Well, I think it’s about time I got down to talking about this August road trip to Québec before you, gentle reader, begin to believe that it was all just smoke and mirrors (or, to quote one of my favorite televison characters, “hokum”). The time has come. So, here goes…

The plan was simple: drive to Montréal, stopping at various André-Gagnon-related points along the way and taking video footage of attractive and interesting scenes. I had the camera, the tripod, a big-ass SD card loaded, and I was ready to rock and roll. I also had my new iPod touch and was psyched to do some on-the-road video blogging.

Well, you know what they say: The best laid plans… and all that.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a fantastic trip. It just didn’t turn out quite the way I expected.

First off, we had to rent a car, which was prohibitively expensive. Scott, my brother, took care of that arrangement, and we got a great vehicle, but adding the extra kilometers onto the base rental meant that we could only afford it for three days. So, we had to pack in as much as we could.

Secondly, having not been through Québec in some years, I had only a vague recollection of how far the cities and towns were from each other. You can definitely drive to Montréal in a day, but you’re not going to make many stops en route.

I wanted to make some stops along the way.

Ergo, we did not make it to Montréal.

Add to this the fact that I, as navigator, misread my map of New Brunswick and got us on the wrong road for a couple of hours, and you end up with a very late arrival at the Québec border.

Question for later: How in hell do you misread a map of New Brunswick?

Anyway, none of this matters. Scott and I both needed to get away for a bit, and it was a great opportunity to spend some quality brother-bonding time. Changing plans and destinations were ultimately immaterial.

We left Halifax on my birthday, Wednesday August 3rd, and made it to Rivière-du-Loup (Wolf River, if you’re into translating place names), which is just over ninety-clicks from the New Brunswick/Québec border, at the point where the Trans-Canada highway takes a sharp left and starts running along the Saint Lawrence River.

Ah, the Saint Lawrence. I was so looking forward to taking in its majesty. It has played such a pivotal role in my experience of André Gagnon’s music that I could scarcely dissociate the two. His 1977 album, Le Saint-Laurent, is easily my favorite of his works, and the title track, a twelve-minute ode to the mighty river, is a three-movement piece that conjures up images of flowing water and stunning scenery and has stayed with me since my first hearing.

The morning of August 4th, we awoke, breakfasted and set off. I was presented with many amazing glimpses of the Saint Lawrence, and for some of those, we were able to pull over so that I could take some video shots. In the distance, across the river, were the mountains of Charlevoix, in a view right off the cover of Le Saint-Laurent. It was a region I hoped to visit soon. It would not happen this trip, but that was okay. We only had three days.

One important stop we did make was at Saint-Pacôme, the town where André Gagnon was born. It’s a small, quiet place, and as with many rural communities, the church is the most prominent landmark. We stopped near the town’s main intersection, and I took a few video shots, but, alas, we really didn’t have time to explore much, so we drove around a bit and then headed back to the highway.

I didn’t even notice the historical signs for the tourists.

(And that, dear friends, is called foreshadowing.)

We made it to Québec City by lunchtime, and I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am that we made that stop. It was not on my itinerary, but we knew by this point that we were not going to make to Montréal, so we decided to stop, have lunch, and take a look around.

I hadn’t been to Québec City since high school, when I went on a Grade Ten trip in February for Carnaval. All I remember from that trip is the dizzying height of the fortress cliff, the insanely cold temperatures, and people on the street drinking alcohol from long plastic tubes. Needless to say, I needed a refresher.

Old Québec is simply stunning. I fell in love immediately, and vowed to return at my earliest convenience. I walked around with my head craned upwards, marvelling at the architecture, the views, and the atmosphere. It was like wandering around an old European city.

We had lunch at a place called La Pizz, a nifty little pizza place tucked into the corner of Place Royale, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, the birthplace of French civilization in North America. Samuel de Champlain began constructing this courtyard area in 1608, and walking into it is like stepping back in time.

And then there was the Château Frontenac, easily the most photographed hotel in the world. It sits atop the fortified cliff and is visible from just about anywhere in the old city. We walked along some of the charming shop-filled streets in the lower city before taking the funicular up to the courtyard around the château. The view from up there is incredible, and the hotel itself is massive, tall, imposing, and utterly photogenic.

It was a shame we could only stay a couple of hours, but we wanted to see how far south we could get before having to turn around and head for home.

While Québec City was not an André-Gagnon-related stop, it reached into my soul and deepened my connection with La Belle Province, a connection I’ve been aware of most of my life.

A connection with my father.

More about this trip in the next instalment. Stay tuned.