Quebec Day Two

Start: Montreal
End: Granby
Mileage/cumulative: 69.61 / 119.10
Elevation Ascended/cumulative: 1,004 / 2,162
Weather: Start – Sunny 66 degrees / Finish – Sunny 82 degrees
Flat tires (entire group) day/cumulative: 0 / 0

The group was buzzing with excitement this morning, ready to leave Montreal and ride eastward into the country. The city was fun but this group is made for riding long distances and moving from town to town. Bob T., our designated unofficial navigator who has some freakishly brilliant internal GPS, led us out of Montreal as we crossed the St. Lawrence river for the third time in two days. It wasn’t long before we popped out into farmland and beautiful views of the Richelieu River.

The Richelieu runs north-south with the Chambly Canal running alongside it. The canal is a National Historic Site of Canada, constructed in 1831 and opened in 1843. It is part of a waterway that connects the St. Lawrence River with the Hudson River in the United States and served as a major commercial route between the two countries until post World War I. Today it still operates for recreational vessels.

Our route took us along the canal, which has ten bridges and nine hydraulic locks, all hand operated. We watched as a sailboat passed through one of the locks and had the opportunity to speak with the boat owners and lock operators. The boat captain and his wife/partner were sailing to the Bahamas and hoped to reach Florida in December, three months from now. He was not your typical boat “captain”, looking more like a cross between a pirate and a character from a Jimmy Buffet song. The lock operator explained that during the summer, the operators are stationed at a specific lock to handle the amount of steady traffic coming through the canal. Now that the peak season is over and boat traffic is declining, the operators follow boats through the canal and open the locks along the way. To travel through all nine locks, it costs an average of $45, with the cost varying based on the length of the vessel and it takes 3-5 hours to pass through the canal.

Chambly is also the home of Fort Chambly, constructed by the French in 1665 out of cedar posts. It was rebuilt around 1690 but burned down in 1702.  After the fire, construction of a new wooden fort was begun but with the threat of a British invasion it was dismounted and replaced by a stone fort that could withstand an attack of light artillery. The fort still stands today on the shore of the Richelieu River.

While in Chambly we stopped at a local cafe for coffee and croissants. The coffee and pastries were wonderful but the highlight was the two women running the cafe. Their English was better than our French and they wanted to know all about our trip. How far were we riding? How many kilometers each day? How far for the entire trip? When they learned that we would cover around 2,000 kilometers, they decided that they would have to lay down and die.

It was a pretty spectacular day and nice to leave the big city behind. With rain forecast for the next day or two, it might not be quite as nice. We ride rain or shine.