Day 12 – Quebec to Rivière Ouelles: Farewell, les Filles Du Roy, bad News

Distance: 134km

Elevation: 536m

I got up and Marianne and Pierre had already prepared breakfast. We ate at their balcony overlooking the old harbor of Quebec. Very beautiful.

We did not speak much. Pierre walked me out and we said farewell.

I took the ferry across the river and continued my tour on the south shore.

Here, everything was a bit more basic and looked less expensive than the days before. I liked it a lot.

In the morning I went slow and made many stops. Whenever I stopped, some people would always come and talk to me in French to learn about my project and sometimes they would tell me proudly about their country. I really liked this openness of the people here.

I met two young cyclists from the area, Farielle & Charles, who were doing 35km per day. Very cute! They were very inspired by an old man cycling so long distances and were asking if I felt any pain. I did not 😉

The further I cycled East the more I cycled back in history. The settlement of Canada began by ships sailing deeper and deeper into the Saint Laurent Stream.

The many churches along the way and their foundation years were witness to that settlement process.

I came through Saint Michelle de Bellechasse were allegedly some of the „Filles du Roy“ had stepped on land.

This had been a group of 700 woman, single or widowed, who had been recruited under Louis XIV and sent to the colony „Nee France“ basically to mate with settlers and populate the colony.

https://www.tfcg.ca/filles-du-roi

I also came to Bethier-sur-Mer and had a break there. It was beautiful but the sky was kind of werd. Everything was full of smog and you could not see the sun.

Later that day I learned that this came from wildfires in the West. They had also destroyed half of the town of Jasper in British Columbia, a place were I had been two years ago and with which I connected fond memories.

That was a bit of a shock.

In the afternoon, I needed to speed up to reach my campsite directly by the big river.

Very late, I was joined by a young family, Matthieu and Claudia, who was cycling from Montreal to Halifax with their four year old daughter.

They invited me on a glass of wine and we a had a good chat until late.

All in all, a very good day.