What a surprise! Sunshine woke us up and we felt a cool refreshing breeze. A perfect day! We used the gazebo in the park to have our breakfast with a wonderful view of the St. Laurence river. It was sad to leave this beautiful place, but we needed to get to Baie-Comeau to explore the city and catch our ferry to Matane at 5PM.

The drive to Baie-Comeau took us by the Manic-1 hydroelectric station which is far smaller than Manic-5 further upstream which we visited 7 years ago. Baie-Comeau has a large pulp and paper mill and the sweet smell of wood in the downtown area could not be missed. Martin tried to get a tour of the plant, but unfortunately, this was not possible. The paper industry in Baie-Comeau dates back to the time of Robert McCormick, the owner of the Chicago Tribune who built the plant to supply paper for his newspaper.

The city had a historical presentation on the life of the pioneers of the area which caught our eye but the building was locked for lunch and didn’t reopen until 1PM. This inspired us to go out for lunch as well and we visited the Manoir du Cafe where we had some delicious waffles with fresh local strawberries, real whipped cream and maple syrup. Delightful!

The exhibition was fascinating because it opened a window to life in the small towns and villages of the North Shore in the early 1900s. Members of the communities who had been children at the time shared their memories of family life, festivities, church, work and hardship in short paragraphs, photos and recordings.

t was now time head to the ferry dock to catch our ride across the St. Laurence to the South Shore. A newly commissioned ship squeezed in as many vehicles as possible. We had to fold in our side mirrors and crawl out through the back door of our van as we only had about 4 inches on each side. The crossing was uneventful and the spaghetti dinner was pretty good.

We left the ferry without a scratch and drove a short distance to the Camping Riviere Matane campground. What a great find! Nicely wooded sites in a real park dedicated to Elspeth Russel, the only woman pilot who flew in the Air Transport Auxiliary during the second World War and for many years after that the only female commercial pilot in Quebec.