Our last full day in Rivière-Ouelle and Kamouraska was planned to be for the Fil Rouge, the Red Circuit which included a specific mini-tour for the Levesque family.
One of the interesting things we both noticed is that, for many of the houses here, the front steps lead to grass or maybe gravel, never to a concrete walkway to the sidewalk or street. Is this because people now always enter from the back where they park their cars? It seems off to see a lovely front porch with steps that just lead to grass. And the driveways are often gravel or grass, not asphalt, making me wonder how they manage to plow them in the winters?
We head out on the circuit to St-Pâcome, where we encountered the beautiful Riviere Saumon, and a lovely old restored mill. There is a tree nearby which rustles so loudly in the wind!
We go to the outskirts of Rivière-Ouelle, and finally get to the huge area of land that belonged to Robert Levesque and a Jeanne Chevalier. Truly a shiver moment, to see that this enormous expanse of land was theirs and they farmed this using simple plows. Their land stretched all the way to the river, as was typical for these concessions of lands.
We had a tour of the Petite École by a young local woman. The school was active 1931-1965, built by local families, and used until the yellow school bushes meant centralizing students in larger schools. This one was grades 1-7, after which children either went to work or went to secondary schools. The second teacher at the school was actually a student when she was younger, with her older sister a teacher, and she herself became the new teacher at age 16! The teacher lived in two tiny rooms on the side of the schoolroom.
Then we went back to the Quai de La Chapelle and out to the wharf area. It was less dramatic than yesterday when a storm was coming in, but still quite windy. We had our picnic lunch at a nice table, where a small path had been cut through the shrubs for the table to ensure a good view. We stopped at the community center, formerly a church, to watch some short documentaries from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, by a local priest.
Finally, we continued on to Pocatiere, the last stop on their the circuit. We saw the large and imposing St Anne’s College, which was designed by Pierre Levesque, one of the largest buildings we’ve seen in the area.
Finally we went back to the Pointe de Rivière-Ouelle, right out where the Rivière-Ouelle meets the St. Lawrence River. We took a walk along the beach, marveling at the large waves and big wind, watching a dad and his son playing soccer on the beach. The driftwood was piled everywhere in artful arrangements by chance, and the grass undulated with the wind … it was quite beautiful.
Then back to the main part of Rivière-Ouelle for dinner. We went over to the school to see the photo exhibit, which had wonderful photos dating back to the 1880s of work and family and school life, truly interesting. We got the Levesque hat for Larry, and headed over to the tent. We saw folks leaving with large styrofoam containers which seemed odd, as we thought it would be dinner in the tent. No, it was indeed a takeout of barbecued chicken, so we lined up and got our two dinners and headed back to Kamouraska.
We decided to walk down to the river’s edge where we had walked two nights ago, and have dinner there. On the way, we walked along the same street which had the house with the four putting greens, and saw a man come out with a dog who seemed to be Atlas’s double. We said hello and how beautiful his dog was, he spoke English well and we had a great chat while he threw the ball to his dog, named Ulysses. His dog was very friendly, with light brown eyes like Atlas, and the same kind of coarse fur. The man said he was a Lab-golden retriever-husky mix, and he had the same curled tail like Atlas’, and the same friendly personality. It made us both a little sad. We asked him about the putting greens, and he said it was a par-3 course, with flags for Quebec, Canada, Ireland, and Barbados, where one of his ancestors was from. He asked if we wanted to see the house, as it was somewhat historic. We jumped at the chance, and walked into a beautifully restored house originally built in the 1880s by his great-great-grandparents. After a fire it was rebuilt per the original with a few changes. It still has a dumbwaiter inside, some historic furniture, and lots of historic photos. He said he did a lot of genealogy and offered to help with our research. He plays hockey during the winter and golf in the summer, he is a retired journalist who had lived and worked all over the world, as his wife was a diplomat. She seemed not surprised as he brought us into the house and introduced us. They had incredible views of the river, and the fact that it has been in the family a long time is so interesting. He noted that he was on the town council and the board of the Kamouraska Museum as a well. We finally parted as the mosquitos started biting. We went back to the gite and had our BBQ chicken dinner which was huge and delicious, with plenty of leftovers for our travel lunch tomorrow.we packed up and got ready to leave in the morning.
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