Travel Journal
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Sherbrooke Montréal Québec Ottawa Capitale canadienne Let’s celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary! June 16 to July 2, 2017 Travel Journal Message It is with great pleasure that I send you this travel journal of your journey in Eastern Canada. With the generous participation of all ambassadors to this document we have a complete and interesting report! I hope it will provide you with great memories of the time you spent here among our 5 clubs. I got the idea for this journey about 3 years ago. Working with other clubs in close geographical proximity has been my objective while I was President of the Montreal Club. We started about 6 years ago our collaboration through summer activities, just to get to know each other. After a couple of years I was convinced that we could work together to offer a journey in our region. Canada’s 150th anniversary and the 375th Montreal celebrations were an opportunity for us to do so. The five clubs showed a great interest in this project. I am glad it allowed a good exposure to culture, history, nature and gastronomy to our Canadian friends. As Friendship Force Field Representative for Eastern Canada since January 2016, it is a real pleasure to see how good it felt to offer a domestic exchange using a different formula and to get the involvement of so many people! It was a pleasure to have you visiting us and we hope you will use your recently acquired knowledge to become our best spokesperson in the rest of Canada! As a memory jogger, the representatives of the clubs you have visited were: FF Région de Québec: Louis Lamothe and Ginette Delage FF Région de Sherbrooke: Yvon Lamontagne FF Montréal: Guy Bédard FF de la Région de la Capitale Canadienne : Jocelyne Tessier FF Ottawa : Pierrette Benoit The Coordinators were : Yves Thouin Aline Landry I am pleased to have worked on this report for you all! Have a good reading! CHRISTIANE BEAUPRÉ Chair, Coordination Committee July 2017 ARRIVAL JUNE 17 - MUSÉE DES PLAINES - QUEBEC CITY We awoke to grey skies and hoped that the day would bring sunshine for the start of our Journey to Celebrate Canada`s 150th Birthday. At 10 am, twenty ambassadors from Western Canadian clubs, their hosts and the Coordinators of the Journey met at the Plains of Abraham museum. Louis Lamothe, the FF Quebec Host Coordinator, welcomed us with an introduction to our Quebec City Journey. Christiane Beaupre and her husband Yves Thouin arrived from Montreal to welcome us, provide an outline of the Journey itinerary, and have lunch with us before driving back to Montreal. Ginette Delage, the President of the FF Quebec gave us a welcome from her club. Aline Landry, the overall Host Coordinator for the 5 club Journey, welcomed us as well with a short speech. The ambassadors had their photos taken with their hosts and introduced themselves. We all felt very lucky to have been selected for this unique journey visiting five clubs: Quebec, Sherbrooke, Montreal and Capital Region in Quebec and the club in Ottawa. We then moved to a small room for a very creative and entertaining history lesson on the siege for Quebec City between the French and English in 1759. British General Wolfe and French General Montcalm, dressed in their military uniform, provided us with an outline of their battle plan and the outcome of the battle. General Wolfe tried to whip us into shape as his soldiers; he told us how to come to attention and showed us how to load a flint lock gun. We were then shown how to load a canon. Some of our soldiers then went to the front and held their guns to the commands of Wolfe. We were given a demonstration of how our leg would be amputated in a field hospital if we were injured in battle. Various objects (a 12 lb cannon ball, an instrument to perform craniotomies, a small ball for a grape cluster cannon bomb) were passed around. We then enjoyed a box lunch (from Les Saveurs de Nadine) under sunny skies in the courtyard of the Museum. Following lunch, we walked to the Observatoire de la Capitale, or Marie Guyart building, which provides the highest and best view of Quebec City. Our guide Josée took us to the 31st floor which is 221 meters high, and pointed out the landmarks and notable buildings from each of the four points of the compass. The walls on each side of the building provided many facts about Quebec. Upon returning to the lobby we met Bernie, who gave us an entertaining guided tour of old Quebec. Some of the sites we saw were the fortified walls, the Cathedral Holy Trinity, the Musée des Ursulines de Quebec, St Andrew`s Presbyterian Church, the clock from Jura, the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, the Escalier Casse-cou, the Mural of Quebecers and other memorable sites in old Quebec city. We ended our tour in the spot where Champlain built his first settlement. We had some free time before dinner so we went with our host Ginette to have a coffee on St Jean Street, a vibrant street of market stalls and musicians. We walked through J.A. Moisan, a very old grocery store, but unfortunately it was closing so we had to find somewhere else to have our coffee. At 7 pm, we met the rest of the group for a nice dinner at Bistro 1640 located in old Quebec. We had a very busy and interesting day without rain. BY ANGIE AND ANDY GRIKIS-JUNE 17 The day started with a lovely breakfast with our hosts and then onto Montmorency Falls. The falls were quite spectacular; you could hear the roar of the power of the water cascading down. We also had a look at the Bridal Veil Falls which were as the name suggests much more delicate. Then it was off to the Isle de Orleans and what a gorgeous place. There are 7 small towns on the island, all prettier than the other with mostly old style Quebec houses. Our first stop was the Felix Leclerc museum. Felix Leclerc was the first recognized star singer in Quebec although he had to go to Paris to get this recognition. A film was featured of his rise to fame and as it was original footage, it was translated for us by Andre. We then had time to browse through the museum. Lunch followed this and we were treated to a fine lunch at the «Auberge Au Poste de Traite». The building was originally a trading post and very old and had many taxidermy animals of the furs that were traded there. The highlight of the lunch was that owner had just gotten his Canadian citizenship that week and our group sang O Canada to commemorate this. It was very moving. After lunch we stopped at the «Parc des Ancêtres» for a group picture. In this park was a monument where all the early settler families in the region were recorded. Several people in our group had their family names listed. We were to have a tour of the church there but as a Christening was to take place shortly we were only able to have a few minutes inside to look around. Following this, we made a short stop at an observation post and some of us managed to get an ice cream. Next, followed a very nice visit at «Le Jardin des Arts » which featured artisans from all over Quebec. There were wonderful jewellery displays as well as paintings, ceramics and other crafts. From here, we carried on and had a short stop at «La Goéliche» for a nice lookout. Wine tasting followed at Isle de Bacchus winery where we tasted 4 different wines. Then we were off to the Sugar Shack for a maple sugar demonstration and dinner. The demonstration was very informative as many of us did not realize how much work goes into producing our maple sugar. This operation has been in the same family for over a hundred years and still produces all maple products. Dinner was a hearty affair with traditional food, ham, « tourtière», sausage, potatoes, baked beans and of course all made with maple syrup. While dinner was going on, we were serenaded with traditional Quebec music played with an accordion and banjo. After dinner there was a musical spoon competition and some traditional dancing. All in all, a very full and wonderful day. BY HILDA MILLER, JUNE 18 Today we started our day visiting the Parliament buildings in Quebec City, which were built in 1877. After passing through security we gathered in a waiting room where we were asked by our guide to be especially quiet for the first part of our tour, as there was a press conference being held by the members of the opposition. Not an easy accomplishment for FF members. In the front foyer, we were told that the decorative wall ornamentation was primarily «fleur de lys» but there also was a significant compliment of the British rose. We then moved on to the Legislative Assembly, the legislature in Quebec City is called the National Assembly to recognize Quebec as a nation inside the nation of Canada. The C over one of the doors recognized Canada before the country had its own symbol. The maple leaves in the decor represent the maple trees in Quebec and not the maple leaf of Canada. We then went on to the senate room which is primarily used as a committee meeting room.