Flat calm this
morning, and a clear blue sky with the sun making the hills look as though they
were lit from within. Gaspé lies at the mouth of the St Lawrence Seaway, and
according to National Geographic is numbered fourth in the world? USA? for
autumn colour. It doesn’t really matter: the point is that it’s glorious,
thanks to deciduous trees completely outnumbering the conifers. Oak, ash,
aspen, birch, maple, poplar… they were all stars today, the hills swathed in
gold, orange and red.
My excursion this
morning was to Percé, about an hour’s drive away, to where an immense rock of
almost vertical limestone strata lies off a point, and is pierced by a large
hole. It’s pretty impressive, although I couldn’t help feeling that it would
have been improved by being able to sail through the hole – I’m spoiled by the
Bay of Islands back home, sorry. Then we circumnavigated Bonaventure Island,
which hosts the world’s largest gannet colony (*cough* Cape Kidnappers *cough*) as well as lots of very cute spotty
grey seals and some more anonymous harbour seals. There was also a distant
sighting of a Minke whale, which I’d never encountered before.
The island used to be inhabited by a community of cod fishermen,
supplying the European market, but now it’s a national park and only the
gannets live there.
Back in the little town, it felt quite strange to be speaking French to
the people in the shops and the café (where I finally had a delicious lobster
dish: in a toasted roll, with mayonnaise and lettuce, same as I saw in Halifax
at the quayside Farmers Market but tragically didn’t have the time to queue
for); and it was almost dislocating to see regular-looking Canadians walking
along the street with baguettes under their arms, wishing me “Bonjour”.
On the way back, rather excitingly, there was a red fox, out in the
middle of the day and trotting along the edge of someone’s lawn, bold as you
please and sporting a splendidly fluffy brush.
He mightn’t have been quite so confident if he’d seen, as I did in a
souvenir shop at Percé, the display of furs hanging at the back. Yes, there was
fox; there was also, unusually, a skunk skin tailed cap (no, it didn’t smell – I checked) for $180 and
a coon skin one for a very reasonable $30. The beaver pelt was luxuriantly
thick and soft – also $180 – and the polar
bear skin complete with claws, was unpriced. Presumably, if you had to ask,
you couldn’t afford it. Not, of course, that I’d want to buy any of them: so
much more appealing with the original owners inside them, don’t you think?
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