DAY 4 - Trois-Rivières, Quebec – Tuesday, June 16, 2017

We pulled away from the dock in Montreal around supper time on Monday, and sailed down the majestic St. Lawrence River. If anyone aboard had been fearful of seasickness, they needn't have been. The water was calm. Our rugged Polar Prince, built for the much rougher waters of the north Atlantic, glided along as smooth as silk.

Passing under a bridge on the St. Lawrence

Trois-Rivieres at night

At the dock in Trois-Rivieres

We pulled alongside the dock at Trois-Rivières a little after midnight. A few of us stayed up enjoying each other's company, and to experience the ship's docking in this lovely town. Many of us, especially the journey participants, had already adopted the "I'll sleep when I get home" attitude, not wanting to miss a single thing in the short time we were aboard Canada C3. After docking, we straggled off to our bunks for a few hours, and then it was up and at 'em for breakfast at 7, followed by another day's adventures.

The visitor centre has a cool whale mural on its porch. The whale motif is everywhere up and down the St. Lawrence.

We walked as a group to the visitor welcome centre, adjacent to our ship’s berth where we were each given a souvenir of Trois-Rivières: a pin with the town’s crest on it and a scarf branded with the Trois-Rivières International Poetry festival logo. Did you know this small city is known as the International Capital of Poetry? Me neither! Trois-Rivières hosts various poetry related events all over the city, and attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year! They have little snippets of poetry written on plaques posted all over the city, like this one…

 ...and these ones...

Veronique-Marie is a writer and an excellent translator.

There are hundreds of them in public parks, on buildings, everywhere. They also have this mailbox near the Hotel de Ville (city hall) where you can write a piece of poetry and drop it in, anonymously or not, to share with the city during the festival.

Our resident slam poet and recent CEGEP grad, Dardia Joseph contributed a poem before we left.

After our welcome at the Visitor Centre, we walked the few blocks towards the Hotel de Ville, where we were given a warm official welcome from the city, and we all signed the mayor’s guestbook.

We went back to the ship after that, where me and fellow journey participant Kevin were talked in to going for a bike ride around the city with Tiio. (Remember her from my Day 3 post?) C3 carries a bunch of different recreational items with them, including a small compliment of bicycles for participants, staff and crew use when the notion strikes. The bike ride was a great idea, and we explored the quaint neighborhoods and downtown area near the St. Lawrence while we waited for the late morning activity to get started. 

 Trois-Rivières is the home-base for CCGS Mamilossa, one of the hovercrafts owned by the Canadian Coast Guard. Mamilossa is the Abenaki word for “it walks from the shore onto the water”. This machine is very powerful, very heavy, and very versatile. She is used for clearing ice jams in the river where it’s impractical to send a conventional icebreaker (like our C3 vessel, Polar Prince). She is also a support vessel for maintaining navigational aids like buoys, and she is regularly deployed for search-and-rescue missions and environmental emergency response.

The Canada C3 participants were all invited to go for a ride aboard CCGS Mamilossa, and oh my god it was awesome!!!

Captain of Polar Prince, Stephan Guy, helps C3ers onto Mamilossa. Capt. Guy is also a licensed hovercraft pilot! 

Kevin looking stern in the stern

Me trying to look cool, even though on the inside I'm fan-girling all over this hovercraft!

Captain and mate

View from the hovercraft

Me, Carole, Kevin, and Veronique-Marie. Photo by Mike Sudoma.

CCGS Mamilossa crew tying off to Polar Prince under the watchful eye of Mudtroat. 

Mamilossa heading back to base.

After the hovercraft ride it was time for lunch, but instead of eating on the ship we were invited to eat at a local café called "Le Bucafin". The café is run by a most-impressive Chilean woman who believes in giving back to her community in ways that are integrative, practical and all-encompassing.

There are so many community-based initiatives going on at Le Bucafin that I can’t list them all, but I will give you a taste. First of all, the café is clean and bright. It’s a pretty regular looking sandwich shop in the front, and in the back room there is a bank of washers and dryers.

The owners of the café saw a need to provide laundry services to the community after the only laundromat in the area shut down. The café is in a disadvantaged part of town, with lots of immigrants, seniors, and low-income families.

The café provides support to these people through various initiatives, including the “pay-it-forward” concept. Patrons of the café can pay for their meal or coffee, and then can purchase a meal or coffee for someone else who needs it but maybe can’t afford to pay. You pay for it then, and when anyone who can’t afford it comes in and asks for a coffee or a sandwich they are given one, no questions asked, because someone else has already paid for it. It’s a simple concept, and an easy way to restore the dignity of a homeless person, or a senior who can’t quite make their cheque stretch as far as it needs to. And speaking of seniors, one of the problems Le Bucafin staff have identified that directly affects seniors (and everyone) in the neighborhood is temperature. This is an urban area with almost no green space. In the summer, it gets very, very hot. Le Bucafin has come up with several initiatives to create more greenspace. They have planted gardens all along the edges of the building and have made flower boxes for growing herbs. (Added bonus: fresh herbs and veggies in the food they sell!) There is a vacant lot next door that Le Bucafin has recently gotten permission to cultivate. There is an alley behind the building that was once paved but is being slightly repurposed. Through the creative use of concrete patio blocks and a special type of low-growing grass, the alleyway is now a greenspace that vehicles can still drive and park on. Not only is this helping to cool the neighborhood while remaining functional, it looks cool too.

The alleyway behind the cafe allows for grass to grow where pavement should be.

After lunch we had a walking tour of the city with a fabulous and funny tour guide, and saw some really interesting sights.

The founder of Trois-Rivieres is known only as Laviolette, a nickname.

This was the town jail until the late 20th century

Outside the military museum. The tank's name is "Cathy", just like my mum!

Trois-Rivières is really a lovely, picturesque small city, and I would love to visit again someday.


We headed back to the ship, had a nice dinner aboard, and then pulled away from the dock at Trois-Rivières en route to our next destination, Ville de Quebec!