We extended our stay in Roberval for one more night to partake in the city’s dinner festival of 10,000 people. Really 10,000 people! The city blocks off the main street and sets up tables and chairs. We used our handy Apple Watches to walk from one end to the other and the watch claims we walked 600m. In most places there are two rows of tables, and in some, three rows. In addition, there are tables in parking lots.

You can bring your own meal and drink or you can purchase Lac Saint-Jean Tourtière, along with salad, dessert and a bottle of water for $20 from the IGA. Pickup starts at 5:30. Other restaurants had different selections – one had two large rotisseries with pork and beef.

We still had a bit of time before dinner, so we wandered through town and ended up at the former Ursuline Convent, previously home to 55 nuns. Part of it had burned down some years ago, but some of the wall has been preserved.

Nearby is a museum that offers a glimpse of life during the time of the convent, including tools and historical photographs.

Of particular interest was that the grandfather of one of the women on our tour had lived in this house and there was even a photograph of him from the time. The last owners of the house were artists and there is an exhibition of some of their work upstairs.

Some enterprising people had set up a lemonade stand on the main street and were selling $1 drinks, only to be crushed by a mega-corporation, Tim Horton’s in this case, who served free drinks just a block or two down the street. The little guy always loses!

Tourtière time had now arrived and we were among the first in line to pick up our order. Unlike some other tourtières, the Lac Saint-Jean version includes potato chunks. It was delicious! Dessert was a chocolate cupcake with a blueberry mousse. All in all, a great meal with great company and a chance to practise our French. It was super fun!

No map for today.

The morning started with a swim, this time at the sandy beach which is more suited for children because the water there is rather shallow. It was quite windy this morning and we were warned by two different people that the rocky area where we had gone previously was dangerous.

The weather forecast for today included rain and a risk of thunderstorms, so we chose to drive on rather than go for a hike in this beautiful area. We ended up having to stop at a roadside rest area because the rain in the mountains had become quite severe.

Our plan is to switch over to the south shore of the St. Lawrence River and we chose to take the ferry at Les Escoumins, QC. We arrived at the ferry terminal but there was no chance of getting on today, so we took advantage of the again free municipal campground nearby and will try again tomorrow. There is more demand for this ferry than usual because of strikes at other ferry crossings.

The campground is right next to a river and has very clean washrooms and great sites with picnic tables. The security camera at the entrance is the biggest we’ve ever seen!

After a great sleep in the municipal campground, we drove the short distance to the ferry terminal to be first in line as we didn’t have any reservation. This ferry is extremely busy this year because of strikes at other crossing points. We arrived at 11AM for the 3PM crossing and were told we’d have an 80% chance of getting on. We were put into the number 1 standby parking spot. The nice thing about having a van is that you have your home with you, so it was time for a nap.

The ferry arrived and by now many more vehicles had also arrived and there was some concern we might not be able to board after all. Luckily, after measuring the van length, they managed to squeeze us in. Any by squeezed, we mean squeezed. There were barely 4 inches between vehicles. Getting in and out of the van was quite challenging. The contortionists at Cirque du Soleil would have been proud.

On board we quickly made friends with Rufus and his mom. The dog was pretty stressed and a loud mouthed woman nearby didn’t help. He did finally manage to settle down with reassurance from the three of us.

We continued to Rimouski and stayed in the parking lot/informal campground on the pier right next to the Empress of Ireland museum and Onondaga submarine. We were pretty lucky to still get a spot as the place was packed with RVs of all kinds, even one from the North-West Territories!