Quebecois (People of Quebec)

After surviving the notorious Montreal traffic, we headed east and found a lovely RV park just east of Quebec City. 

The park itself was lovely, immaculate and populated largely by people who owned their spot.  Most spoke only limited English but I dredged up the school French and got by.  Not only were there no Americans but all the license plates were from Quebec.  The site owners all fussed over their lawns and their flowers and it was truly delightful.

View of the pond side sites

You could tell that you were in another culture.  The women were stylishly dressed, the park residents were all sitting out in gliders, conversing with other park residents.  The dogs and children were well behaved, many people smoked and nearly all flew the Quebec flag-not the Canadian flag.  How many times have we seen someone flying the California or Washington State flag?


We planned to spend just one night but with the reports of Irene, decided to hunker down and not head to the Maritimes, as it seemed the closer one got to the Atlantic, the worse it would be.  Wrong.  We ended up staying three nights and the storm weakened to a tropical storm but headed our way.  We put the rig nose into the wind and prepared for the night.  The biggest challenge was taking the boys out-they did not like it at all.

There were hundreds of downed trees

 

Typical village Catholic Church

All official street signs were in French only.  Even the KFC was changed to PFK-Poulet Frite.  Most villages along the St. Lawrence Seaway had a lovely Catholic church dominating the landscape as you drove in.  In our last stop in Quebec Province we encountered a woman whose English was excellent.  She explained that she was from New Brunswick but had a Quebecois boyfriend.  She said she tries to teach him English but it is very difficult.  An Acadian in New Brunswick (more about them later) explained that people in Quebec (outside of Montreal) are afraid of losing their French culture and purposely avoid English.