(Québec City, Québec, Canada)
After leaving the Coaticook Gorge, we stopped at Ayer’s Cliff and North Hatley before our last night in Lennoxville. North Hatley has a beautiful location but we only stayed long enough to have some ice cream made by the Laiterie Coaticook…it’s extremely popular around here. Dinner that night was a delicious pizza at the Café Bla-Bla in Sherbrooke.
The next day featured a long road trip through various Québec communities with little in common…other than the fact that they are communities in the Province of Québec. Our first stop was just outside Saint-Georges-de-Windsor. We saw a sign for a “scenic viewpoint” and decided it would be a good time to stretch our legs. We pulled into the parking lot…only to be immediately confronted with a giant cow (see photo at the top of this post)! And the scenic viewpoint was on top of the giant cow!
We saw lots lots of huge roadside attractions in Alberta but were not expecting to see them in the middle of rural Québec. Anyway, we climbed the cow, took some pictures, and moved on to our next (planned) stop: the town of Asbestos.
Yes, Asbestos is named after the fibre that was once hailed as a miracle but eventually was disgraced because of its deleterious effects on human health. Asbestos grew wealthy from asbestos, long before it was recognized as a carcinogen, and the mine only shut down in 2011. It is a huge open pit measuring six square kilometres that comes right up to the edge of Asbestos itself.
In fact, the pit does more that just come up to the edge of Asbestos. A large part of the original town had to be relocated because lucrative additional deposits were located underneath it, adjacent to the original mine. Will the mine re-open? This looks unlikely, as Canada formally banned asbestos altogether in 2016. And where does that leave the town of Asbestos and its 7,000 residents? Apparently, the name now has such negative connotations that the town is considering a name change. The least harmful option appears to be “Amiante”, which is the French word for asbestos but does not carry as much baggage.
After taking some pictures and gawking at the massive pit (now partially filled with extremely blue water), we moved on and made a series of short stops in Victoriaville, Princeville, and Plessisville (to buy lunch, eat lunch outdoors, and refuel respectively). No giant cows or giant mining pits were evident. Shortly afterward, we had to stop in the tiny hamlet of Sainte-Anastasie to check out the beautiful (and massively disproportionate) cathedral that completely dominated its surroundings. After that, even the brilliant silver roof of Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon’s cathedral was not as stunning as it might otherwise have been.
We were nearing Québec City and our next destination. Québec City is even more prosperous than the last time we were here: perhaps too much so, as it was stuffed to the gills with tourists and transport trucks. It is undeniably unique and a great destination…but maybe not in the middle of the summer. We saw the Château Frontenac and the walls of the old city but pressed onward to our surprising base for the next couple of nights. Stay tuned for the details!