(Ville de St. Pierre, St. Pierre & Miquelon, France)

A lot of my photographs of St. Pierre feature colourful buildings. The diversity is striking, even when compared to Newfoundland (which has no shortage of colourful houses). Don’t be surprised if a future blog entry exploits this photographic inventory!

As I mentioned in a previous post, we returned to L’Atelier Gourmand for a second dinner. Alas, as it was Bastille Day, the full menu was not available. I suppose this was a good thing, as I tried something that I never eat at home: lobster.   The French description was La fricassée de homard aux légumes, roughly translated as lobster fried with vegetables.   I don’t know if it was the intention, but the sauce tasted a little like a Thai red curry.   Anyway, I enjoyed it and it capped off a rare day of dining on French seafood.

Visiting a cemetery is always an interesting, if somewhat morbid, way to learn more about a place.  The tombstones tell some interesting stories:  I sure wasn’t expecting to see the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on one of the graves!  Less whimsically, the diverse origins of the St. Pierrais became quite clear.  We saw many Basque names, as well as Spanish, Portuguese and even a few English names.  There were also “adopted” surnames, such as “L’Espagnol”.  Finally, the enduring connection to France was made very clear by the moving war memorial.  Many St. Pierrais have served in the French army.

Notwithstanding the Maple Leafs logo on the tombstone, they are not the most popular team here:  we counted at least 3 Montreal Canadiens bumper stickers while wandering through town.  Canada does indeed have a bit of an influence here!  More prominent, however, were Basque stickers and flags.  I even picked up a Pelota t-shirt that featured a stylized Basque flag, as it was such a common sight here.   To “cap” it off, I also bought a beret.  I didn’t see anybody wearing one but they are made of wool and it was relatively hot during our visit.   Maybe I can wear it on the ice once the curling season starts!

Our last morning was dedicated to some of the more commercial aspects of the islands.  I enjoyed a freshly-baked pain au chocolat at one of the many patisseries, picked up a bottle of cider from Cournouaille (located in northwest France, opposite from the similarly-named Cornwall in England) in the local supermarket, ate a tremendous quiche at Les Délices de Joséphine, and picked up a couple of souvenirs.

We had been dreading the return boat trip, due to the bumpy ride we experienced on the way to St. Pierre & Miquelon.  Fortunately, the seas were very calm; we arrived in less than an hour and the most difficult part of the trip was lining up with the hundreds of other passengers at the Canadian border control in Fortune.

My final thoughts on St. Pierre & Miquelon:  if you find yourself within a couple of hours of Fortune and have a couple of days to spare, it is definitely a worthwhile and eye-opening trip (especially on Bastille Day, even though the stores are all closed).  It really is the closest thing to Europe that I have encountered thus far in North America.

I think you would need to spend at least two nights here to fully appreciate it.  We stayed for two nights and didn’t have a chance to visit Miquelon or any of the other islands, nor did we do much in the way of hiking or museum visits.   Just make sure you book your accommodations in advance, make dinner reservations if you want a sit-down meal, and accept that things (including business hours and the electrical voltage) won’t be exactly the same as in the rest of North America.  That’s why we travel, right?

(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.

(Ville de St. Pierre, St. Pierre & Miquelon, France)

St. Pierre & Miquelon is a territory in transition. It has a strong maritime tradition but, subsequent to the cod fishing moratorium, it has looked for other sources of revenue. France is now promoting the islands as a tourist destination but its relative inaccessibility and the very short tourist season mean that private investment in tourism is still not that high. On the plus side, this means that there are few “tourist traps” and that most local businesses must also appeal to the island residents.

Our B&B was reasonably priced and dramatically situated but its almost-Himalayan altitude on the outskirts of town meant that, in order to avoid exhaustion, our trips downtown needed to be very well-planned.  Our first trip was for dinner on the waterfront at a French restaurant called L’Atelier Gourmand; to avoid disappointment, we had made reservations online before leaving Pouch Cove.  This turned out to be a masterstroke, as there were apparently only two restaurants open that evening.

We don’t often eat French food; I’m really not a fan of foods such as foie gras and the excess (for my taste) of garlic used in Provençal cooking.  However, this dinner was a reminder that it is a mistake to overlook a country’s cuisine simply because some elements do not hold much appeal.

Our dinner at L’Atelier Gourmand was excellent.  I was hoping to have L’émincé de volaille au citron vert et pommes (poultry with lime and apples) but there was none left.  My second choice was Le filet de porc avec sauce balsamique et framboise (pork tenderloin with balsamic and raspberry sauce) and it turned out to be delicious.  To accompany our meal, we had a bottle of dry apple cider from Normandy…it was also excellent.

For dessert, my choice was La mousse platebière dans sa coque (cloudberry mousse in an edible chocolate cup).  Cloudberries (also known as bakeapples) are rather sweet orange berries found in remote northern locales such as Finland and Newfoundland.   I find them a little too sweet on their own but they were great in a mousse.  The rest of our posse was unanimous in praise of their respective selections too.  In fact, we enjoyed our dinner so much that we made reservations for the following night at the same restaurant!

After dinner, I took advantage of the lingering daylight to “goat” on the steep rocky outcrops overlooking our B&B.   The outcrops were just steep and high enough to give some inspiring views (see photo at the top of this post) over the town of St. Pierre.

After only  a couple of hours in St. Pierre & Miquelon, it began to feel like we had escaped to the France of our imaginations…with houses and climate from Newfoundland!  There was no Riviera, of course, but there were enough European touches to differentiate this tiny archipelago from the Canadian province that almost surrounds it.

The next day was a very special day for not just St. Pierre & Miquelon but for all of France.  There was anticipation in the air and we were all looking forward to  experiencing this special day as well.  Stay tuned for the details!