5. From Lac Saint-Jean to Lake Superior

Storyline: Road Trip with Milan 2018

After the fjords and the whale watching the next major stop was on Lake Superior, where I had booked a room in a lodge on the shore, just south of Wawa. It was where Michipicoten River meets the lake. We had 3 nights to get to there. I hadn’t booked these nights, since we hadn’t decided how we’d join these two points on the map.

There are not many roads connecting Saguenay, Quebec with Wawa, Ontario. If you look at the map, the options are to either drive all the way south to civilization south of Mt. Tremblant and then back north-west to Val-d’Or, or try to stay north on small and sometimes unpaved roads. I don’t like retracing my steps.

So north-west it was. Perhaps we could reach Chibougamau in a day and see if we could stay there for the first of the next 3 nights.

And so, we left L’Anse-Saint-Jean early in the morning (later, Alex would notice he had forgotten his hat, something that had been happening frequently recently – in 2019 we had to replace a hat in Melbourne Australia, after we had already recovered it once, thanks to an unknown stranger, in Milford Sound, New Zealand). We’d stop at Saguenay for breakfast, drive on Rd. 169 around the south shore of Lac Saint-Jean and then take Rd. 167 north. We’d play it by ear, but there would be nowhere to stay overnight after the lake until we reached Chapais or Chibougamau.

The City of Saguenay is relatively new. I remember Chicoutimi from our 1998 trip. In 2002 the city of Chicoutimi, known for its pulp and paper industry together with Jonquière, know for its aluminum plant, and a few other towns were amalgamated to form the new city of Saguenay, which became the seat of the judicial district of Chicoutimi.

As we entered Saguenay, we noticed a car following us. The signs for Tim Hortons (a popular Canadian fast-food chain) were plenty, but how to get to it wasn’t quite clear. So, we stopped to ask around. The car following us also stopped and the guy speaking English offered his help. After hearing our destination, he instructed us to follow him. This apparently lonely English-speaking guy in a heavily French-Quebecois area where no one spoke English, joined us for his breakfast. He was married here and was yearning to find a fellow English speaker, which he hoped he’d find in a car with Ontario plates. We were after all in the heartland of the Quebec sovereigntists and it was understandable nostalgia.

We, however, had a long day’s drive ahead of us, and much to his disappointment we didn’t spend much time chatting. Gobbled our breakfast in a hurry and off we went towards the unknown. We had to first cross the vast territory of the Réserve Faunique Ashuapmushuan with no signs of any civilization. It is a wildlife reserve, with over 1,200 lakes said to be a paradise for fishermen, and with spectacular nature for wilderness lovers. Somewhere in the middle of the reserve we noticed a small road forking off the main road.

It was early afternoon and we needed a refreshment and lunch break. We drove on a dirt road to a small campground with a few cabins. As with everything else in mud-June it was not yet open for the season. However, there was a guy working at the reception shack and he directed us to functioning toilets. We also had our sandwiches in the shack. Although the third week of June, it was wet and cool outside.

The drive through the park was nice, yet long. We met no one except the guy at the campsite and an occasional truck or car driving in the opposite direction.

Our next stop was at the gas station at the crossroads of Rd. 167 curving north-east to Chibougamau and Rd. 113 continuing west to Chapais. Given the time we had, and the fact that the next day we had to continue west, we decided to head to Chapais. Looked like there was a hotel/motel in this place, good enough for overnight. Hôtel Opémiska. We called them from the gas station and booked an apartment with a small kitchenette and 2 bedrooms for the night. A small breakfast was included.

We reached Chapais shortly after 5:30PM. This former mining town is the host of the first in Quebec cogeneration (a combined heat and power) plant to produce electricity from the local sawmill’s waste matter. There was absolutely nothing open aside from a tiny convenience store. We bought a few cans of coke for Alex and Milan (I don’t do coke?) and some mediocre bread for our sandwiches. Coming from Europe, where good crusty bread is baked and delivered daily, and living in a big city where one can find a variety of good bread, I am always disappointed by the mediocre sliced and prepackaged ‘plastic’ bread sold in smaller communities as the only option (and sold in larger communities, too: it tastes as cheap as it costs – A). Well, there are usually two options – white or brown. There wasn’t much to see in this small town either. Still drizzling (it would pour later in the evening), so we didn’t explore the area much, although it is a starting point for many outdoor activities.

Milan would discover the apparently most populous living creatures in Canada – the mosquitoes. So far, we’d been and hiked in open areas with fewer of them. But here in Chapais one could not escape them. I made some pasta for dinner. There was a TV, but you know it by now, we are not TV fans. Milan would watch it, although he wouldn’t understand a thing.

In day two we’d reach Amos. By now I had booked a hotel/motel in the city centre and a hotel in Timmins Ontario for the following night. We could probably make it from Chapais to Timmins in a full day’s drive, but the idea was not to spend 10 hours behind the wheel. There wasn’t much on the agenda until we reached Lake Superior but exploring life and nature in this part of Quebec. We hoped to spend some time in a Cree community – Waswanapi. Alas, with the weather still not cooperating, we’d only stop to refill the car and the snacks at the local depanneur (Quebecois for what we call a convenience store). There were a few local residents around, but our language skills did not allow for a good conversation. The Cree girl at the depanneur, however, surprised us with good English.

We took our time, driving on some small and dirt/gravel-surfaced but direct roads, and still arrived early in the afternoon. Good enough to have our lunch at a picnic table by the river. Dinner would be at the local restaurant of the hotel.

Amos, located in the heart of the Abitibi region, is the main town on Harricana river, one of the region’s major waterways that flows into James Bay. Known initially for its gold and wood products and its spring water, it hosts Canada’s first lithium mine. It is a nice northern city with the wide river flowing through it. And finally, it was dry and sunny for our exploration walk.

We were in no hurry the next day either. In Timmins we were back to civilization, staying in a hotel in the city centre. There was a pow wow (indigenous peoples’ social gathering exhibiting traditional clothing, music, dance & food) just winding up – wish we had arrived just a little earlier.

However, it was near an outdoor outfitter store where, after having to fend them off the last two days, we decided to buy mosquito net headgear. We’d have 3 days on the shores of Lake Superior and we thought that we may need them. And as per Murphy’s Law, this mosquito gear sits still unused in our closet (Murphy’s Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn’t work – A).

On the way to Lake Superior the next day we stopped in Chapleau, a small town a little more than halfway to our destination, known for its Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) rail yards. Although we were on a road trip, we wouldn’t miss the opportunity to say hello to our favorite mean of transport, the trains.