Shawinigan via Montreal

Farran to Montreal and Shawinigan

Well the best laid plans.  The last of my power outlets died last night. The lights, fridge and pump still worked but I was fearful that it was just a matter of time before they would be gone too.  There is only one Road Trek service centre within 300km and it is in Montreal.  I was up early and drove in on the 401.  The gps wouldn’t take the French address so I had to use my phone, which was down to 10%.  Without it I never would have found the place. Trying to read the road signs in French and navigate traffic would have been impossible for me.  When I arrived my phone had 2% power left.  There were three women working in the front and one had to do the translating.  They listened intently as I told them my story.  They asked where I was from and where I was going and when I said Tadoussac and the Gaspe they were so happy, they called in the manager.  I couldn’t understand what they said except for Tadoussac.  He came out to the van, had me walk through the problem, put one of his technicians to work on it and a couple of hours later it was done.  I told him how grateful I was and how worried I had been that they couldn’t do it for a week or two.  He smiled and said ‘We do have a very long wait time I guess you just got lucky today and I’m glad you came in” then he gave me a catalogue of all the campgrounds in Quebec.  They were just such a wonderful group. 

I was going to go south to the Townships but couldn’t face the Friday afternoon traffic to get around Montreal so went north to be with the Saints.  There are Saints everywhere, many with names I have never heard of.  The road less traveled was beautiful, hilly with great colour in the ditches, patterns from the harvesting and forested areas in between the fields. The silver topped silos are big competition to the silver toped church spires. I am settled in the birthplace of Jean Cretein, ‘the little guy from Shawinigan’ and it is a lovely warm evening.

I feel like I lucked out and came upon a jewel of a historical place.  For it’s time a combination of Ft. Mac and Silicone Valley.  Shawinigan was the first city in N. America to have electric streetlights and generated enough hydropower to light up all the small towns down to Montreal.  The hydropower created a boom with the first aluminum plants, cellophane pellets and products, carborundum, chemicals, and textiles.  For a place this size there was an abundance of engineers, chemists, and entrapaneurs. They also had the first labour union and over time the highest paid workers in Quebec.  It slowly began to fade in the late 50’s when more electricity was exported to the south and where labour was cheaper but it is no wonder that someone Chretien’s age would want to lay claim to this as his birthplace.

So all’s well that ends well. 

In the morning I saw that across the road from our park was The Museum of Energy.  I decided to stop on my way out.  I wasn’t expecting much beside an elevator ride to the top of what looked like a huge oil derrick or small Eifel Tower with a viewing deck on top. My assumption was so wrong.  It was a high quality museum focused on the history of energy.  Besides displays of all the types of energy there was a surround Imax type theatre that told the story from a combination of aboriginal oral histories and scientific background.  As they went through time the visuals and sound effects were great, the floor shook, rain and real snow came down on us and the wind blew so hard my program flew away.  All this in a movie theatre.  Then we had a tour of how different energy sources were harnessed and how they worked.  The tour was all in French but the guy stayed after and gave me a rerun in English.   I went up in the elevator and had a 360 view of the surrounding country and the dams on the river.  Then we took a ferry across the river and a shuttle trolley to the power plants.  One was in ruins, one was still operational and one had been turned into a great museum that even had a demonstration of a power conductor train going around on a track.  I was the only one who couldn’t speak French so they gave me my own guide.  I don’t think our museums would do that. At any rate it was all good and I didn’t get away until mid afternoon.  

                               Shawinigan Falls, now there are only falls in the spring

                                         The first hydro plant now abandoned

The tunnels to carry water to the turbines

Before riveting guns it took 4 men to hammer in each rivet. They build these pipes through a long tunnel of rock with 1,000 men working around the clock in two years 

Leftover equipment 

She uses liquid hydrogen and another chemical on the track to create a semiconductor so that the train levitates. A real train can also travel on curves but need flat ground.  Great for Edmonton to Calgary

                                     The Train of the Future Using Semi Conductors

Left Over Ghosts

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