Tadoussac, Quebec

It was another beautifully sunny morning when we woke, and we were excited to get out and about in Tadoussac. Tadoussac is a small, pretty, village on the banks of the St. Lawrence. It is the site of the first trading post in Canada and has been a tourist resort for over 150 years. In fact the village celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2000. The majestic “Hotel Tadoussac” built in 1866 was the original “red-roofed” hotel in Canada. In the morning we walked around Pointe de l’Islet. It was a slow relaxed walk just enjoying the beauty around us. The bay at Tadoussac is one of the world’s 30 prettiest bays, and it is at the pointe that the St. Lawrence meets the Saguenay River – i.e. salt water meets fresh water. Sitting on the rocks at the Point we could see both the Bay and the estuary of the Saguenay River – the fjiord that runs about 100 plus km into the interior of Quebec. There was lots of activity. We watched sail boats, ferries joining highway 138 from the east side to the west side of the fjiord, bulk carriers carrying goods up the fjiord, zodiac boats, kayaks, and cruise ships on whale watching trips, speed boats just going out there, and of course lots of seals, whales, and belugas. It was fascinating to just sit there. Tadoussac is all about the whales, but somehow it just doesn’t sit right with me to take a zodiac, or a cruise out to watch them. There are regulations in place that the boats are supposed to follow. I think it’s a minimum of 400 m for belugas, blue whales and other endangered species; 1 nautical mile from any boat in observation; 400 m from an animal when you are the sole observation boat1 km from the whales. It’s hard to tell what distance the boats were from the marine animals, but in some cases it certainly didn’t seem like a kilometre. The belugas are so beautiful, actually they all are! You never get your fill, and just want to sit there all day waiting for the next glimpse. We dragged ourselves away and had lunch on the patio in a great restaurant, then we set off on a hike up to the sand dunes about 4.5 km from the centre of town. The dunes were amazing; quite high, and we wished we had “sand boards” with us to have fun sliding down them. In all, we must have walked about 15 km by the end of the day, but it was a good day and the exercise felt good. Then we had dinner in the Café Boheme on the rue des Pionniers. This was a neat, busy, little French café with a simple menu and salad! I never knew salad could taste so good! After dinner we had a short stroll back to the Gite and collapsed in bed.