(Ville de St. Pierre, St. Pierre et Miquelon, France)
Our visit to St. Pierre & Miquelon was carefully timed to coincide with Bastille Day. Known in French as la fête nationale, or just le quatorze juillet, it commemorates the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and celebrates the birth of the modern nation of France. It’s just as meaningful as July 1 in Canada or July 4 in the U.S.A. and this was our chance to experience it without crossing (much of) the Atlantic Ocean.
Residents of St. Pierre & Miquelon are clearly proud to be part of France. Despite the small population of their territory, there was a full slate of events on July 14. The central square (place du Général-de-Gaulle) was closed to traffic and was festooned with flags, booths and picnic tables, as well as a concert stage. Each booth was operated by a different club or organization for fundraising purposes; no commercial operators were permitted within the square’s boundaries.
We were on hand for the “vin d’honneur” proceedings at 12:00 noon. I’m not sure of the exact reason for this event but it involved the town’s presentation of hundreds of litres of vin d’honneur to those in attendance. You only needed a cup or a glass…and the volunteers would fill it up for you with kir, a mixture of white wine and crème de cassis (a blackcurrant liqueur). It didn’t last long: by 12:20 p.m., the free kir was gone.
The festival booths were mostly set up for food, drinks or games. The booth operated by the local humane society caught my eye, as it was serving paella. I’ve never had a proper paella and I thought that I might as well experience it here for the first time. In addition to some chicken, my helping included shrimp, clams and…squid. Squid was another first for me and I was pleased to discover that it was actually quite good. Other offerings included a rather cloudy and apparently homemade spruce beer.
Music, ranging from traditional accordion music to Caribbean zumba workout music, lasted throughout the day. There were also various sports events. We enjoyed the fiercely-contested soccer game between the two top local teams. The game was decided on penalty kicks after being tied up in the final 30 seconds of regulation time.
Ice hockey is also popular here in the winter but the arena was closed for the summer. Instead, we enjoyed watching some of the pétanque and pelote basque competitions. Pétanque (similar to bocce and lawn bowling) is played in a relatively small space, while pelote basque (similar to jai alai and also known simply as pelota) is a game of Basque origin played outdoors on a huge court in front of a huge wall. It remains particularly popular in Spain, France and anywhere that has a Basque diaspora. St. Pierre’s pelota court, known as Zazpiak Bat, was built in 1906 and takes up an entire block of the town.
We looked forward to the fireworks display that was scheduled for 10:15 p.m. However, with fog rolling in, the decision was made to have the fireworks at 9:45 p.m. instead. We were still eating dinner at that time but we had window seats and could see the fireworks from our restaurant table.
We had a great time helping to celebrate la fête nationale in St. Pierre. It was interesting to see such a strong connection between France and St. Pierre & Miquelon, despite the territory’s isolation. Perhaps the distance and isolation make the French identity stronger: I am not aware of any movement to join Canada or to become an independent state. Everybody here seems perfectly happy to keep things exactly the way they are. In fact, in some ways, St. Pierre & Miquelon may even be more “French” than France itself.