OUATENAIS - October 28, 2017

Under a smoky blue sky, we leave Boucherville PQ heading west along the St Lawrence River. The clear aqua water boils through the dams and locks that regulate both the transportation and power generation on this stretch of ocean bound water. Channels wander between small islands crisscrossed by bike and walking paths and are connected with arched bridges. Quaint stone and timber homes line tree shaded streets and everywhere the fall colours are at their height. Two cold nights have encouraged maple leaves in hues of burgundy through crimson to clear sunny yellow. The aroma of tobacco wafts from fully-ripe fields of corn that blanket the incredibly flat landscape near Beauharnois, yet at Saint Placide a combine wreathed in a cloud of dust harvests acres of soybeans off land the rolls evenly up to a forested bench land. The river is wide at Hudson where a seasonal car ferry transports vehicles across to Oka. Looking across the water to the magnificent church at city centre and gazing downstream where the white spire of St. Timothie's Basilica rises above the trees, I have a sense of what the early voyageurs and settlers felt paddling towards these outposts of civilization. This is the country that my Cummins ancestors first put down Irish roots in Canadian soil. From there they followed this water highway through the lower Great Lakes to settle a generation later in Prince Arthur's Landing never to stray again.