Most of the sail to Gaspé was smooth…except for a bit in the middle of the night when the rocking and the noises it produced woke us up. The stablizers are pretty good for side-to-side movement, but they aren’t as good when the ship is pitching.
Our excursion this morning was “Historical Gaspé Walk and Delight”; our guide Lisa had grown up in Gaspé, moved to Montreal for a 30+ year career as a dentist, and returned home during the pandemic. She was an Anglophone and had gone to English schools here, but, of course, she could also speak French when needed.
We began with a walk down Gaspé’s main street (Rue de la Reine, renamed after a visit from Queen Elizabeth in 1959); Lisa told us stories about some of the buildings on the way, but most of them weren’t very interesting photographically.
Things got better when we went down towards the river on our way to the Gaspé, Birthplace of Canada museum. The city has set up a collection of buildings and monuments in the area between the river and Rue de la Reine, and we spent a while exploring them.
Lisa said we might be lucky and see some seals in the river…and we did.
The Birthplace of Canada is centered around a replica of the 10-metre cross that Jacques Cartier used to claim Canada for the King of France; there are also exhibits about the Mi’gmaq (the First Nations group here), commerce (a replica warehouse), and a tavern where they served us the “Delight” part of the tour.
The beer was good (I even liked the IPA); they gave us a nice cheese-and-cracker plate with a bit of fruit instead of the shrimp poutine.
We had lunch on the ship, then took the shuttle to the Musée de la Gaspésie. The highlight of the visit was a short VR film about life on the famous cod fishing boat La Gaspésienne no. 20; they have the actual boat on display during the summer, but it was already covered up for the winter.
Gaspé, like all of Québec, is mostly French-speaking, and Québec law requires all signs to be in French (with English as an option). This sign is an exception, though.
I enjoyed the hour we spent in the museum.
We returned to the ship for a talk by a local expert on Forillon National Park – her photos were terrific and almost made me wish we’d taken the excursion there.
And then we were entertained by Gaspé musicians (lots of reels and jigs and other fun music) while we tasted locally-distilled gin, whiskey, and liqueurs from O’Dwyer Micro-Distillerie Gaspésienne Inc.. Michael Briand, who came up with the idea for a local distillery during an organic chemistry class, gave us the history of the alcohol industry in the area (Prohibition was very good to the locals!) and let us taste four of their [products].
Diane and I bought a couple of small bottles of the Pudding Stone Liqueur, made with candy-cap mushrooms!
We’re on the way to Charlottetown, PEI; the ship is rocking and rolling a lot, so it may be a bumpy night again.
