Last spring, my friend Kristin Goff said she was interested in doing a one-week Cruise and Cycle package up the St. Lawrence River from Montreal.
She signed up, sharing a cabin with our friend Lynn Campbell. I signed up, sharing a cabin with cycle tour veteran Lorne.
Following is a quick report on written on our trip from CTMA (www.ctma.ca):
Les Iles de la Madeleine (a.k.a the Magdalen Islands) are about 100 km north of Prince Edward Island in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The archipelago is made up of a dozen islands, and six of them are linked by long, skinny sand dunes. (As described in the guidebook, the Islands take the shape of a half moon fishhook stretching across a distance of 65 km in a south-west/north-easterly direction.)
The postcards don’t do justice to the red cliffs, sand dunes, brightly painted houses and saphire water.
Jacques Cartier praised the landscape in 1534, and there was fishing and hunting for seal and walrus long before he arrived.
The large ferry boards in Montreal on the Friday, day 2 in the Gaspe and then days 3, 4 and 5 docked in Les Iles de la Madeleine, day 6 back in Gaspesie Peninsula, day 7 in Quebec City and then day 8 back to Montreal. A GPS map posted near reception shows where the boat is at all times.
The package includes cabin accommodation for seven nights, 14 meals on board, light lunches for the road, and transportation for one bike per passenger.
To sum up, the scenery was spectacular, the cycling fantastic, the ship exciting (we’d never been on a cruise before), and Les Madelinots (the people) helpful and gracious.
For example, we’re cycling down Rue Coulombe towards Micro Brewery a l’abri de la Tempete, when my bike goes clunk. As Kristin and I examine the chain, a white-haired woman in navy pants and t-shirt immediately comes running out of her house to help. She turns the bike upside down, determines the problem is a missing screw holding the pannier holder to the bicycle, which has caused the metal rod to jam into the chain. She opens her car trunk for her tool box of hundreds of screws, fixes the rod, and apologizes that the screw is not the right colour.
It was the same whenever we stopped to look at a map; people came over without being asked.
2 .m. Meeting 1 in the Red Lounge. Fruit punch in plastic glasses, and a demonstration how to use the life jackets.
Shortly after boarding Friday afternoon in Montreal, we are tapping our feet and sipping margaritas as we sit in the lounge and watch through rain dappled windows as the ship sails past La Ronde and other Montreal landmarks towards Trois Rivieres. (There are traditional musicians on the ship all week; we’re never up late enough to watch them.)
Forgotten are the wrong turns and humidity as we sweated our way from Ottawa to the port of Montreal to weigh anchor.
Lynn and Kristin are housed in a Lilliputian interior bunk bed cabin with no storage, but a private toilet and shower. (One foot’s in the shower when you’re in the toilet.) We (I) anticipating space deficit have chosen an exterior cabin with a porthole, also bunk beds, but slightly larger. We have to share bathrooms and showers with the other passengers on our cabin row. It was dicey for a couple of days when the toilets on our row weren’t flushing and the shower wasn’t draining, but once things were back to normal it wasn’t so bad.
The boat has massive public areas, prompting Kristin to muse why they couldn’t have given a little more space to the cabins and less to the lounge areas.
5 p.m. Meeting 2. For English participants only.
A rum cocktail in a plastic glass.
We are on Madeleine Islands time for the trip; we set our watches (with difficulty) to the Atlantic time zone, an hour ahead.
The aimof the English get-together is to wish us a good time and to show the ship cares about les Anglophones.
C.T.M.A.has been offering these trips for nine years; this week is a record number of English-speakers(60) because of a group of 30 from Collingwood, Ont.
There are over 300 passengers on the boat altogether. Around 97 per cent of the crew of 100 are from Les Iles de la Madeleine, and the rest are from Gaspe. This spring, they have been taking English lessons, and we are invited to see the two best English speakers if we have any communication problems with the crew. They have a mission this year, we are told, to improve the English product.
When we booked our trip, we chose the 5:30 p.m. seating for dinner rather than 8 p.m. The dining room has white table cloths.
People are dressed neatly, but not the “formal” suggested in some of the literature. Because tables are for four, it is noted that passengers will be “coupled” at dinner.
Since we had our own table for four, we weren’t “coupled” with anyone else. We did meet other people over breakfast and lunch.
The dinners on the ship are consistently excellent, with two choices each time.
The first night choices were seafood pot-en pot or bison medallions in cognac sauce, with of course an appetizer and a soup, and a chocolate caramel mousse cake for dessert.
One night the meal was large fresh local lobster, with turnip maple soup and blueberry cake. It’s like sitting in a revolving restaurant to be sitting backwards as the scenery and occasional whale goes by.
7:45 p.m. Meeting 3. Cycling people.
10 a.m. Meeting 4. More specific, cycling people, separate meetings for English and French.
We are told that each day we will see a different part of the Islands, on a self-guided tour. At 10 a.m. on Sunday, and 8 a.m. other mornings, we will meet with Fanny, Sebastien or Celine of Bureau Vert et Mer Ecotourism who will explain the day’s itinerary and give us a lunch bag and if necessary a time we’ll be picked up to return to the ship.
Daily direction depends on the prevailing wind; they will drive us out, to return on our bikes with the wind at our back. If we want to buy cheese at Au Pied-de-Vent Cheese Factory at Havre-aux-Maisons, they will store it for us until we leave the ship.
We cycle the South Island Sunday, the East Islands Monday and the Central Islands Tuesday. Distances are modest. The South Island is a 35k itinerary, with an optional 20km additional tour of Bassin. The East Islands is 65 km, but with four possible pick-up points before the final destination, Grand Entree, and return to the ship by bus.
The Central Islands is about 20 km, through the villages of Fatima, Etang-du-Nord and Cap-aux-Meules.
The ship’s dining room is closed while we’re docked on Les Iles, and we eat dinner on the Islands. Ship breakfast is cafeteria style.
After the heavy dinner and meetings, we collapse on deck on plastic Adirondack chairs to chat, inhale the sea breeze and swivel our heads around the expansive horizon. That’s one big river. The clouds are still gray and sky overcast, but the rain stops.
I spend the first night sweating in my humid top bunk, listening to something rattling, and people talking non-stop on the deck outside the window. Throughout the night the ships foghorn blasts intermittently, and each time I push the illumination button on my watch to see what time it is, so I won’t miss the 6 a.m. whale watching on the foggy, rainy deck. A light outside our window ensures 24 hour illumination of our room.
I show up at 5:55 a.m. in my green rain jacket to find we’re behind schedule, and won’t reach whale territory for at least an hour.
There are some people sleeping under blankets on the soft two-seater cocoa brown comfy couches by the windows. Others perch with their styrofoam coffee cups on the white window sills and gaze hypnotically at the overcast sky, shoreline and water, all complementary shades of silver. It’s beautiful in an arctic kind of way, all cold tones of white and gray.
Yoga after breakfast was so popular a second class was added for 2 p.m. to accommodate overflow. Yoga again a few days later on deck in the sunshine was a real sun salutation.
11 a.m. Navigation Meeting, because Wheelhouse Tour cancelled because of fog.
3 p.m. Meeting 6. Highlights of the Islands briefing.
Red Lounge. Bagosse fruit wine, 35 % alcohol.
On Saturday afternoon the sun comes out and we all flock to the deck chairs on the top deck to watch the water. The breadth of the St. Lawrence is awesome.
Sunday night, the foghorn blasts into our window again, and we awake to a sea of tin gray, with no visibility beyond some choppy dark waves beside the boat. Before we left, Lorne asked if he should put the batteries in the bike lights. I said we wouldn’t be cycling after dark. I didn’t even think about cycling in day time fog, however my yellow and blue jersey is bright enough to function as a fog light.
Sunday morning we board a bus to the South Island so we can have the wind at our back. Pelting rain cuts short the sightseeing, and visibility, but the route crossing Havreaux-Basque Lagoon through sand dunes and roadside wild flowers and beaches was magnificent despite the rain.
(When we loaded at the ship in Montreal, Lorne’s tire had a flat, and then it blew up, in a series of complications.
Because it was Sunday when we arrived, the Island bike shop was closed. Sebastien, the bike coordinator for the tour, loaned Lorne his personal bike for the day.)
Monday is a magnificent day, point to point along the East Islands, with the wind at our backs. Stop for a self-created lunch at Au Pied-de-Vent Cheese Factory, a melange of cheese curds, French bread, and huge “crazy cookies” from nearby Helene des Isles Bakery, plus the assortment of juice boxes, raisin and nut mix, granola bars, oranges and apples provided for cycling each day.
Dinner at Vieux Couvent Restaurant, in an old convent overlooking the water, where the food and the service are unexpectedly as stylish as downtown Toronto.
Tuesday no shuttle is necessary, because the Central Island is where the ship is docked. Stunning blue sky and sparkling water as we circle via the shoreline, eating our pannier lunch outside at La Cote, a public park overlooking L’Etang-du-Nord fishing harbour and its little shops selling kites, crafts and locally made souvenirs.
Wednesday, breakfast on the boat at 6:30 a.m. and then we board a bus at the Chandler dock forPerce, the town and the famous rock, 45 minutes away. Town is an artist colony, rock and Bonaventure Island are noted for thousands of Northern Gannets who nest there. Our tour guide is folk singer and musician LucieBlue Tremblay who serenades us as we return. Rain and fog, but that big rock is hard to miss.
After our visit to Perce Rock, there’s an announcement telling everyone to gather in the lounge for a compulsory meeting. We all mutter and joke with apprehension.
We’re told that a labour lock-out at the Port of Montreal will be preventing us from docking there Friday.
We’ll be docking instead at Trois Rivieres, and then bused back to Montreal.
We all line up to hand in our car keys so our cars can be moved out of the Montreal port building where we left them, to an outside site. Bikes will be transported to Montreal by trailer. There are separate lines for people with and without cars, and those going farthest after Montreal got first bus preference.
Free wine at dinner for our inconvenience.
We arrive at Quebec City Old Port at noon Thursday, and spend a beautiful sunny afternoon. Kristin and I cycle on the Quebec City bike trail, well mapped, along the shoreline, not hilly, while Lorne and Lynn stroll around the Old City. Another fine dinner back on the ship, plus more complimentary wine.
At 11 p.m. our boat time, 10 p.m. Quebec City time, we watch a huge 400-years-of-Quebec-City light show projected on port buildings, and then at 1 a.m. our boat departs for Trois Rivieres.
Around 8 a.m. we leave the ship in Trois Rivieres and we and our luggage board buses for the two-hour drive back to Montreal.
The Islands are not surprisingly a bit like Newfoundland, a bit like P.E.I., a very relaxing escape.
The Iles de la Madeleine logo is a clothesline, and a fitting common image is an engraving of a barrel with a sail that carried Island mail to Nova Scotia in February 1910 when the Islands lost contact with the mainland because of a breach in the underwater telegraph cable. Just like now, when we had no Rogers service for our cellphones or BlackBerries.
