 |
Quebec in wintertime | |
|
The french-speaking Montreal is the most european canadian city.
But its dimensions and lands surrounding it are really american.
Everything is based on a large scale in the "Belle Province", starting with the layer of snow which covers : houses, roads, trees or cars.
Build on the island of Montreal, at the mouth of the river Ottawa, the city leans against the Mount-Royal.
Some people ice-skate and ski in the city center !
|
|
The Abitibi is accessible from the road 117.
185 km away from Montreal.
The way is clear : the yellow snowplow keeps coming back and forward.
The sky is blue above the area of frozen lakes and pine trees.
A few Algonquin indians live in hamlets without any shops.
The only presence : some children on a wooden sledge and some dogs taking a sunbath.
|
|
Back on the same road.
Finaly a small city of less than 10 000 inhabitants.
A few houses, coldly put together around a church, look like some doll's houses.
A thick smoke escapes from the chimney of the sawmill covered with wood.
The closest river is frozen.
Some truncks, thrown up river, has stayed prisoners of the ice.
|
|
Here is the first and unique restaurant of the country.
The roads are almost desert in wintertime.
The drivers with a "small square pattern" shirt have lunch, some broad beans with bacon, sweetened with molasse.
In a few kilometers away, we will be in Val d’or, the city of the precious metal.
The worker's statue is welcoming the travellers at their arrival.
The city was built during the thirties, when the exploitation of the gold-bearing lode started.
Kiena mine, ultramodern, looks like coming out of a science fiction film.
Last time-mark of the pioneers, the mine Sygma still owes some "old" installations.
|
|
Back on the road 117.
The landscape is flat, no human presence.
Cold bits as soon as we open the door and gives a kind of drunkenness.
Chibougamau, the northest point, puts an end to the road in wintertime.
Only snowmobiles or planes able to reach this white universe. |
|
The area of Chicoutimi the Saint-Jean lake have many more urban zones.
Further in the south, we arrive in Quebec.
500 000 inhabitants in the capital of the province.
It is a ancient fortified place, which the citadel is a unique curiosity in North America.
It is situating on the "cap Diamant", a rock dominating Saint-Laurent.
The residences dating from the XVII and XVIIIth century are next to the castle Frontenac, famous construction of the last century.
We can “magasiner” or stop in a “tabagie” well frequented.
|
|
Next to Beaupré, a cable goes to mount Sainte-Anne which is dominating the valley of Saint-Laurent.
45 km north Quebec, the mounts Laurentides hide a natural park where live some originals.
We still follow the frozen Saint-Laurent, bordered with cliffs, along the road 138.
Tadoussac is situated at the beginning of the somptuous fjord of river Saguenay, one of the natural wonders of Canada.
At Baie-Comeau, a long road of 217 km leads to impressive damming built on the Manicouagan.
|
|
The road 138 is ending at Havre-Saint-Pierre, at the far end of Quebec and Labrador.
There starts the kingdom of wildlife.
No more roads.
Only boats, planes and snowmobiles can be useful.
The estuary of Saint-Laurent is large of more than 200 km and offers a great show on the river.
You think you watch the sea but it is a petrified giant beaten by cold, the last step of the adventure in Belle Province.
|
|
|
