DAY 8 - Saguenay Fjords National Park, Tadoussac - June 17, 2017

But as our restless shallop from her prow

Scatters the liquid pearls in her mad haste,

These naked boulders lag behind, and now

The smiling hills with verdant life are graced.

Charles Sangster, The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay 

We sailed through the night from l'Islet, and when I woke up in the morning we were cruising toward Tadoussac and the Saguenay Fjord.

I had volunteered to work the breakfast shift in the galley that morning, but there weren't too many diners around. Everyone was up on deck checking out the scenery... and the whales! I tried my best to stay in the mess and fulfill my galley duties, but there was just so much excitement. Despite my protests, everyone insisted I go up and have a look, from Paul-the-Cook, to C3 staffer Ellie, to Bosun Kevin ("Git up there and check out the livestock!"). I can't very well disobey the bosses, so off I went. There were whales everywhere. Minkes and belugas! Believe it or not, this Bluenoser had never seen a whale before, so this was a big deal for me. They seemed huge, even though minkes and belugas are some of the smallest whales. Dr. Lyne was on deck, giving us a run-down on these species, and this population in particular. While belugas live in various parts of the world, this population is endangered with only 936 individuals left. Lyne pointed out calves swimming alongside their mamas (the calves are grey, not white like the Raffi song suggests). She described their preferred food and environment, and their social habits. What an extraordinary opportunity to view these animals standing next to a world renowned expert! I'm so, so lucky. I'm not much of a hugger, but Lyne got a huge hug from me that morning. I was so grateful to be sharing this awesome experience with her.

Eventually we arrived at the mouth of the Saguenay and headed west toward the Parc National du Fjord-du-Saguenay. One of the zodiacs headed out and picked up our Parks Canada tour guide, Nadia, who joined us for the rest of the day. Now we had two experts with us, answering every question, and pointing out things the casual observer would miss. Check this out, it blew my mind: This part of the St. Lawrence and Saguenay is heavily influenced by the salt water of the Atlantic ocean. In fact, the water and currents interact here such that the colder, denser salt water stays on the bottom, and the freshwater is a more-or-less separate layer on top. It is essentially a river flowing on top of the ocean. Not only that, but you can fish for both freshwater and saltwater fish here. You want to catch freshwater fish? You drop your line less than, say, 20 feet. You want to catch saltwater fish? You drop your line 20+ feet. It's incredible!  The water here is very deep, and very cold, and is habitat for the elusive Greenland shark. (No, we didn't see any Greenland sharks. But just knowing they are there was awe-inspiring.)

Eventually we arrived at our anchorage in the Bay of Eternity at the nature reserve, and we took the Zodiacs over to the shore for a hike up the side of the fjord. The whales weren't the only thing of beauty and wonder; the landscape was unbelievable. We walked up the very steep mountain, and I was dripping in sweat by the time I reached our destination. But boy was it worth it.

It took about two hours to reach our destination, all uphill. In fact, it's all stairs, about a thousand feet up. Years ago, a path was cut up the side of the mountain and huge stone stairs were laid the whole way up. I wish I had more details about how this was done and by whom, as this must have been an incredible effort. 

We didn't have the time to hike the entire thing (that would take days), but we did hike to a wonderful stopping point with a gorgeous vista and (surprise!) a huge statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the river below.

We were also greeted by a Parks Canada interpreter who reenacted the story of how the statue came to be there. 

The story wasn't really supposed to be funny, but our storyteller was very animated and entertaining and was a real joy to listen to and laugh along with. She was a Quebecois dressed as a man and kept mixing up pronouns and dates and numbers, and Nadia had to keep correcting her/him. It was too funny! However, the point of the story was this: a man in the late 1800s had several brushes with death that he narrowly escaped by praying. He made a promise to the Virgin that, for sparing his life, he would erect a beautiful tribute. And that's just what he did. Even the story of how he fund-raised for the statue, and then getting it up the mountain was astonishing, and particularly effective when telling it to a group of people who barely managed to get their carcasses up there, let alone carry a 3-ton statue with them.

As we were sitting there listening to the story, enjoying (ha!) the heat from the sun and resting before our trek back down, we had a new arrival to the group. Captain Stephan let us get a good head start, then jogged up the mountain in time to catch most of the story. Not only did he jog the mountain, it took him well under an hour, and he arrived looking like he had just jogged about 100 meters. No fuss, no muss! He really is an impressive man. 

 After story-time, we headed back down the mountain to the ship. It was a little quicker going down than up, but not much. The plan for the night was to have dinner underway, stopping in at Tadoussac before carrying on down the river to our next destination. Dinner was a fancy one that night, prepared by Chef Matt in celebration of the beautiful place we were visiting.

Dinner in the open-air hanger was really special; dining with the best people in the most beautiful place on earth.

We arrived at Tadoussac a little after dark, where we were ferried ashore by Zodiac and met by two tour guides who gave us a brief walking tour of the town. Raven took care of dividing us into groups ("Hey guys! The english tour is this way!") and we were off. Our tour guide, Jane, was awesome. Sympathetic to our state of physical exhaustion after the day's grueling hike and sensing our urgency to visit some of the local public houses, she kept the tour upbeat and brief. Like every place I visited with C3, I wish I could have spent more time there and had a lot more energy to devote to it. Tadoussac was a traditional meeting place of the Innu, Wendat, Mohawk, and Mi'kmaq for millennia because of its location at the intersection of the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay. Europeans first visited Tadoussac in the 1500s, and a trading post was established there in 1600, the first in what would become Canada. These days, Tadoussac relies primarily on tourism thanks to the abundance of belugas and other whales.

Tadoussac is a a hopping little town in the summer, a boater's paradise with a small marina. Jane took us round to the dry-dock, which was one of the coolest pieces of infrastructure I've ever seen. It was too dark for photos, so I'll try and describe what I saw.  Actually, it's pretty easy to describe what I saw: a gravel parking lot that kind of resembled a small-ish quarry. Other than a set of heavy wooden gates on one side of the parking lot, it was pretty unremarkable. Turns out, this quarry-type parking lot is where every Tadoussac boat is launched in the spring, and where all the boats are hauled out in the fall. The big wooden gates hold back the St. Lawrence River. On the highest tide in the spring, the floodgates are opened, the parking lot floods, and the boats that have been sitting in their in their cradles all winter float off, while others are lowered in via derrick. During the highest tide in the fall, the gates are opened and the boats all gather in the parking lot/dry-dock. All the boats float over their cradles until the tide goes out and the water recedes. Then the gates are closed again until spring. It's nuts! Jane said it is quite the party on both the first and last days of boating season every year. The last day is usually right around the end of October, and apparently the town goes all out for Halloween. I can only imagine!

The last stop on our tour was the fancy Hotel Tadoussac in the middle of town. It is gorgeous, and we saw it standing majestically on the shore when we sailed past that morning en route to the Bay of Eternity in the Saguenay Fjord. 

The Hotel Tadoussac is just left of centre, with the red roof.

Unbelievably, there was a piano bar in the hotel, and apparently no dress code (I asked). Since we had 45 minutes before we had to be back at the marina to board the Zodiacs, I opted to stay for a beverage.  Everyone else headed out to one of the two small pubs we had strolled past on our tour, but there was no way I'd forego my chance to sit at the bar and listen to monsieur tickle the ivories. It was just so... surreal. Polar Prince cook, Paul had joined us for our walking tour, and he didn't like the idea of leaving me on my own, so, gentleman that he is, opted to join me at the bar. (Turns out, we made the smart decision - the others reported that the other pubs were noisy and almost too crowded to get in, but they didn't have time to walk back to the hotel bar so headed back to the ship.) Paul had a beer, but I took full advantage of my surroundings and ordered a Manhattan. My god, it was exquisite. Paul and I had a lovely chat with the bartender, who, although she was fluent in both french and english, simply could not place our accents. I blame this on the Newfoundlander, as I'm certain I have no accent whatsoever ;)  

One drink down the hatch, and by then it was almost 11pm - time to board the ship, pull up the anchor and head down the river for another day of whale watching and adventure!

POSTSCRIPT: I was so impressed with Jane Evans, our tour guide, I scribbled her a thank you note when I got home. I addressed it to Jane-The-Tour-Guide, c/o Tadoussac Tourism. Amazingly, she got it (thank you, Canada Post!) and sent me a note back.  We're all invited back to Tadoussac anytime, and we're to look her up when we get there!