Emotions run high in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY – After three days here in the provincial capital, I more fervently believe that my Canada includes Quebec and both the country and the province would be diminished by any form of separation. Our history, our culture, our very identity as a nation are so intertwined, it would be impossible to wrest one from the other without destroying both!

That’s not a political statement as much as it is an emotional one. And my emotions have been running high since I left Montreal and started riding along QC Hwy. 138 east, bound for Trois Rivieres.

Never more so than when I took a half-hour cruise under threatening skies from Berthier-sur-Mer on the south shore of the mighty St. Lawrence River or la fleuve Saint-Laurent as it’s known here – to Grosse Ile national historic site where the river starts to widen out to the gulf of the same name.

In the late 1840s, with the ravages of potato blight wiping out the only form of payment made to poor Irish sharecroppers by their English and largely absentee landlords, thousands of my people were forced to choose between starvation or fleeing to Canada, the U.S., Australia and beyond, seeking a new life far from kin and country.

It’s not right to call this a famine when shipments to England of other agricultural products – livestock, vegetables and grain -- continued unaffected and unhindered by the tragedy unfolding for the Irish croppies.

Thousands of emigrants depopulated rural Ireland. Hundreds of them died in the overloaded and filthy, disease-ridden “coffin ships.” Those who survived the cruel 40-plus-day passage to America were put off in quarantine on islands like Grosse Ile, where the pitiful resources and inadequate medical treatment of the day meant many thousands more perished before ever getting a chance to realize their dream.

Under the towering Celtic cross memorial erected in 1909 by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to the 7,500 souls buried on the island, there are dozens of names like Kenny, Devlin and Dolan – some of them likely my ancestors – who preceded my parents, Douglas and Brigid, my brother Liam and me -- and as he reminded me yesterday, my brother Paul in vitro – to a new life in this great country of ours.

I wiped away a few tears wondering what m parents must have been thinking as they sailed past the mist-shrouded islands and mountainous shores of the river that August in 1956! I shed a few more knowing that we got a chance to succeed – and are successful unto another generation -- where ill fate and ill fortune beset so many poor sods who cast their chances on the Atlantic before us.

That wasn’t the first of my memories that came rushing back east of Montreal. In Repentigny, I suddenly remembered an exchange trip I made here in 1967, the year of Canada’s centennial.

I stayed with a kid named Jean-Pierre, also about 11, whose father worked as a Hydro-Quebec engineer on the massive Manicouagan 5 project. Nevermind that the only new phrase I recall learning was “Ferme ta guele!” – a pretty rude way of telling someone to shut up!

But I was pretty proud of the fact that nearly 50 years later, I was able to purchase sunscreen and toothpaste at a drugstore and get directions back to the autoroute in French! Score one for Visites Interprovinciales, the agency that sponsored that long-ago exchange trip.

A few more miles east found me looking for gas in Berthierville. Quite by accident, I stumbled upon Musee Gilles Villeneuve, dedicated to the iconic Formula One racer who died in an accident at the 1982 Belgian Gran Prix. He was just 32 and at the top of his sport driving for Ferrari.

The museum tracks his career from his earliest days as a snowmobile racer, his brief but impressive career in one of the world’s fastest sports and his family life in and around Berthierville. They even have his Ford truck that he went off-roading in during his "quiet time"

I remember being shocked and saddened by the death of one of Canada’s international sporting figures who was as popular as any hockey star of the era. It’s a fine museum and well worth the $10 admission.

I’ve seen some things in more than 40 years of riding motorcycles, but nothing like what I saw just outside Trois Rivieres. I had just finished lunch at the Restaurant Grec Baie-Jolie on the shores  when a couple perhaps a little older than me came out headed for a sweet-looking orange Goldwing trike. I was surprised to see le madame help le monsieur into his leather jacket. Then she carefully put his helmet on and buckled it up for him.

I realized he had some kind of brain injury as she gently helped him up onto the passenger seat of the trike, buckled her own helmet and fired up the big machine. “Ready?” she asked him in French. He tapped her on the shoulder and they were off, her laughing and giving me a thumbs up and him smiling behind her, the sun on their faces and wind at their back.

If that ain’t love, then I don’t know what is! We should all be so lucky!

I spent the night in Trois Rivieres – named for the two islands that split the mouth of the St. Maurice River where it meets the St. Lawrence.

From there, I headed north to Shawinigan, hometown of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I didn’t visit his museum, still angry at the corruption scandal that marked the end of an otherwise illustrious political career. His petty decision to seek a fourth term poisoned the well for his successor Paul Martin, who may have been one of our best PMs had it not been for the Chretien scandals he was saddled with.

I stopped for lunch in St-Tite, home of a major Western festival and rodeo every September, something that I’m sure most Canadians don’t know. Voted "Best Outdoor Rodeo in North America" since 1999, it annually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Mauricie tourist region. I wonder how you say “yee haw” in French!

The rain started as I left the town and at one point was so heavy, I had to pull up under a bridge. After 20 minutes or so, I gave up waiting for it to lessen and slogged on through to Quebec City, thanking once again my decision to purchase a Scott Turn TP riding suit. On several occasions in rain, wind and even snow, it has lived up to its claims to be waterproof, windproof and warm.

I toured the Old City of Quebec, starting at the Plains of Abraham, where a bold move by English General James Wolfe to scale the rocky cliffs -- thought by the French to be impregnable -- that led to the defeat of his French counterpart Louis-Joseph de Montcalm in 1759, which proved to be a deciding moment in the conflict between the French and the English, putting New France under English rule, ultimately leading to the creation of Canada, to say nothing about the seemingly endless debate over Quebec’s place in the country and indeed the world.

I visited the historic Chateau Frontenac and the Citadelle, spiritual home to the Canadian Army’s 22nd Regiment, the famous VanDoos! Quebec is said to be the only North American city north of Mexico City to retain its original walled fortifications.

I took a long, hot walk around the shops and restaurants of the old quarter, checking out some of the churches and religious buildings that give Quebec – the city and the province – it’s distinctly Catholic flavour.

I also found a centuries-old cannonball embedded in the base of a tree. Local legend has it that the huge iron ball dates from the Battaille du Quebec, some 255 years ago. The more likely explanation is that it was placed there possibly a 100 years later to keep the wheels of horse-drawn carriages from catching on the tree when they made a tight right-hand turn from one cobbled street into another.

And here’s yet another example of the many acts of kindness shown to me by the two-wheels-and-a-motor community during this trip. Faced with daunting prospect of getting out of downtown Quebec City at rush hour, mon ange gardien appeared in the form of fellow rider Luc who led me to the correct highway and directed me to the cutoff for my hotel in the city’s east end! Merci, mon chum! Tu etait tres gentil!

I’m going to take a circuit around Ile d’Orleans on the suggestion of three guys from Toronto who put the big and hairy in big, hairy bikers. They turned out to be real nice Harley riders who kindly shared an ice-cold beer and some tales from the road when I got back from Berthier-sur-Mer after a 45-minute ride in the blazing summer sun.

They are thrashing back to Toronto today, an 800-kilometer ride. Ride safe, guys!

Speaking of acts of kindness, to date I have raised more than $2,000 for my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.