August 20, 2017:
During last night’s sail, we took a detour off the St. Lawrence seaway into the Saguenay Fjord; a deep glacial fjord which has an intriguing mix of very rich cold tidal water flowing in from the Labrador current running through the St. Lawrence estuary, overlaid with a much thinner layer of fresh river water running into the fjord down the Saguenay River from Lac St. Jean. Since the fjord is open to the ocean, it has very abundant sea life, and whales follow that sea life up the fjord most of the way to Saguenay. Notably, the fjord is home to a small population of Beluga whales, which have probably populated the fjord since the last ice age. Sadly, this particular population is highly endangered, with only about 1,000 of them remaining. For this reason, the entire fjord area and some of the St. Lawrence estuary beyond has been named as a national marine park (with attendant restrictions on human interaction with the whales) in order to protect them. Overlaying the marine park is a national land park, stretching several miles inland from the shores of the fjord. This map generally shows the area we have entered.
Our activity du jour consists of a hike up into the national park in order to better see the fjord. However, since that didn’t happen until later this afternoon, Jim and I had time to walk into town and wander around. One thing you notice immediately is how many greeters are on hand to welcome you to the Saguenay region. All the greeters are volunteers, and there are about 50 of them that spring into action every time a cruise ship comes into town. As we later learned from our guide, tourism is now the number one industry here, although historically, the town was originally a huge logging and lumber/paper/pulp processing area. More recently (and still), the town is also home to a large aluminum smelting operation, which is crazy when you consider that bauxite does not naturally occur here, thus requiring it to be shipped in constantly. This enterprise only makes sense financially because of the abundance of cheap Canadian power, which is made possible by the numerous dams creating hydropower.
The guide was quick to tell us that the Saguenay region sees tourists for all four seasons, which seems hard to believe, given how remote it is (about 3 hours by car from Québec in the best of conditions), and that the town regularly gets 9 meters of snow, while the surrounding hills routinely get 30 meters! Apparently, ice fishing is also a big winter sport, but with temperatures that get down to minus 40 degrees every winter, the prospective charm of this is lost on us.
Jim and I wandered around town, and visited a local craft market. Then we hiked up to the upper elevations of the town to get the best views of the fjord, and returned to the ship through the lovely seaside park. There were numerous cafés with outside seating, but all I could think of was the snow accumulations soon to come.
We boarded school busses for our tour out to the Fjord du Saguenay National Park. There, a park ranger met us, and led us on a hike up a very rustic path, climbing about 200 meters up to a lookout overlooking Cape Trinity inlet. The Park is home to abundant wildlife, including moose, beavers, marmots, foxes, snowshoe hares, lynx, grey wolves and black bears. However, we saw none of them, but enjoyed a very fragrant hike through the woods nonetheless!
Upon our descent, it was time to beat feet back to the ship, because tonight was “Block Party” night aboard. This means that everyone gathers in the hallways outside their bedrooms to meet their neighbors, while the ship staff passed wine and appetizers. It was really nice meeting our cabin mates, and we learned that several of them are also from Southern California.
Then Jim and I went up to the top bow of the ship to watch the sunset cruise out the fjord. I was fortunate to catch a carved statue of the Virgin Mary high atop the entrance to Cape Trinity just as we lost the light. We ended the day with a lively dinner with a British couple we met earlier on the hike, Rob and Sarah, which made for a really special cap to a super day.
Vaya con Gringos 