Bus today. I booked a tour to some spots outside Quebec, with the promise of seeing quaint French villages, the magnificent Montmorency Falls, and the Basilica de St Anne-de-Baupre. The bus driver was so informative, I was happy to give him the tip that a notice on all the buses advises is customary if you have enjoyed the tour.
We passed the one ship-building yard left in Quebec of the hundreds which were the main industry of the nineteenth century. Timber ships, built for the British Navy. Specialty of the remaining Yard is bankruptcy, according to bus driver.
Then the refuse disposal facility – they burn all the City’s rubbish, and in doing so, generate 20% of the power necessary to run the nearby paper-mill. (Lots of paper mills in Quebec Province). But the 20+ belching chimneys begged the question of what was being pumped into the atmosphere. And it was quite near the inner city, not in some out-of-the-way place.
Along the shores of the St Laurence. This was where the early settlers established themselves. They had trouble sorting out where to build – near the shore, but they got flooded in the Spring. Up on the cliff – but they got blown away in the gales of Winter. Down at the base of the cliff, elevated from the shore. That was good. But they had to suffer through a few more disastrous winters before they worked out it was good to set the house up from the ground to be clear of the snow. And to put eaves on the roofs so the snow fell onto the ground and did not seep into the walls. Funny, the same design solutions were reached in Queensland, to solve quite the opposite problems.
The roofs of these old houses are brightly coloured – orange, green, blue, red. Again a tradition from back when, in up to 12 feet of snow, the settlers, perhaps affected by snow blindness, were unable to locate their own houses without that colourful signal. And the doorways are tiny, but big enough for the people of the time who were around 4’6” tall.
Montmorency Falls – impressive, half as high again as Niagara, but nowhere near the width and volume. First site in North America to generate hydro power. There was a cable car to the top, or 484 steps. The fly decided to ride up, walk across the suspension bridge over the falls, and then come down the steps. Wyambi, you would have died on those steps. Even a fly’s front right knee was challenged, and 24 hours later, the calves have seized up completely.
The Isle d’Orleans in the river is reserved as farmland. Developers are not allowed to buy land there and subdivide for summer holiday homes. If you live there, you farm. From early times, the island provided the produce for the town; so during the Seven Years War the British burned the island, to try to starve the French into submission.
The farms all run in strips (500 steps wide, a step being about 3feet) from a line along the middle of the island, down to the shore. So everyone had his shoreline. No squabbles.
St. Anne-de-Baupre. The church is a Basilica. The bus driver advised that a Basilica is a church with relics. A Cathedral is a church with a bishop. The relics at St.Anne-de-Baupre are the bone of her forearm, set inside a silver cast of an arm, with a little window behind which is the piece of bone; and another which is a scrap of bone from her hip. Not sure who St Anne actually is. There was a reference to St Anne the mother of the Virgin Mary. But they could not possibly have her relics. So there must be another St Anne. The Basilica is huge – there are pics on Picasa. I counted twenty confessionals, and sixteen side chapels, presumably for the priests of the Redemptorist Monastery to say Mass. Two of the huge pillars near the main entrance were covered with racks of crutches, left there by people who came as cripples and left without need of their crutch. Outside, there is a separate building, labelled “Benedictions”, where a fully robed priest sits all day available to dispense a blessing to whomsoever wants to go in.
Nearby another huge old building was the former convent of Franciscan sisters. Empty now, and for sale, “if you want a big house with lots of little rooms”, said the bus driver.
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