Dragonfly Boating: Saint Anne de Bellevue to Carillon, QC

Yesterday, while Kathleen took a run in town, I reinstalled Dragonfly’s mid-ships grab bar and anchor light and reattached our Canadian courtesy flag. Last night a young couple from Montreal noticed our American flag and struck up a conversation, wondering why we flew the Canadian flag as well. Our AGLCA burgee is always a magnet for those who know about the Great Loop, including lock staff. We always greet the Quebecois with our best “bon jour,” but as soon as they see the stars and stripes on our stern, the largely bilingual population switch to English. We also seem to attract friendly young Parks Canada employees looking to practice their English; something we don’t mind at all.

This morning we moved from the town wall to the “Blue Line” (Ligne Bleue), the section of the wall closest to the lock and painted blue. Tying up on the blue line signals your intent to lock through, and is often followed up with a VHF radio conversation, with further instructions. We were in the first lockage at 9:30 AM at Saint Anne de Bellevue, with five other boats, for the slow, three-foot lift. After exiting, we were on Lac de Deux Montagnes (Lake of Two Mountains), which didn’t really have any mountains, but did have strong headwinds and choppy waters. This was our third consecutive day of knowingly venturing out onto larger bodies of water with stiff winds, and you may be wondering why we keep doing this to ourselves. The reason is that the Quebec Construction Holiday starts tomorrow, when an entire industry (about 300,000 workers) takes a two-week vacation, and we have been warned that the “Quebec Navy” will be out in full force. We are now on the Ottawa River and expect to be in the capital city and out of Quebec in a few more days.

We are tied up for the night at the Parks Canada wall downriver of Carillon Lock, our last Quebec lock, the highest lift (65 feet) in Canada and part of a massive dam and hydroelectric generating facility. It is one of only two locks in North America with a guillotine lower door, the other being Lock 17 on the Erie Canal, which we passed through last month. After tying up, we watched our friends on All In arrive and lock through after another Looper came out and tied up in front of us. We walked to the lock’s observation deck, then into the tiny village of Carillon and ate dinner at La Patate des Outaouais, a burger and poutine place that was the only option. We returned to Dragonfly as the sky was darkening and were safe aboard for some evening rain showers, then the wind shut off and we had a quiet evening at this very remote and peaceful location.

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