We woke up this morning in Baie-Comeau, Québec and opened our windows to see the rain coming down. It kept raining throughout the morning as all of the other excursions left the ship. It was still raining when we boarded our school bus to take us to Nature Park Pointe-Aux-Outardes. But when we got to the park, the rain stopped and we had a wonderful 90-minute walk with Fred, an official park guide.
The park has nine distinct ecosystems; our walk took us into three of them, beginning with the boreal forest. Fred explained how the spruce beetle kills off old weak trees to make room for new trees to grow.
He also pointed out many of the trees and other plants in the forest.
Our next ecosystem was the salt marsh. Before the park was established, the locals would ride ATVs and dune buggies on the marsh – and they still do outside the park boundary. Hunters also enjoy the marsh (outside the park, of course). Fred described the marsh as “kidneys” (unlike the forest, which is the lungs) because it purifies the water that flows into the dunes at high tide and returns to the river at low tide.
We continued on to the sand dunes.
We passed by the Fir and Spruce Forest on our way back to the visitor centre, but I didn’t take any photos there.
After being served some Labrador Tea at the visitor centre, we had a chance to walk on the beach for a few minutes before getting on the bus to return to the ship.
We passed a monument to the pioneers on our way back to town, as well as the hotel that Colonel Robert McCormick (publisher of the Chicago Tribune and founder of Baie-Comeau) built for visiting executives.
We had a few minutes before “All Aboard!”, so I enjoyed the sunshine, the view, and the birds.
The rain returned soon after we sailed away, but it didn’t last long, and Diane and I enjoyed some rainbows.
It started raining again, and the forecast is pretty bad for the next couple of days. The captain said that we should be able to dock at tomorrow’s port, Gaspé, but we’ll have to skip Wednesday’s stop at Îles de la Madeleine. Instead, we’ll spend a few extra hours in Gaspé and then sail directly to Charlottetown, PEI and arrive there Wednesday night instead of the planned Thursday morning arrival.
We’ll see.