Live (kind of) from Nieuw Statendam, Boston to Quebec and back, Aug. 27-Sept. 17

[Dr.Dobro]

It's a warm and sunny day as we pull into Charlottetown, capital and only true city on Prince Edward Island.

The signature red soil of the island forms a pretty blend with the greens and blues of land and sea.

PEI is the Rhode Island of Canada, the smallest province, but it played an outsize role in the birth of Canada. The Charlottetown Conference of 1864 brought together representatives of New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia, and Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec) to lay the groundwork for confederation. Union was achieved less than three years later (July 1, 1867).

 

The discussions took place in Province House, the provincial capitol and a National Historic Site, built in 1864.

But it is in the middle of a multi-year closure that involves the evaluation of every single brick in the building for repair or replacement. The provincial legislature meets elsewhere, and no tourists are getting in either.

So we ramble through the central district to view St. Dunstan's Church, which has a most elaborate collection of external frippery and a grand interior.

Some downtown buildings are of the same vintage of those in Saint John. The Connolly Block was an appealing curiosity, with its bust at the top.

This is Owen Connolly, who came from Ireland as a 19-year-old in 1839, hired on as a farmhand and died 60 years later as one of the island's top businessmen. He put most of his estate in a trust to educate children of Irish immigrants. I wonder how the old Irishman would feel about the first floor hosting a British-style pub (Churchill Arms).

 

Fire truck photo, because why not.

PEI is inextricably entwined with an apparently beloved 1908 novel, "Anne of Green Gables," about an 11-year-old orphan. Anne and her braided red hair, forest-green jumper and smart little hat are everywhere, including more than one Anne Store. Shore excursions rumble off to performances of the stage adaptation and to the author's home, which provided the setting for the novel and numerous sequels. And for some reason, Annemania rules in Japan, which sends planeloads of tourists to PEI each year.

 

We drove up here for a week's stay about 15 years ago, in a modest hotel 15 miles or so from C-town. It was a great spot near the island's center from which we explored most everything. We did the whole "tip to tip tour" and loved it. 

But for today we are just city cruisers, and the port setup here affords the first opportunity for a good wide shot of the Nieuw Statendam. Funny, our very first cruise was to Alaska on the Oud Statendam.

 

Talk to y'all later. Dobro out.

 

[Dr.Dobro]

There is no dramatic river mouth as you head into the St. Lawrence River -- you just head west through the Gulf of St. Lawrence as land gradually draws closer and closer on each side. I think Baie Comeau, on the north shore, is as good a place as any to say "West of here is river and east of here is ocean." I'm sure mariners have a more precise definition than my gut can provide.

 

There is regular ferry service from Baie Comeau to Matane on the Gaspe Peninsula, which forms the south shore. My grandfather Pelletier was born in Cap-Chat, just east of Matane, and emigrated to Woonsocket, R.I. around 1900, where he had 11 children. My mother, about to turn 94, is the youngest and sole survivor. The drive around the Gaspe peninsula (Circuit de la Gaspesie) is one of the great scenic and non-glitzy tours in North America.

 

But, hey -- what about our port? I am not going to bad-mouth Baie Comeau, but there really is not much here for cruisers. It's a city of 20,000 that produces wood pulp and aluminum, and visitor infrastructure is not exactly on the front burner.

A fireboat was spurting away as we sailed in. Cayenne says this is generally done when a ship is making its first visit to a port.

 

School-bus shuttles were waaay backed up, so we walked the 2 miles or so along the shoreline path to the Pioneers Park.  

We met several families with kids in strollers, walking out to get a look at the ship. Saw a little wildlife along the way, too, like these rock-perched cormorants....

...a seal on the prowl....

...and a uniquely North Shore species of flamingos crafted from giant Popsicle sticks.

 

Want more? Ain't got it. Anything resembling a town center is a few miles away from the shuttle stop, not here in the old port area. There is a lovely old Catholic church, but the $6 admission charge is a turnoff. If there's a donation box at the exit, or even a person asking for donations, I'll give. But it turns me off to see a church pimping itself out with admission tickets. Harrumph.

 

We go to what we were told is the shuttle stop and watch the school bus rumble right past us. So all things considered, we cut our losses, congratulate ourselves on a good walk on a nice day, and head on back to fantasyland.

 

***

 

We have now had time to sample all of the specialty restaurants on the Nieuw Statendam, thanks to the "signature dining package" that comes with many reservations now, plus some extra dinners with our star benefits. All in all, it's been up to expectations and beyond. Our thoughts:

 

Tamarind holds firm at No. 1 on my playlist. Look, I'm no food critic, but the Asian dishes here are clearly superior. We've had wasabi tenderloin, Thai Szechuan shrimp, Panang coconut chicken.... but pay the $20 supplement for the wok seared lobster. It is worth it. (They really need to cue the B-52s music when they bring out the wok lobster.)

 

Canaletto has come a long way. I always considered it an Olive Garden clone with too-large portions, but the menu now is a lot more sophisticated. Great selection of Italian dishes, plus gelato for dessert. Dining is within the Lido, like on other ships, but they do a better job here with segregating the space.

 

Old dependable Pinnacle Grill served up some very good filet mignon dinners, forever and ever amen. When we go back we'll be doing salmon and halibut, which we have loved in the past at the "Pinochle."

 

Rudi's Sel de Mer was quite good. I had a perfect broiled seafood platter, and Cayenne got herself a full-on rip-snortin' Nova Scotia boiled lobster to tear apart, something she's expert at. (She was wrong at trivia, however, when asked how many legs a lobster has.) But she says the lazy-man wok lobster up in the Tamarind is better.

 

Bottom line: Rudi's is terrific, but not $49 plus 18% per person worth of terrific. It's not in the signature package, and if not for some shipboard credit to burn, we would not have gone.

 

Wow, I'm hungry - wonder why? -- so I'll stop there. Thanks for reading!

 

Stoney & Cayenne

[oakridger]

I've been enjoying your commentary and pictures!  You're making me hungry too!

 

~Nancy

[Dr.Dobro]

The Nieuw Statendam keeps a westward course along the St. Lawrence before hanging a right into the Saguenay River. The town perched on a hilltop on the east side of the confluence is Tadoussac.

 

Cayenne and I were up here on our honeymoon many years ago, visiting Gaspesie and the North Shore. We were hitting campgrounds, sleeping in a tent. After a good night's sleep in Tadoussac, we had our campground coffee, packed away the tent and bedrolls and headed on out, just as heavy rain started to fall.

 

We hadn't gone two miles before blowing out a tire (beyond patching, as it turned out). So we put on the donut tire in the rain. The lone tire shop in town could get a new tire delivered from Quebec the next day. When it would probably still be raining.

 

It was at this point that my sweet newlywed Cayenne informed me, in a voice heretofore unheard by me, that we are *not* setting up the tent in the rain, and oh, look at that lovely Hotel Tadoussac! And that's how we young lovers had our first luxury hotel experience.

 

Years later, the Hotel Tadoussac, with its bright red roof and sprawling green grounds, was the setting of the Jodie Foster film "The Hotel New Hampshire."

 

Adapted from John Irving's novel, with Natassia Kinski as Susie the Bear, no less.

 

Well, that's a big digression. Back to crooz nooz.

 

We sail about 60 miles in the dark through the Saguenay Fjord, then branch off to the left into a seven-mile-long cove called the Baie des Ha! Ha!*, and dock at La Baie -- where I am immediately slung back into the French Canadian Catholic world where I grew up, in a small Connecticut factory town.

Nice little welcome on the dock, the locals greeting us with maple syrup on a stick. Thd older folks authentically don't speak English, so I give my fractured French a workout. They seem to appreciate the effort.

Sacre bleu! The sister and the priest, the twin terrors of any parochial school lad! Fortunately these are actors, but Cayenne swallowed her gum juat as a precuation.

The twelve most common surnames in Saguenay? This could be my class roster, anywhere in grades 1 to 8. I know at least two or three people with every name on this list.

My town had "bathtub virgins" -- shrines featuring a statue of Mary sheltered by half a bathtub, upended. I have never seen full-on Plexiglass Jesus before.

 

We spend a little time at the Musee du Fjord, which has a modest (*very* modest) aquarium, but also a pretty good exhibit tracing the history of settlement along the Saguenay and Lac St. Jean. Some interesting art, too.

Here's a detail from a large carved wood panel called "The Wave."

Now *this*, my friends, is a mermaid. The museum hides her out back.

The Ha! Ha! Pyramid is kind of a sore thumb aesthetically, but it was erected with good intentions -- to commemorate the 10 victims and thousands of displaced people in a 1996 flood. It's covered in Yield signs, or "Ceder" in French, which is a homonym of the verb "s'aider" -- to help each other.

 

Back on board, the evening cruise back down the Saguenay is pretty and relaxing. And pretty relaxing.

 

A large portion of the route is in Saguenay Fjord National Park, so there's little development along the way.

The little white dot in the middle of the cliff is the statue of Notre Dame du Saguenay, 30 feet tall and fashioned of white pine clad with lead. 

 

And so we're off into the sunset on another great day. Thanks for reading.

 

* Wikipedia sez Ha! Ha! is "probably from an alteration of a Montagnais toponym almost unpronounceable in French which means in Algonquin 'place where bark is exchanged.'"

I nust note there is also a town called St. Louis de Ha! Ha! just above the tippy-top of Maine. Unclear if any bark was exchanged there.
 

[Rahges]

As always , I’m really enjoying your posts and your humor.  Did anyone ever identify what that strange creature in the aquarium was several posts back?

 

[Dr.Dobro]

We pull into Quebec City on a sunny summer-like morning, but it is not the usual port right next to the lower old city. We are at Pier 30, not far away as the crow flies but a zig-zaggy haul for tourists with iffy knees.

But you know what? It doesn't matter, because our destination today is not Montcalm Terrace, not La Citadelle, not Chateau Frontenac. No, we are off to find the great green elephants that are found only in Quebec City (until Oct. 10, anyway).

These fellows are among 200 or so amazing garden sculptures, which is something we never knew was a thing.

Oh, sure, we know about topiary, trimming a bush to resemble animal or other shapes. And we know about the floats in the Rose Bowl Parade, where flower petals and other plant materials are pasted onto the surface of the creations.

 

But this..... Wow. This is something completely different. These figures are ACTUAL GROWING PLANTS that are trimmed and tended regularly.

 

Kindergarten explanation, which is all we retained:

 

They construct a metal frame in the desired shape with built-in drip irrigation. They pack the frame with soil, then wrap it in some kind of mesh. They take greenhouse seedlings -- many species, many colors -- and poke them through the mesh to take root in the soil. In the meantime, they put in ground plants all around the sculptures to create an illusion of the sea or a meadow or wherever these critters hang out. And after a while, voila! What an amazing landscape!

So we'll just run through some of our favorites for you. We spent most of our day here and were continually amazed.

 

The watery species were some of the best:

Penguins and polar bears on their greenish ice floes surrounded by blue waters....

... out of which whales and dolphins might leap at any moment.

 

Or you could see a big old blue whale who just glides up to the surface for a quick lookaround.

Puffins hang out here too.

We loved these waterfowl gliding onto the lake surface -- so cool how some of the ground plants are left to grow long and simulate water being kicked up.

Something more exotic? How about a komodo dragon!

Here's a musk ox with its overbrow and nose of carved wood. I think a few elements like eyes might be plastic, but a lot of the sculptures use polished wood.

 

This horse takes the wood motif to the extreme.

And these look a lot more lively.

We shot a lot more photos of these, so we'll put up more in the next post. In the meantime, you can get info at the Mosaicultures Quebec website:

https://www.mosaiculture.ca/en

If you'll be in Quebec before it ends on Oct. 10, 2022: Take No. 11 bus (toward Ste.-Foy) from the old city area; get off at Thornhill, and the Parc Bois-de-Coulonge is across the street.

 

Talk to you later!

[canadianbear]

Wow-those are amazing in Quebec City.  Love all the photos-wish we’d be there before Oct 10 but sadly won’t be.  Very interesting, thanks for posting.  

[wdw1972]

Wonderful photos - what a great exhibit!  Loving your report also - thank you for taking the time to share your voyage.

 

Sue/WDW1972

[aliaschief]

We have enjoyed this cruise several times. Thanks for sharing your cruise experience. Definitely wetting our appetite to experience once again. Great job.

[Lido deck main]

On 9/11/2022 at 2:05 PM, Dr.Dobro said:

The Nieuw Statendam keeps a westward course along the St. Lawrence before hanging a right into the Saguenay River. The town perched on a hilltop on the east side of the confluence is Tadoussac.

 

Cayenne and I were up here on our honeymoon many years ago, visiting Gaspesie and the North Shore. We were hitting campgrounds, sleeping in a tent. After a good night's sleep in Tadoussac, we had our campground coffee, packed away the tent and bedrolls and headed on out, just as heavy rain started to fall.

 

We hadn't gone two miles before blowing out a tire (beyond patching, as it turned out). So we put on the donut tire in the rain. The lone tire shop in town could get a new tire delivered from Quebec the next day. When it would probably still be raining.

 

It was at this point that my sweet newlywed Cayenne informed me, in a voice heretofore unheard by me, that we are *not* setting up the tent in the rain, and oh, look at that lovely Hotel Tadoussac! And that's how we young lovers had our first luxury hotel experience.

 

Years later, the Hotel Tadoussac, with its bright red roof and sprawling green grounds, was the setting of the Jodie Foster film "The Hotel New Hampshire."

 

Adapted from John Irving's novel, with Natassia Kinski as Susie the Bear, no less.

 

Well, that's a big digression. Back to crooz nooz.

 

We sail about 60 miles in the dark through the Saguenay Fjord, then branch off to the left into a seven-mile-long cove called the Baie des Ha! Ha!*, and dock at La Baie -- where I am immediately slung back into the French Canadian Catholic world where I grew up, in a small Connecticut factory town.

Nice little welcome on the dock, the locals greeting us with maple syrup on a stick. Thd older folks authentically don't speak English, so I give my fractured French a workout. They seem to appreciate the effort.

Sacre bleu! The sister and the priest, the twin terrors of any parochial school lad! Fortunately these are actors, but Cayenne swallowed her gum juat as a precuation.

The twelve most common surnames in Saguenay? This could be my class roster, anywhere in grades 1 to 8. I know at least two or three people with every name on this list.

My town had "bathtub virgins" -- shrines featuring a statue of Mary sheltered by half a bathtub, upended. I have never seen full-on Plexiglass Jesus before.

 

We spend a little time at the Musee du Fjord, which has a modest (*very* modest) aquarium, but also a pretty good exhibit tracing the history of settlement along the Saguenay and Lac St. Jean. Some interesting art, too.

Here's a detail from a large carved wood panel called "The Wave."

Now *this*, my friends, is a mermaid. The museum hides her out back.

The Ha! Ha! Pyramid is kind of a sore thumb aesthetically, but it was erected with good intentions -- to commemorate the 10 victims and thousands of displaced people in a 1996 flood. It's covered in Yield signs, or "Ceder" in French, which is a homonym of the verb "s'aider" -- to help each other.

 

Back on board, the evening cruise back down the Saguenay is pretty and relaxing. And pretty relaxing.

 

A large portion of the route is in Saguenay Fjord National Park, so there's little development along the way.

The little white dot in the middle of the cliff is the statue of Notre Dame du Saguenay, 30 feet tall and fashioned of white pine clad with lead. 

 

And so we're off into the sunset on another great day. Thanks for reading.

 

* Wikipedia sez Ha! Ha! is "probably from an alteration of a Montagnais toponym almost unpronounceable in French which means in Algonquin 'place where bark is exchanged.'"

I nust note there is also a town called St. Louis de Ha! Ha! just above the tippy-top of Maine. Unclear if any bark was exchanged there.
 

That list of the most common last names sound like a great hockey team.

[mexico8]

I enjoyed reading all your posts.   Thanks especially for those last names and numbers (I am married to a Tremblay).   

 

We had a similar exhibit  in Hull, Quebec with the garden sculptures and loved it.   Went a few times while they were here and hope they return sometime.   

 

Sure enjoyed your humorous posts.   Thank you.

[Dr.Dobro]

Observant readers have no doubt deduced that we are behind in our postings. Here we are on Sept. 15, and we are just getting to our turn-around in Quebec last week.

 

C'est la vie, mes amis -- having too much fun to find the discipline to sit down and sort photos and write. (If you follow Bill and Mary Ann's threads, we look like lazy sluggards -- they are the champion chroniclers. We are not worthy.)

 

But anyway, stick with us; this thread is going to have to get wrapped up from home. In the meantime, here are more of the amazing Mosaicultures creations -- all of them actual growing plantings.

 

Mother Nature overlooks the whole menagerie, a waterfall spilling from her right hand, where an eagle settles.

 

Into the jungle for giraffes and lions, circle of life and all that ...

 

We loved these hippopotami, nostrils just above their "pond" surface.

 

Buffalo roam the plains of, um, Abraham?.

 

Not far away, whales and dolphins leap out of the waves.

 

Time for the walruses to make their visit to the barber for a trim.

 

And we encounter a black squirrel -- *not* a plant -- but a critter with pigmentation we have not seen.

 

There wasn't a high point sufficient to give a good view of this, but it is a tortoise or turtle -- the tail is in the foreground, pointing at the viewer -- with a map of the world on its back.

 

The half-human, half-animal figures in the canoe represent a creation story of the local First Nations people.
 

More to come.

 

Stoney & Cayenne

 

[Guardsy]

On 8/31/2022 at 1:56 PM, bluesplayer said:

Looking forward to following along on the NS in October..  Quebec City to Ft. Lauderdale 

Us, too!  We are down in Ridgefield, WA.

[Dr.Dobro]

Okay, this post will wrap up the Mosaicultures shots, for good or ill, for the enthralled and the bored alike.

 

These are from the Farm section of the exhibit. Lotsa fun stuff here.

The Man Who Plants the Trees dominates the farm, kind of a Father Nature figure.

Every farm needs cows and horses....

...and a couple of dogs, of course.

I could buy either of these as a real dog. Amazing work!

 

Butterflies hang out near the chickens....

...and the farmer himself is out in the fields, joining the plow team.

Not sure how readable it will turn out to be, but here's a list of all the plants used in the exhibit. I think if you blow it up, the small type will hold.

 

This volunteer is explaining the construction of the sculptures, including the underlying metal frame for support and irrigation.

 

And that's what we did in Quebec before setting out back down the river. Just remember.... no matter where you dock in Quebec, you get a nice view of the Chateau Frontenac.

But at Pier 30, you also get a clear, unobstructed view of the Chateau Smoke-a-Stack on the other side of the ship.

.

Back soon.... S & C

 

[oakridger]

I have never seen garden sculptures so detailed and wonderful!  I had not heard of this garden before and whenever I get to Quebec, if the exhibit returns, I will definitely seek it out!

 

Thanks for sharing these amazing pictures!

 

~Nancy

[silversneakers]

15 hours ago, Dr.Dobro said:

Okay, this post will wrap up the Mosaicultures shots, for good or ill, for the enthralled and the bored alike.

 

These are from the Farm section of the exhibit. Lotsa fun stuff here.

The Man Who Plants the Trees dominates the farm, kind of a Father Nature figure.

Every farm needs cows and horses....

...and a couple of dogs, of course.

I could buy either of these as a real dog. Amazing work!

 

Butterflies hang out near the chickens....

...and the farmer himself is out in the fields, joining the plow team.

Not sure how readable it will turn out to be, but here's a list of all the plants used in the exhibit. I think if you blow it up, the small type will hold.

 

This volunteer is explaining the construction of the sculptures, including the underlying metal frame for support and irrigation.

 

And that's what we did in Quebec before setting out back down the river. Just remember.... no matter where you dock in Quebec, you get a nice view of the Chateau Frontenac.

But at Pier 30, you also get a clear, unobstructed view of the Chateau Smoke-a-Stack on the other side of the ship.

.

Back soon.... S & C

 

Amazing pictures.  Thank you for sharing.