September 16, 2018

This morning was a nice 17°C, under a sky with lots of clouds. The ship was cruising in the St. Lawrence River passing the Montmorency Falls as we walked on Deck 4 on our way to breakfast in the dining room. About 45 minutes later it was docked in Québec City. We walked on Deck 11 as the crew tied up the ship to the dock. We remained in Québec City until late afternoon the next day.

We had been looking forward to the bicycle tour to the Montmorency Falls but it was cancelled for lack of people. The replacement tour that we chose was “The Beaupré Coast and Ste. Anne Canyon and Winery”.

There was a half hour delay to clear the documentation for passengers to leave the ship. There were up to 12 groups of 30 or so people waiting to go out on their excursion who were waiting in the Celebrity Theater. There were two gangways being used to quickly get people on their way. Our tour took on a 45 minute drive east of Québec City to the Île d’Orléans. The bridge to Île d’Orléans turnoff was across from a great view of the Montmorency Falls. There was a dedicated bicycle path from Québec City continuing further to along the Beaupré coast (the north shore of the St. Lawrence River) to the town of Saint-Anne-de-Beaupré. Saint-Anne was the grandmother of Jesus Christ. The name Beaupré means “nice meadow”. The Montmorency Falls are 83 meters high and although not as wide as Niagara Falls they are 30 meters higher.

Our guide, Lynn, told us about a Québec cocktail called “The Spell” made with whiskey and maple syrup, but not the recipe. She also explained, to our bus of mostly Americans, the ingredients for Poutine and about the dessert “Beaver Tails”. The tide on the St. Lawrence at Québec varies up to 17 and 21 feet even though fresh water and salt water mix at the western tip of Île d’Orléans. Further west the river is just fresh water. Jacques Cartier “discovered” the area of Huron-Micmac tribes in 1535, but the French kings were not interested in the route that did not lead to the Orient. It was not until 1608 when Samuel de Champlain arrived and established a settlement. The British forces unsuccessfully attacked Québec City in 1688 and 1690, but in 1759, after a siege of three months, they won a battle on the Plains of Abraham in September and defeated the French, but since the weather was getting cold the British left so as not to be frozen into the St. Lawrence for the winter. The French General Montcalm directed his troops to not surrender the city and reinforcements – the Regiment of the Brave from Montréal - arrived in April 1760 to repel the British. In the end, most of French North America was given to the British in the 1763 Treaty of Utrecht.

We visited the Île de Bacchus Winery. The Île d’Orléans was originally covered in wild vines. The vines of today, are known as rustic hybrids, since the grape vine is graphed to a hardy root to withstand the harsh winters. The vines have an expected life of 40 years, due to the harsh weather. European vines can live to be older than 70 years. The winery was started in 1984 and makes about 55,000 bottles of wine annually, a small winery. There are 30 acres of grapes in three plots of ten acres. Their special wine is an ice wine. We were given a brief history of the Île d’Orléans, which is the size of New York’s Manhattan Island. The 307 year old house by the vineyard was not destroyed by the British soldiers in 1759 because it was owned by a Scotsman, not a French settler. Some of the vines are covered with netting to keep the birds and racoons from devouring the grapes. The group was shown the building where the harvest is processed. It started with the machine that crushes the grapes, then we passed the American Oak barrels which hold the red wines. We were shown the area where the small batches are bottled and labeled. Four times each year a traveling truck is rented that can process the wine at a rate of 18,000 bottles per day. All the labels are hand applied since they are the shape of Île d’Orléans and do not fit a standard labeler. We all congregated in a tent where we tasted three different wines. The first wine was a white wine, next a red pinot wine and the third wine was called “Le Kir de l’Île”. In the store we were offered a taste of their ice wine.

Back to Highway 138, we passed several of the original homesteads from the 1600s which stretche 15 miles from the river and were three miles wide. Many of the original homesteads were granted to the 700 Daughters of the King. These were women who were sent from France to marry the French soldiers and have families. The ratio of soldiers to each woman when they arrived at Place Royale in the settlement was 70 to 1. As a dowry for the potential husbands, each woman received a land grant. The land title was in the woman’s name since they would be living on the land, while their husbands were hunting or fishing or protecting the citizens. Once the British laws took effect in 1763, women had to wait almost 200 years before being allowed to own land again.

We continued to Canyon Sainte-Anne a few kilometers east of the town of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. There is the beautiful stone church of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in the town which has a wooden statue covered in gold leaf on its exterior above the front doors. The statue survived a devasting fire in the 1920s undamaged. Further east the peak of Mount Ste. Anne could be seen. To the north are the Laurentian Mountains and on the south shore are the Appalachian Mountains.

The Canyon Sainte-Anne is privately owned and features a 1.2 kilometer hike along the Canyon of the Sainte-Anne river. You cross three sturdy suspension bridges and ascend and descend over 300 stairs along the route of breath taking views. The bridge at the lowest part of the canyon was built in 1995. We were allowed an hour to hike and visit the gift shop. In this canyon area, back in 1850 the American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau and his friend Ellery Channing organized a train trip to Québec City, then walked two days along the Côte de Beaupré to the Canyon Sainte-Anne and wrote a book about it called “AYankee in Canada”.

By the time we left the canyon the temperature was 25°C, under a sunny sky. Steps 8591

It was a 45 minute drive back to Québec City. We had a quick lunch in the Oceanview Café on Deck 10, before departing the ship and sitting in the Visitor tent with complimentary Wi-Fi to post the text and photos from the past four days. It took about an hour. Then we took a walk to old Québec City and explored some of the ancient streets. One of the houses was called Funiculaire and was owned by Joliette who with his fellow French explorer, Marquette, were the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River.

On the return walk to the ship we saw a boat in the lock that transfers boats from to higher Louise Bassin marina to the St. Lawrence River below.