The Grand River Dinner Cruise

Well, this vid. is late in being edited... and uploaded. I can't remember exactly when we did the cruise. (I'm thinking August although it could have easily been July!!)... Anyways...

Whenever it was, I took a day off work during the summer to attend a dinner cruise with mum and dad. Although we all had a great time, I have to confess, I felt a little out of sorts... I was most definitely among the very few that didn't feel the need to colour their hair to hide any greys.

I had a great time, though. The food was good. The music was a great mix of old and newish folk songs. And the captain of our boat kept us entertained with his running narrative of Grand River stories. (One that comes to mind is of one little boy who accidentally tried to drawn his father's brand new sports car in the river.)


grand river dinner cruise from dontpanic on Vimeo.

Tadoussac Pix

The town of Tadoussac is very small and built mainly on the summer tourist industry. We heard that in the winter months the town is virtually deserted because of its -40C temperature. We met a waitress in a cafe who had just spent her first year in the town and said "it was a long and hard winter with not much to do because most businesses closed up shop for the season". These conditions, of course, bring the many transient workers to the town for the summer months.

The Hotel Tadoussac (which is where we stayed) is the oldest and largest hotel in town. It first opened its doors to the European tourists, who wanted a taste of the Canadian wilds, in 1864. Since then it has become famous for its picturesque scenery and fabulous dinning. In 1 of the three restaurants they have an "all-you-can-eat" buffet, which we took full advantage of in both our breakfasts and dinners.

The picture of the painting (above) is of the Tadoussac hotel that was hanging in the lobby entrance. As we were leaving, I suddenly realized that I didn't have a picture of the hotel itself!!

As I've said before, the whale trip itself was fantastic. The boat we were on was called the Dufour. This 3 deck boat could have held a capacity of 500 people during the peak of the season, but since it was early we were only 75 (many of whom were local school children).

Tadoussac & Back

So, a few weeks ago my parents and I took a trip to Tadoussac, Quebec, which is roughly 3 hours outside of Quebec City. Traveling time was enjoyable, but long!! I think in total it was about 8 hours by train and then another 3 hours by car.

'Was the trip worth it?' Yes!! I would definitely do this trip again later on in the summer season.

The motivation behind this 3 day excursion was to go whale watching at the mouth of the St. Lawrence river. To be honest, though, I think we were a little to early to see many of the whales and the different pods that feed there during the summer months, however, we did manage to see a few Fin, Minky and Beluga whales.

We have friends who did this trip a number of years ago one August. They saw many whales even from shore, (which is why I wouldn't mind going back).

Enjoy this vid. recap. I apologize in advance if the whale parts make you nauseous. The footage is not fantastic, but I was having fun with the camera. My disclaimer is that it was very windy (and therefore v. choppy) out on the water.