is part of what travel is about.
We were up early so as to get the first (9 a.m.) boat out to
Bonaventure Island. Isle de Bonaventure is interesting as one
can walk around and get right up next to the hundreds of
thousands of nesting Northern Gannets.
Once back on dry land, we headed north along the coast to
Forillon National Park, right on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula.
There were no camping places left in the park, so we camped
just south of the park in L’Anse-aux-Cousins. Here I was
again able to help another Vanagon driver; he had left his gas-
cap at a gas station back in Ontario and was waiting till he
drove back through there to retrieve his gas-cap. He was a bit
astounded when I told him I had an extra gas-cap that I could
loan him – just so long as he mailed it back to me when he
returned home. I’m sure that you, the readers, carry an extra
gas cap for your “cars”. “No, really?”
Next morning was spent in Forillon Park. Forillon is more a
seascape park and as we live here on the ocean and had just
spent 3 days driving along the ocean we did not tarry long
here. We did take a 3 hour walk/hike out to the end of the
Gaspé peninsula. After the hike we headed west through the
interior of the Gaspé.
The interior forests and mountains were a welcome contrast to
the seascapes. Interestingly the only town along this interior
route is Murdochville, which is a dying mining town and is
now nearly a ghost town; many of its shops were all closed up
and we had to actually try 3 or 4 places to find a place for Pat
to have a “cuppa”.
Our goal that day was the Quebec’s Gaspésie Provincial Park
in the interior of the peninsula. This is a welcome relief from
the sea-side as the interior is, by Eastern Canada standards, a
mountainous range with the highest mountain reaching 1280
metres. The campsites in this park were also filled so we
drove a few kilometres outside the park, found a logging road
and wound our way up a mountain dirt track for a perfectly
good “stealth” campsite (see photos). This turned out to be
one of our best campsites as it was 1) free, 2) absolutely quiet,
3) less light-pollution, so the night stars appeared brighter than
usual.
There are several all day hikes one can do in this park. We
were able to obtain information on some hikes that we did not
know existed. One 27 kilometre hike will have to wait till
next year, but we did hike to the top of the 1280 metre Mt.
Jacques Cartier, the highest in the park. We have now done 4
bits of the 1,000 kilometre International Appalachian Trail
that goes from Mt. Kataden (spelling) in Maine to the tip of
Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. Maybe one day we’ll do it all.
After visiting Gaspésie Provincial Park, the trip was about
over; we headed back down through New Brunswick (one
night) stopping long enough to go through the rather touristy
Acadian Village. The Village is an outdoor working museum
with shops and houses and folks wearing period clothing,
spinning yarn, or forging, or printing etc. Next day it was
back to Halifax: a full 7 days’ trip.
I like these trips in the van, as I get Pat all to myself (24/7 – as
the saying goes) in a small confined area without the
distractions of life here in Halifax. We did not check email or
voice mail once in the 7 days and that does not happen very
often.
Our next planned trip again takes us (in August) to Quebec,
but this time to the Îles-de-la-Madeleine in the gulf of St.
Lawrence.
