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magazine / jun08
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June 2008 issue |
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Down, with love (page 2)
With the help of a few colleagues, Bédard founded La Société Duvetnor Ltée
in 1979 and soon purchased Les Pèlerins archipelago, just upstream, as well as sev-
eral other islands from two local families. Then, in 1986, after six years of protracted
negotiations with a private company, Duvetnor acquired its crown jewel:
Île aux Lièvres. In 1989, the organization opened two of the islands to visitors and
hasn’t looked back.
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Islands in the stream
The islands and coastal villages of the St. Lawrence Estuary are brimming with striking scenery and
Canadian history.
Îles du Pot à l’Eau-de-Vie (Brandy Pot Islands) are uninhabited, apart
from birds and seals, but visitors can spend the night at the lighthouse on
Pot du Phare. The three islands are sated with history, from shipwrecks to
booze smuggling, and they are accessible only through the guided tours
operated by La Société Duvetnor from Rivière-du-Loup. www.duvetnor.com
Kamouraska village and archipelago evoke early Canadian history.
Fishing nets hang stretched in front of homes dotting the coastline. Historical
buildings include a courthouse and a convent, both built in the mid-1800s,
which now house an art and history centre and a museum, respectively.
Fish markets and bakeries add to the old-world charm and offer a taste of
traditional local cuisine. At low tide, many of the smaller islands along the
archipelago are accessible by foot. The coastal village of Kamouraska
can be reached by Autoroute Jean-Lesage/Highway 20 (exit 465) or
coastal Highway 132. The archipelago is accessible from the village.
Tadoussac, the oldest village in Canada and the site of the first
official fur-trading post, is another historical gem. It was here that
Champlain and other pioneers wrote the first pages of North American
history. Those with an eye for scenery will appreciate the Bay of Tadoussac,
one of the world’s most beautiful bays. From the east, Tadoussac can
be reached by Route 138 West and from the west, by a free 10-minute
ferry ride (offered several times a day) from Baie-Sainte-Catherine.
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Duvetnor has an unusual funding model — also Bédard’s brainchild. It supports
itself through the sale of eiderdown, which employees collect by hand from
12,000 nests on local islands during a two-week sweep each spring. Duvetnor
then cleans and sells the down in Europe for the manufacture of comforters and
clothing. Bédard tells me the group sold 70 kilograms of the stuff in 2007, almost
twice as much as in previous years.
We also talk about the changes to
Île aux Lièvres since my last visit: There
have been deliberately few. Duvetnor now
offers boat trips to nearby islands, where
visitors can better observe the region’s
cliff-dwelling birds and scan the cobalt-
blue water for belugas. It has added a
simple auberge (offering a menu of local
cuisine) to the handful of rustic campsites
and cottages available to visitors who
wish to spend the night. And there’s now
a café, operating solely on wind and solar
power, to serve the increasing number of
hikers who make the crossing for a day.
But there are still no telephones and no
mountain biking or kayaking allowed.
For the next few days, I’ll be spending
my time exploring the forests, climbing
the ridge that forms the island’s backbone
and peering into its tidal pools on foot.
Bédard, whose knowledge of this
13-kilometre-long strip of land and passion for its preservation are unmatched,
sets off for his home on the mainland, as
I head toward my campsite for the night.
I pass a few day trippers walking in the
opposite direction as I hike La Grande
Course, a broad trail running the length
of the island. By the time I make camp
under a canopy of aspen, it’s almost dusk.
I’ve never camped alone before but take
comfort in the fact that the island’s sights
and sounds are familiar.
The next morning, the tide is out
and the island takes on a different shape.
Vast mud flats paved with rocks and mus-
tard-coloured seaweed distort the coast-
line, stretching toward Rivière-du-Loup,
eight kilometres south. I pick up a trail,
appropriately called Des Eiders, that
follows the rocky shore at low tide. By
midday, I’ve encountered an array of rocks:
finely layered shales, sharp to the touch
and splintery, as well as slabs of granite
that have been buffeted by brackish water
since the Champlain Sea receded.
This starkly beautiful scenery repeats
itself the next day, with nuances, as I
round the eastern tip of the island, cross-
ing from the south shore to the north.
But the sounds change. Reclined along
the string of boulders pointing east toward
the Atlantic like a bowsprit are more than
a dozen grey and harbour seals. Their
barks punctuate the monotony of breaking
waves. I scan the horizon for belugas, but
I don’t see any.
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