“I was mystified.” Said Nigel. “The menu said ‘Soup’, the guy before me had ordered ‘soup’, the billboard outside said ‘Soup’ on it, but could she understand me when I ordered soup? Could she heck”.
We all chuckled at Nigel’s story. Our group had stopped for the night at a motel in Chambord, a small town on the highway that runs past beautiful Lac Saint Jean in northern Quebec. The province of Quebec is of course French speaking, but with a kind of strangulated dialect that left even Barbara, the competent French speaker among us, bemused. French, but not recognisable French all the time.
But the attitude of the people more than makes up for the unexpected language barrier; courteous, helpful and willing to go out of their way to help us out. No more so than in Quebec City a day later, where BMW dealer Moto Vanier changed our tyres to off road specification boots in preparation for The Labrador. They also changed some service parts on my GS which were starting to look a little tired.
After Kenora and our last rest day, we headed south and then east into the southern woodlands of Ontario, where Beaver floatplane is as regular a means of transport as the huge 4x4 trucks that are in these parts. A land of boreal forests, serene lakes, log cabins, moose and the ever elusive bear that we continue to keep an eye out for.
This was also a day of rain. An unexpected storm that left us soaked and demoralised as we reached Kakabeka Falls in the Thunder Bay area for our night stop.
Our next ride was to Wawa, a small town by a very pretty lake. This was a tourist destination, where the Canada Goose was prominent on signs around the town, with a huge gander standing sentinel at the tourist office. ‘Wawa’ apparently means ‘wild goose’ in the local native dialect.
Then onto Quebec, which announced itself with a modest road sign and subtle changes in building design which gave a more ‘francophone’ look to the various properties that we saw as we rode.
The route between Val-D’or and Chambord was a highlight of the journey so far. This is a route that heads north from roads that are more populated than in other Canadian provinces and up to remote Jackpine forests, muskeg swamps and outcrops of smooth rock. A landscape carved by glaciers and exuding a sense of great age. The road weaved between the silent forests and followed the contours of the land, rising and falling; steep hills and swooping downhill runs. Lunch was taken at Chapais, a lonely and isolated town where the map showed nothing north of us except thousands of miles of forests and lakes which eventually give way to the Arctic ice.
We are now in Forestville, eastern Quebec, and enjoying another day off. Another opportunity to prepare the bikes, wash clothes and catch up with emails. Forestville lies on the banks of the Gulf of St Lawrence, a beautiful shore with a large seal population and renowned for the number of whales which can even be viewed from the highway.
Reaching Forestville is another landmark moment. The Gulf feeds the Atlantic Ocean, so in seagoing terms we have ridden from the west to the east coast of Canada.
Before us lies the mighty Labrador, a forbidding land of lonely lakes, moose, legend and Jackpine which is traversed by Route 500 – The Trans-Labrador Highway. It’s a notoriousy difficult road, on which rental cars are not allowed to drive and where all vehicle insurance is nul and void. We leave the tarmac tomorrow at Manic 5, the huge Daniel Johnson Dam which holds the waters created by the world’s fifth largest meteorite crater. Our destination tomorrow is Labrador City, some nine hours from Manic. We’ve reached an area where distance is now measured in terms of time.
So we are all looking forward to a challenging, but hopefully inspiring section of our journey – as long as the rain stops! We have been lucky with the weather so far, but the tail end of a hurricane has caught us and after weeks of excellent conditions, it looks like there are damp times ahead.
Craig Carey-Clinch
Forestville, Golf du Saint-Laurent, Quebec.
