Gaspé 4, Quebec, Canada

This morning we went to a MicMac Interpretive Site. We had a guided tour through a village with wigwams, round fires, hunting traps and historical objects that demonstrated their traditional know how. It was a reconstructed village to provide a history of this community from 1675 to present time. The MicMac have pre-historic roots. Their traditional way of life is closely tied to the sea.

Bianca was our tour guide. She and many members of her family work at the site. Her dad is MicMac and her mother is English. Her father works on site as well as her aunt and uncle. As we entered the museum in the morning delicious smells were coming out of the kitchen. After the tour we were treated to moose soup and bannock (bread) that could be dipped into maple syrup. Bianca’s aunt was the cook. Her uncle provided us with our own personal performance singing and drumming a song greeting the dawn.

After visiting the interpretive site we went to a café for a latte. Then we went to a fish market to buy a lobster.  Peter cooked the lobster in sea water. He also grilled steaks as a backup in case the lobster did not turn out. However the lobster was just fine. In a prior posting on this blog I described the rather negative experience we had with a female lobster. Thank goodness this was a boy lobster so it did not have eggs inside of it.  It still was a lot of work for a few bites of lobster.  Peter has a lot more patience for the process than I do.

Tomorrow we will be cleaning and doing laundry to prepare for our departure Thursday. Staying along the St. Lawrence Seaway has been beautiful and peaceful.  The weather here fluctuates dramatically. Yesterday the high was 85 degrees without rain during the day. By nightfall it had cooled down considerably.   Today it was forecast as 75 degrees and cloudy. It was warm until early evening when it rained and cooled down dramatically.  We just expect all kinds of weather and prepare for rain or shine,

No reason to complain as we hear reports of the weather in Phoenix.  Almost 120 degrees?!  This is why we are in Canada.   JY

Today was another fun day.  We got up early to head into Gaspé to visit the MicMac Interpretive Center.  The is a gift shop on the ground floor then on the second floor their is a small museum with artifacts about the history and culture of the MicMac people.  We met our guide on the second floor and she was about 27 years old and her fathers side of the family are all decedents from MicMac Nation.  Many members of her family have worked very hard to create this center and are deeply committed to revive their original culture and language.

The tour involved going through the seasons of the year and visiting full scale recreations of the types of dwellings, tools and techniques they used in their everyday life.  Life was hard, especially in the winter so these people had to be tough and well prepared for day to day life in a very inhospitable environment.  The wigwams were constructed of original materials and using the same materials and techniques in the assembly.  The dwellings we visited were constructed some twenty years ago and are still in good shape today.  Our guide’s father was one of the main builders twenty years ago and still works at the site.

When the tour was over our guide’s aunt was working in the kitchen making moose soup and we were treated to a cup of it.  I heard some drumming from the tour ahead of us and wanted to see if I could get a video of the performance.  Our guide asked the performer if he would come out and do a performance for us and he agreed.

He is quite well known in this region and performs a lot at official ceremonies, performs at the museums and is scheduled to do a big regional performance on the beach at Percé to celebrate the summer solstice – the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer.

From the MicMac center we went into Gaspé for a coffee and cinnamon roll.  We picked up a couple of supplies at the grocery store and headed back to camp.  Today was the day that I decided it was time to bite the bullet and prepare our own lobster.  We had everything we needed except for two things – a bucket of seawater and a lobster.  We stopped at the local fish market and bought a 1.5 lb lobster and they filled my bucket with seawater and then dropped the lobster in it.  Fortunately I had a lid for it as June Yvonne had it between her legs all the way back to camp.  (Don’t read more into this than is written!)

I brought with us a canning pot that our good friend Kay gave us and it was just the right size.  I also brought my Coleman stove so I could boil the water outside.  We decided to go all out and had a couple of rib eyes on the grill while the lobster (who I named Remington) was boiling away in the pot.  Boiled him for 8 minutes then plunged him into cold water to stop the cooking process so the meat wouldn’t get tough.  Had a couple of baked potatoes and we were set.  We found out that getting the meat out of the lobster shell is a lot more work than we expected so next time we are going to get a much bigger lobster (maybe two) so the reward is greater with a lot more meat.  Anyway it was an experience and we will be sure to repeat it several more times over the next 2 months.

Tomorrow will be a utility day – laundry – clean the trailer – a few repairs – paperwork – packing up the trailer – etc. etc. etc. – then Thursday we will head for Dalhousie, New Brunswick.  PRC