As I mentioned in my previous post, we didn’t make it to Montréal during the three days my brother and I spent in Québec back in August, but we did make it as far south as Trois-Rivières, which is about one-hundred-and-ten or so clicks southwest of Québec City. It’s actually about halfway between Québec City and Montréal. We wandered around the downtown a little and popped into the tourist information centre. It’s a very attractive city, and it was nice to explore a place I’d never visited before

It also was incredibly hot that day, so despite how nice the downtown area was, air conditioning was something we desperately needed, so we ended up having supper at a very nice Italian place called Mondo Resto-Bar. Later we sought out a music store so I could actually purchase an André Gagnon CD in Québec. That was something I’d been wanting to do right from the start.

As with Québec City itself, we only spent a couple of hours in Trois-Rivières, but the city has a charm all its own, and I’d like to get back there some day and spend a bit more time. I also want to get to Les Forges de Saint-Maurice National Historic Site, which is about a dozen clicks northwest of downtown. It’s a site run by Parks Canada that commemorates the founding of the first industrial community in North America.

It also happens to be one of my André-Gagnon-related destinations.

In 1973, André Gagnon released an unusual album. It was actually two albums in one. Side One was called Projection and Side Two was called Les forges de Saint-Maurice. The first side was a collection of songs as might appear on any album. The second side contained music he had written for a television series entitled—you guessed it—Les forges de Saint-Maurice.

The show ran from 1972 to 1975 on CBC’s French network. It was a soap-opera-like drama set in the mid-1700s, in and around the ironworks, which were the most advanced of their time. Gagnon wrote the theme music and incidental music for the series.

And speaking of André Gagnon music, we did, in fact, find a music store in Trois-Rivières. They have an Archambault there, which is a big chain in Québec, kinda like an HMV with a Chapters welded to the side and a Long and McQuade perched on top. Nice store. Lotsa great stuff.

Only one André Gagnon CD, though. Fortunately, it was his latest, which I did not yet possess. So I bought it.

Now, being the giant fan of this man’s music that I am, I still find it hard to understand why I did not yet have this CD, considering that it had been out for over a year. I’d been thinking of buying it, intending to buy it, and wanting to buy it for quite some time. Still, I had not yet laid down the cash. I can only attribute it to the fact that I hardly buy CDs at all anymore.

No, I am not one of the legion of iTunes junkies out there. I still can’t get my head around paying money for something that I can’t hold in my hand (except for software, which is a whole ’nother thing). When it comes to movies and music, I like to own the disk and the package it comes in.

Call me old fashioned, I guess. Don’t get me wrong. I have an iTunes account. I have purchased apps from the app store. That’s really the only way you can get them. But it’s going to take some real coaxing for me to put a song or an album on my credit card for download. It might happen some day. But not today.

Anyway, it’s all about timing. It was the right time for me to purchase that particular CD, entitled Les chemins ombragés, or Shady Paths in English. (Typographical note: The French language does not capitalize every word in a title, just the first word, unless there are proper names in it.) Examining the back of the CD package, I saw immediately how timely this purchase was, as some of the tracks were recorded with the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra.

Weird. Just weird.

And that was basically the end of the trip. We booted it north after my CD purchase and ended up staying the night in Rivière-du-Loup again, which was nicely parenthetical. The following day we hurtled through the open spaces of New Brunswick, stopping for a nice lunch in Fredericton, and headed home to Halifax.

It was an awesome trip, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I took some great video shots, got the lay of the land, and basically prepped myself for further forays into the landscape and culture of Québec. It was a reconnaissance mission (nice French word, that), and I have a better understanding of where things are and what I still need in terms of video.

But I’m not quite finished with the André Gagnon portion of our programme. I didn’t bother taking the cellophane off my CD purchase until I was home in Halifax. We were playing my iPod through the car stereo during the trip anyway, so there was really no need to stick a CD in. When I finally did open the package, I found an extra card along with the standard CD insert. This card listed ten concert dates in locations throughout Québec.

I was stunned. Monsieur Gagnon was touring again. Sadly, the dates listed on the card had long since passed, but there was a link to a website, AndréGagnon.net. And on the website were listed more tour dates, some of which had not yet arrived.

Thrilled and amazed, I booked two tickets.

So, of course, there’s more to the story.

Stay tuned.

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(Here’s a promo spot for the television series Les Forges de Saint-Maurice. I don’t know what they’re saying, but it all looks pretty cheesy. As you can tell from the logo on the screen, this is from a retro French network, rather like our TV-Tropolis.)