Au revoir Quebec … je me souviens

But we survived. The little yellow weatherboard is still firmly anchored to the ground when we wake after a particularly rainy night. While we wait for the final rains to disappear, we feast on a three course breakfast – yes you read it right – provided by Johanne at Aux Douceurs du Passant.

Firstly we have juice and a fruit salad / parfait (which we could have had as breakfast dessert if we preferred), then a cheese plate, and then the main, cooked meal (and there were many choices for this, mostly the egg and bacon variety, but I had some buckwheat pancakes). I’ve never seen such a breakfast spread.

The skies are still heavy when we set out. There’s no real point in waiting, as the rain prediction spreads across the day quite a bit, and we are keen to get to Ottawa to see Mak and his family. Mak is a long-time friend of Neil’s, who lives in Texas, but was raised in Canada after his family immigrated from India. There’s a bit of a melting pot going on there in just one person!

But first we ride. I had planned out a small detour for today that takes us along a track of undetermined surface in the Parc National du Plaisance – I’d had a thought it might have been a boardwalk right along the river. Last night’s rain put paid to that idea though, as the road heading into the park is dense and muddy. We stick to our sealed road.

We take a break at a Casse-Croute for a drink and to check out the map, and come … this close … to losing our bikes. We’re both concentrating on the map when Neil suddenly yells and jumps up. The beep … beep … beep … of a reversing truck filters into my brain, and I look to see a large delivery truck reversing straight at our parked bikes!

Thankfully, the driver is reversing slightly crookedly and has to stop to straighten up. We grab the bikes and push them to safety. It was a pretty close call.

We take a ferrry across the Ottawa River at Massa-Angers to Cumberland, and suddenly we are in Ontario. The ferry was great – we just rode up and onto it without waiting, and straight off the other side. Then it is a 30km commute through increasingly large and busy streets until we reach Mak’s place mid-ish afternoon.

We are welcomed by a home cooked Indian feast, and stuff ourselves silly, then Mak takes us for a walk around his childhood neighbourhood.

Je me souviens

The motto on Quebec car licence plates is Je me souviens which translates to I remember. Having spent two weeks steeped in Canadian, and particularly Quebecois, history, Neil and I interpret this is a snipe at the British takeover back in 1763, when the French went home and left the country to British rule.

We asked the young couple we met back in Rawdon what the phrase really meant, and they laughed. He, being a born and bred Quebecois, said that he didn’t really know exactly what he remembered, and one day he asked his parents, who didn’t know either.

Je me souviens is carved under the Quebec coat of arms at the main door of Parliament in Quebec City and is the official motto of Quebec. It’s a bit funny then, if nobody knows exactly what they remember, but maybe my sample of one is not truly representative.

A popular story, and one that I like, is that the phrase is part of a longer phrase …

Je me souviens que, né sous le lys, je crois sous la rose

(I remember/ That born under the lily/ I grow under the rose)

But don’t quote me on that.

In any case, today is Au Revior Quebec, Hello Ontario. We all continue forward.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 76.9km
• Climb: 286m
• Average speed: 18.7km/h
• Average temperature: 34C
• Moving time: 4:07:10
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken in the back yard at Mak’s mother’s place in Ottawa. We both look pretty happy to be there!

And for this day only, a secondary beer picture, taken in the basement of Mak’s mother’s place. Note the label – very appropriate.

Along the way today: