[Bill Menke’s Journal for
Saturday, July 15.
Mo and I spent most of the day driving up to
We checked into Camping Tadoussac, a site operated by the Espirit Tribe on a hill overlooking the town. Our site commanded a beautiful view of the town with its houses, churches and marina, the ferry and its two terminals, the mouth of the Fjord and the St. Laurence River and the shallows of the Baie St. Catherine beyond it. I spotted, for the first time, beluga whales. These appeared as small white specks that appeared briefly amid the whitecaps on the fjord.
We ate dinner at a buffet in Tadoussac, and then slept in our tents.
The St Laurence here is quite wide. I can only barely see
the other side. The sky is a beautiful
blue today. The water temperature is 52 deg F, warmer than I had expected. We
soon spot several dolphins, playing between our boats. These are somewhat
smaller than the bottlenose porpoises that I have seen in
Fog banks are building up as we paddle back to Mer at Mond. Streamers rise up from the warm waters of the
bays. We pass granite outcrops creased with deep glacial scratches. We spot
cormorants, gulls and ducks. Today’s was a relaxing paddle: 6.02 miles in
Back at the campground, Mo and I cook a rice dish for dinner. Rain falls during the night, but the tents keep us dry.
After a brief stop at an information office, we arrive at
the boat launch of the
We follow the northern side of the fjord. All our campsites are on this side. Most of the rock appears to be granite, faulted in places and cut by occasional dikes. Many of these zones of weakness bear springs. Some support lush vegetation. We are not alone on the river: Sailboats, jet skis and a tour boat pass us.
We stop for lunch just east of Cap Rouge. The little beach there has sand and rocks, marsh grass and a low waterfall. Mo and I eat bread, cheese and sausages. I then sit on a driftwood log, enjoying the sunshine.
We set off again, and soon pass a beautiful waterfall. Rounding a bend, we then come upon the small village of St. Basile de Tableau. We ask directions of a man standing at the shore. Our campground is still ahead.
A tailwind is picking up, and the chop is rising. The tide has changed, and the current is now
against us and is slowing our progress. We sight an orange marker on the
shoreline way ahead. Does it mark our
campground? After a discussion with Lee,
I paddle ahead to check, while Kaare paddles over to
a beach that is closer. My paddle to
the marker is quite long, but exhilarating.
I love the waves, especially when they are behind me and I can
surf. But when I arrive at the marker, I
find only steep, rocky cliffs and no campground. I make radio contact with Kaare
and three others who are on the beach.
They have found the flag that marks the campground there. It’s blue and
bears the
The camp site, Pointe Trinite, has a group of tent platforms set amid trees above a sandy beach. Fresh water is supplied by a stream at the east end of the beach, which unfortunately is on the other side of a pile of boulders from us. I take the now-unloaded Hraun out to the stream’s mouth, and collect a dry bag full of fresh water. Back at the beach, we take turns purifying it with a filter pump.
Mo and I cook a dinner of spaghetti and crab sauce. Rain begins to fall as dinner is cooking. Fortunately, Mo has brought a tarp and aluminum poles, which we set up over out cooking area to keep us dry. Lee and Jason have set up another tarp further along the beach and have built a bon fire. We join them and sing songs, competing to remember ones that include women’s names. But we turn in pretty early, for our first day of paddling with full gear has tired us.
At about mile six, we pull ashore on a beach that is west of Cap Egalite and across from Cap Eternite. This area has a park flag. Mo and I make ourselves a lunch of tuna salad on wraps, flavored with little packets of mayo, relish and onions. Our lunch stop is short, owing to our desire to reach our campground without paddling against the tide.
The day has been clearing, and the chop is a little less. I
help Lee deploy his sail, a six-foot yellow triangle that attaches to the deck
at one, lower vertex, with two lines running from the upper vertices to the
paddle, which is held horizontally above the water. Lee moves at a good pace, but is still a
little slower than us paddlers. Jason
paddles with him, and I paddle ahead with the main group. We spot several
seals, first a group of two, and then five.
They are sunning themselves on rocky shelves along the shore. They are beige in color and seem to have a
short but fuzzy pelt. They move around a bit as we approach, but don’t leave
their resting places. Finally, we pass
under the electrical cable. A little
later spot the park flag in a cove. This
is the camp site,
The beach has rock walls on either side, with springs supporting many small flowers. The main stream is right in the middle of the beach. Lee and Matt work to build a little tub at its mouth, using stones and mud. I rest on the rocks. The day has cleared, and the sky is bright with a few puffy clouds. Across from us is a small town in a largish cove with an island at its mouth. I can see several houses, a marina and a church. Jason and Matt decide to investigate, and paddle over to it. I spread out my gear, which has gotten a bit damp, and let it dry in the sun.
Mo and I cook dinner of mash potatoes, green beans, corn beef and tuna steak. The green beans came dehydrated, but once soaked in water and heated are really quite good. As the evening deepens, David and I stand by the river’s edge, watching the wildlife. A mother duck with four ducklings paddle by. They all take turns diving for food. Several largish fish jump. And a seal swims by. Overall, wildlife here seems rather sparse. We have seen almost no land animals and just a few shore birds.
Jason and Matt return from their trip to town. They have landed at a kayak outfitter, Kayak en Fjord, and gotten directions to a store from its proprietor. They then hitched a ride, both to an overlook on the southern cliffs of the fjord and into the main part of town. They have brought back some beer,
We again sing songs around a bonfire, this time competing to remember songs with men’s names, and later, songs with colors. The sky has completely cleared, and as there is no moon, the stars are very bright. I can see a planet in the southern sky, and the Milky Way.
Robin uses David’s spare paddle today. It is lighter than hers, and shorter, and
seems to suit her better. We pass lots
of sheer cliffs today. Several have
polished sides marked by deep glacial scratches. We pass two islands on our side of the river,
both high rocky loaves with steep sides and wooded tops: Ile St. Louis and Ile
St. Barthelemy. Just past the straight made by the
second island, we pull into a cove, Anse Gagnon. We
paddle up to a tidal river that is surrounded by mud flats and salt marsh. The breeze makes waves in the grass. We paddle up the tidal river partway, and
pull up to a small beach. It’s a
pleasant spot, yet we have some concerns about the slipperiness of the ground,
and the possibility of becoming stuck as the tide gets lower. I wade out into the middle of the stream,
both to cool off and to check its depth.
The middle is well above my head, which I judge is enough for a lunch
stop. The tidal range on the
We then continue down the
Mo and I then paddle a little further downriver, to Baie Ste. Marguerite, a wide bay with some houses. I spot some beluga whales in the area, and
paddle back to tell the others, while Mo investigates the stream at the head of
the bay. I paddle back as far as the
headland, and then allow my kayak to drift with the tide. Several of the belugas swim by me. One actually swims right under my boat, which
I find more than a little disconcerting.
The belugas’ breathing is very loud.
I can hear them, even when I cannot always see them, for they surface
only for an instant. Several of them
swim close enough to me that I can make out the entire animal. Its shape does indeed match those in the
Coney Island Aquarium, back in
This campsite is quite rocky, and has many springs and small pools in low places in the rocks. Unfortunately, it also has rather too may mosquitoes. The stream is in the middle of the campsite. Once again, Lee and Matt build a small basin to catch the water. It’s big enough for washing up. I cook up a bowl of rice for a snack. Later, Mo and I heat up some canned beef stew. We have a quiet evening around a bonfire on the beach. We’re all pretty tired. Belugas play off our cove, too, at times. I sleep out under the stars on our tent platform. I wear mosquito armor: fleece jacket, fleece gloves, and head netting. The sky is full of cirrus clouds at sunset. But I wake in the middle of the night to clear sky with stars, and later, a rising moon.
Rounding a bend in the
I eat a snack of soup, soda, and ice cream at the restaurant. Some of the others have more substantial meals. The quay, which has a gazebo, commands a gorgeous view of the fjord, so we take some photographs.
Its getting quite late in the day, and both wind and tide
are now against us. We slowly but
steadily paddle downriver, finally pulling up to the campground, Point a Passe-Pierre at
After setting up camp, I take a walk to the end of the
peninsula, and admire the view of the tall hills and cliffs along this section
of the
A park ranger pulls up in a zodiac. Lee, David and I meet her and show her our permit. We speak with her for a few minutes about the river and the weather. She advises us to pull our boats further up onto the beach, to be safe from waves at high tide, for the night is predicted to be stormy. So we move them onto a higher area that we suppose, on account of its grassiness, to be well above the high tide level.
David and I sit on the beach, talking and watching the deepening night. The silhouette of the trees on the peninsula is very beautiful. We can see a few stars through a light haze. We see a shooting star, and some flashes of lightning. The ranger’s warning of storm appears well-given.
We can see the Tadoussac ferries from far off. They are large and fast, and pose a hazard to us kayakers. Several – possibly three – appear to be in operation. We watch their pattern of operation, which is complicated. One reverses direction each time it leaves the terminal, while the other two do not. We suppose this reflects their design, single-ended or double-ended. We try to paddle cautiously, and to stay together, but our slow approach to the terminal is tense and confused. We hang just outside the terminal area, until one ferry arrives and another leaves. Our way is clear and we dash past.
Paddling is easy, once we are past the ferry. The tide pulls us along. We hug the shore and cut across a rip tide to find shelter behind some rocks behind a headland. This area is a park, and numerous people are sitting on the rocks, sightseeing. A zodiac comes out, I guess to check on us. We have a few more tense moments negotiating boat traffic in the marina, but finally arrive at a public beach at the foot of the town. We have come 63.4 miles is about 22 hours of paddling.
Robin and Kaare find their car in
the parking lot. It has been properly transported from St. Rose as planned.
Matt, Jason, Robin and I wait on the beach while the others retrieve the other
vehicles. Many other people are enjoying
the beach. Kids are playing in a shallow
tidal pool, and adults are reclining on the sand in beach chairs. We chat with the proprietor, Samuel, of a
beach-side kayak outfitter. He lets us
use his hose to clean up. Jason hikes
over to a store, and buys soda and beer.
Eventually the others arrive.
David has recovered his lost dry bag, which was found by an outfitter in
the