Km 10,377 - Chateauguay, Quebec

As I signed off my last blog entry, I commented on what a picturesque campsite we had on the north tip of Cape Breton island overlooking the Atlantic ocean from up on a cliff. What never occurred to me was that it might be a bit open to the elements. The weather eroded coastline that I was in awe of the entire day might have been a good clue. However, all of the signs escaped me and we were absolutely pounded by an ocean squall. I may be exaggerating a little (artistic license), but it sounded like the sky was caving in from inside the tent. The wind gusts were so powerful the tent poles kept inverting and the tent kept collapsing on itself as a result. In fact, I noticed several broken tent poles on neighbour campers in the morning (no exaggeration). Between the rain, wind, lightning and thunder, we got no sleep, but I do feel proud to say that my $99 tent withstood Mother Nature's stress test.

We packed up a soggy tent (just the tent; our bedding stayed dry) and got the hell out of Meat Cove (no regrets though as it was an unforgettable experience). We completed the famed Cabot Trail by driving the western coast line. The highlight was seeing another roadside moose (thanks again to my wife's ken ability to spot large animals on the side of the highway). As it was raining steadily all morning with no sign of it letting up and an unfavourable weather forecast for the following days, we decided to get off the island and head as far west as we could. After the adventure the previous night, we thought it prudent to get a good night's sleep so we stopped in at a Bed & Breakfast in Fredericton, NB.

After waking up refreshed and rejuvenated (a soft bed never felt so good after several weeks in the tent), we headed for Quebec. We made it as far as the St. Lawrence River valley, about an hour down stream from Quebec City. The scenery in this area is superb, one of my favourite places on the trip so far. We set up camp within about 100 feet of the river. I went to sleep wondering if I made the same mistake by sleeping so close to the water. We did get rained on, but there was no wind. We awoke with the rain still falling. There was one of those cooking shelters nearby our site, so we dragged our tent over there and strung everything up under the shelter and gave it about an hour to dry. With all of our gear haphazardly strewn about, I'm sure it looked like we were conducting a very peculiar yard sale.

Once everything was shoved back into the truck, we headed into Quebec City and spent the afternoon walking around the walled city. It was shocking to me that something so old and so European could exist in Canada. Growing up on the prairies, I have two rather large misconceptions about the world. The first is that the world is flat. The second is that "old" means about 100 years old. It seems silly to me that I can't seem to shake these false ideas despite my extensive travels and experiences. However, I am still amazed that the world isn't as flat or young as the prairies whenever I am in new territory. This aside, Quebec City was great. It is very charming and very different from any other place in Canada with a great deal of history behind it.

In the late afternoon, we left Quebec City and headed in the direction of Montreal. We pulled into a campground as it was getting dark to find that we didn't have enough cash to pay for the site. We headed into the nearest town to find a bank machine. The result of all of this was setting up the tent by using the headlights of the truck. In the morning, we made a critical mistake that would kind of sour our visit to Montreal. We decided that we would head into Montreal and try to find a room at one of the university dorms. Without going into the frustration of the day, we found that all three universities as well as the youth hostel were completely booked up. Admitting defeat, we left Montreal to find a campground. The net effect was that we spent an aggravating day in Montreal and didn't see experience much other than the insanely bad drivers. The next morning, we headed back into the city. We didn't fare much better, again getting frustrated by the traffic and the lack of parking. Coming within a few moments from deciding to leave the city for good, we found day parking outside the Montreal Canadiens' hockey arena. We bought a day pass for the subway and actually made a decent day of it despite the poor start. We spent time in Old Montreal (including touring the Notre-Dame Basilica), Little Italy, Downtown and Mount Royal. It turned out to be a decent day and we headed back to the campsite once it got dark. However, the day's excitement wasn't over.

As we've been touring, we are constantly learning little things about setting up and taking down our campsite in order to make the process more efficient. We learned a pretty good lesson last night. Since we were obviously not in bear country (being within 20 kilometres of Montreal), we innocently left our garbage in a plastic bag under the picnic table. About 2:30 am, I hear some rustling around just outside the tent. Almost immediately, I realize that we have a visitor interested in recycling our waste. With all of this happening within about ten feet of where we are sleeping, my imagination is running wild about how big and ferocious this creature might be. I tried to make some noise to scare the animal(s) away but this got no result. In a bit of amazing courage, I got my flashlight out and poked my head out of the tent, fully expecting to have it whacked off by some large animal upset that I was interrupting meal time. I shone the light over to where the action was and caught a glimpse of a black and white tail. I can't be sure, but my guess was that there was a skunk, a real-life Pepe LePeaux, lurking dangerously close to where I was.

Now, I've never been sprayed by a skunk, but am guessing that it is not pleasant. I carefully got back in the tent and did not twitch a muscle in fear that this might incite some sort of offensive action by the skunk. About an hour went by before he polished off a few scraps of food in the garbage. So there you have it, my tale about the wild nightlife in Montreal. We packed up this morning and are now on our way through Ottawa. We are now getting near the end of our touring and need to start covering some ground in order to get home for my Tuesday flight back to work.