World Canada Quebec Percé

Lois Hits the Road

The Gaspe Peninsula Jul 11, 2005

It was my intention to begin the day by going to Miguasha Park, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, however, when I arrive at 9:45 on this Monday morning, the door is locked. I check the info again which says open, "daily from 9a.m. to 6 pm" in the summer, but it isn't, so I leave. Described as having a worldwide reputation for the "fossilized fish and plants" dating back 370 million years.

Beginning my drive around the Gaspe Peninsula is relaxing. No freeway and not too much traffic. The scenery is serene. Small cottages spot the hillsides. Coves curl around the Atlantic, claiming a small part of this ocean I've been seeing since Key West.

In Bonaventure is the Acadian Museum of Quebec, which takes me back to the small island I visited from...Maine or New Brunswick, St. Croix, where the a discoverer, Champlain settled the first French colony on this continent in 1504. French people continued to come and settled in Nova Scotia, where in, I believe, in 1755 the English forced these Acadians out, taking or destroying most of their property. Some headed into New Brunswick and into this southern part of the Gaspe Peninsula. All of this history begins to help me understand why this area is so fiercely French to this day. There is even a dialect French peculiar to this area. Another part of me wants to say, have you ever heard the phrase, get over it?

Anyway, a young man who says he is "100% Acadian" explains the history.

Down the road a bit, I pull over for a photo op, or a Kodak moment, as someone calls it, and three motorcyclists start talking to me. They offer to take my picture and ask lots of questions about my trip.

My destination today is Perce' (which is suppose to have an amulet after it, but this is the best I can do). Perce' is way out on the tip of the peninsula, is beautiful and, you bet, touristy as all get out. I stop at several RV parks before settling on Camping Village, because it is right in town, a five minute walk from everything. Let's see, there are B&Bs, hotels, motels, restaurants, dozens of people selling tickets for the excursion boats, t-shirt shops, ice cream stores.

Still it is a wonderful place to be. I walk the boardwalk, eat in a very French restaurant that has a sort of holding tank for lobsters below, waiting until someone orders lobster. All the fish is fresh.