1000 Islands and Whale Watching in Tadoussac

On Thursday, I went to Gananoque to take a boat tour of the 1000 Islands. In fact, there were more than 1800 islands according to the latest official count, located in the St. Lawrence River. As the St. Lawrence River was the border river between Canada and the USA in this area, the two countries divided the islands by area. Canada had more islands, but the American ones were larger. No matter how small, once you could see the island all year round, it was officially an island. Many of the islands I saw from the boat were just big enough for a vacation home. The houses were only inhabited in the summer. There was no running water on the islands, so the wastewater had to be transported back to the mainland in a tank, and when the river froze in winter, you were trapped on the island. This made it difficult to live there in the winter. In addition, they were old summer houses that were difficult to heat.

On Friday, I made my way back to the province of Quebec. I booked 2 nights near Tadoussac in a B&B. The drive from Clarence Creek took 7 hours. After saying goodbye to the Müller family, I was on the road all day. The further I drove, the more the landscape changed. It became more hilly. The hills were covered with trees, except for the roads and the occasional village. Mostly with firs, sometimes a few deciduous trees mixed into the forest. From time to time, I could see the St. Lawrence River on the right, which was getting wider. In the afternoon, I had some trouble finding the B&B because the GPS told me I had reached my destination when I was in the middle of the forest on a gravel road. I turned around, drove to a campground that was not on the way, drove into the village to which the B&B belonged, but still didn't find it there. I began to doubt whether it even existed! I looked at the listing on the website where I had booked again. There I saw a sign in a picture that looked familiar to me. So I drove back to the gravel road in the woods, and before entering the forest, there was actually the sign that said you still had to drive this road for another 3.5 kilometers. So this was the first time I had turned around 2 kilometers too early, but I would have been on the right track. In the end, I arrived at the Gîte Saint-Étienne B&B with Patrick. He told me that he had only moved into this house 2 weeks ago and had his first guests last week. I immediately felt at home here. The long drive was exhausting, I just took a quick look at the deer that the neighbor was breeding and then went to bed.

On Saturday, I went to Tadoussac. The B&B was not quite as close: the indicated 15 km were as the crow flies, but I had to go around some hills until I reached the ferry from Sainte Catherine to Tadoussac. In the end, it took me 2 hours. In the morning, I visited the village with a small chapel on the beach. At noon, I took the ferry back to Sainte Catherine, from where I had booked a whale watching tour. We were able to see some minke whales, two of them came very close to the boat. Because I was so busy taking pictures of these two, I missed the blue whale that was on the other side of the boat. After the boat tour, I went back to the B&B. Two guests from France had just arrived. Patrick had fired up the grill and we all had a cozy dinner together.

On Sunday, I continued a bit closer to Percé. To do this, I had to cross the St. Lawrence River by ferry. Since you couldn't book a spot in advance, I wanted to be there early enough to catch the 9:30 am ferry. But it was no use, even though I was already there at 20 minutes to 9, there was no more room and I had to take the ferry at 1:00 pm. The stupid thing was that I then had to wait there for 4 hours so as not to lose my seat reservation for the next ferry. Because of this "delay", I only arrived at the accommodation in the evening. It was a long drive and I was tired, so I went straight to bed.