O’ Canada

When the Rolling Stones’ performed their new single “Time Is On My Side” on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Mick Jagger must have truly believed those words as a young 21 year old. Now, at age 79, even Sir Mick acknowledges that time isn’t exactly on his side and that “rock n’ roll isn’t supposed to be done” at his age but if you’re going to do it, “it’s got to be as full-on as possible”.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that time is definitely not on our side. Health scares, pandemics, an insurrection, and climate change all bring our mortality and the importance of experiencing life “as full on as possible” much more in focus. That’s not to say that Team Pea has been sitting around eating bonbons, watching the clock tick away since early 2020. We’ve been on road trips, short and long. We’ve attended a wedding that was delayed a year by COVID-19. We’ve visited friends all around the country, making up for lost time and experiencing places that would never have been on our bucket list. Like an airboat swamp ride on an alligator ranch in Moss Point, Mississippi.  Really. Life is full of unexpected surprises.

The one thing we haven’t had since January 2020 is what you’d call a “Big Trip”, an adventure that’s unusual and perhaps a little hazardous. It doesn’t have to be extreme and, in fact, our friend and official trip leader often says that part of any adventure is the unexpected, whether it’s coming across a great coffee shop in the middle of nowhere or a day with three flat tires on your bike. I recently read a post from a blogger who wrote “Big Trips can happen in unlikely circumstances; your days on the road can be lengthened, the mundane made epic, not just by where you’re going, but how you’re going and what happens along the way.” 

A year ago we were a week away from starting another Big Trip, ready to cycle a northern portion of the East Coast Greenway from Bar Harbor, Maine to Norfolk, Virginia with the same friends we’d biked from Chicago to New York City with in 2019. My cardiologist derailed those plans when he said “you need open heart surgery… this week”. Life is full of unpleasant surprises.

Now, with international borders open and heart surgery in the rear view mirror, it’s time for another Big Trip. We’re packing our bags and heading to Canada for a monthlong cycling trip through parts of the Quebec province. This trip was originally planned for 2020. COVID-19 shut down those plans. It was rescheduled for 2021. The Canadian border closure wiped that out, but the group pivoted to the East Coast Greenway adventure, which we were packed and ready for until the doctors said “hell no”. 

Why Quebec? Easy. Because no sooner had the Chicago to NYC trip ended in 2019 when Bob, our in-house ride leader and trip planner sent an email to the group, asking “who wants to go to Quebec?”. All we had to do was say “YES” and Bob went to work on the plan. Of course, none of us knew that the “Quebec 2020” plan would end up turning into “Quebec 2022”, but once Bob updated the itinerary, Bev went to work analyzing each day’s route and conducting online research. This included cross-referencing the routes with Google Maps, Google Street View, travel blogs, and other online sources to catalog points of interest, coffee shops, bakeries, breweries, and any historical, odd or funky places to see on each day of the trip. The collective planning that goes into a trip like this is a labor of love.

So, a little bit about this Big Trip. Starting and ending in Montreal, we’ll ride nearly 1,300 miles and ascend just over 45,000 feet in total elevation. In between, we’ll ride through Quebec’s Eastern Townships, up the St. Lawrence River as far as Tadoussac (where the Saguenay River flows into the St. Lawrence), down to Quebec City, into the Laurentian mountains, and over to Ottawa, before finally returning to Montreal. We’ll average 52 miles per day and will enjoy layover days in Quebec City, Tadoussac, Trois Rivieres, Mont Tremblant, and Ottawa.

Our route follows a portion of the La Route Verte (The Green Route), the longest network of cycling trails in North America, crisscrossing some of Quebec’s most scenic regions and connecting the province to neighboring bikeways in Ontario, New Brunswick and the United States. The entire Route Verte is nearly 3,300 miles long with a mix of bike paths, protected bike lanes and wide shoulders on roads, all with clear signage. We’ll only be riding a portion of it and there will be times when we detour off of it for various reasons. 

Preparations for this trip have been a  little different than prior ones. Border crossings, language barriers, weather, and riding through remote rural regions all present challenges. 

The first hurdle is just getting into Canada. Although the border is technically open to Americans, simply showing up with your passport and COVID vaccination card won’t get you in. All visitors must download the ArriveCAN app and upload their passport and vaccination record. Then, within 72 hours prior to arriving in Canada, travelers must log on to the app, input their trip plans, and receive a receipt with a letter (I, A, or V) indicating their status for entry. Once at the border, each person must provide their ArriveCAN receipt, passport and a hard copy of their COVID vaccination card. Additionally, although fully vaccinated visitors are not required to present a negative COVID PCR test, nearly everyone is subject to random COVID screening that, if selected, must be completed via a Telehealth appointment within 24 hours after entering Canada. In the worst case scenario, one of us would test positive and be required to isolate during the first ten days of the trip, hopefully asymptomatic and well enough to ride a bike each day. As our departure date grows nearer, we exercise greater caution.

Once in Quebec, language becomes the next challenge. Montreal is Anglo-Franco with nearly everyone speaking English and French. Signage in Montreal is in both languages and there should be few communication challenges beyond understanding local accents. Outside of Montreal, we will neither hear nor see much English. Quebec is a staunchly francophone province, with over 90% of the population counting French as their mother tongue.

The French origins go all of the way back to 1534 when Jacques Cartier landed there and took symbolic possession of the land, boldly called New France, claiming it in the name of the King. Cartier didn’t discover Quebec; indigenous people had arrived thousands of years earlier. Instead, he erected a large cross with “Long Live the King of France” written on it and proceeded to make a failed attempt at colonization. Then he kidnapped two Iroquois natives, sons of a chief, and returned to France, where the captives told the king of a territory overflowing with wealth. The following year, Cartier set off again for Quebec, this time with three ships and the two Iroquois, now dressed European style and speaking some French, and finally being returned to their community. Colonization didn’t begin in earnest until Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and the French began settling in the St. Lawrence Valley in very small numbers, with only about 400 settlers by 1634, one hundred years after Cartier planted his cross.

In the meantime, England and France were seemingly always at war with each other, both on European soil and in the French colonies. The British arrived in the early 1700s and in 1763 New France was ceded to Britain. Hoping to retain the loyalty of their new subjects, the British granted Catholics freedom of religious practice and recognized the French civil code.  Territorial boundaries and provincial governments changed over time, with Canada eventually adopting its own constitution and becoming a completely independent country in 1982 while remaining part of the British Commonwealth. However, the French influence in Quebec has remained entrenched for over 400 years.

In preparation for riding in the province, Bev has been studying basic French online and I’ve tried to brush off some of the French that I learned way back in college. We know how to greet people, introduce ourselves, say please and thank you, ask where the toilets are, and how to order beer and wine. Bev also knows the word for “dog” so she’s prepared to point at an owner’s dog, say “chien”, and make a petting gesture. I think we’re covered. For anything more than that, knowing how to use Google Translate will be essential. We’ve also learned more about Quebec’s history by reading “History of Quebec For Dummies”, which is not as dumb as it sounds.

Because we’ll be riding further north during autumn, we’re sure to get rained on for at least a few days. When the only way to get from one town to the next is by getting on our bicycles, good rain and wind gear is critical. We’ve upgraded our apparel with better rain pants, waterproof gloves, and an improved helmet cover that looks a lot like Darth Vader’s helmet. In addition to rain, we’ll experience a wide range of temperatures as the calendar marches from early September into October and when the route climbs to higher elevations. We’ll be packing lots of layers, preparing for temperatures from the mid-40s to the mid-70s.

We’ve also made a couple of minor alterations to our bikes for this trip. To stow all of the layers we may need to add or remove during each day, we purchased handlebar bags. We’ve previously used bags attached to a rear rack but found them slightly inconvenient and at times unstable on steep descents. The name of the handlebar bags was a bonus selling point: the California Burrito. Sigh… if only it came with a real one inside. Because some portion of the route is on gravel bike paths (the majority of it is paved surfaces), we’ve put wider tires (32cm) on our bikes, ones specifically made for multi-surface riding. These will help keep us upright on less than ideal road conditions.

Finally, like all of our multi-day cycling trips, we’ll be staying in hotels and inns. Shawn, the trusted and beloved bike mechanic who joined us for our 2019 Chicago-NYC ride will be with us again in Quebec. Shawn is our mechanical support, drives a rented van loaded with our luggage to each location along our route, and always improves morale along the way. 

Itinerary booked. Passports and proof of vaccination uploaded. Gear purchased and tested. Logistics nailed down. In the words of Mick, we’ve gotta go “as full-on as possible”. It’s time to get this Big Trip started.