Robot Claw

That picture shows Lac Sacacomie, and was taken from the terrace of our hotel. You can see the hotel itself in this next photo, if you look closely along the tree line above the lake:

We’re ‘up north’, probably the second most northern place we’ve ever been (Orkney is Scotland was our northernmost). We came up here as a rest between Montreal and Quebec City, and to give us a chance to see the Northern Lights. The drive to the hotel was through rural countryside until we hit the pine forests, at which point we reached some unpaved roads and signs warning of moose!

The hotel is a ‘spa’ hotel, and has a hot spring and sauna, as well as a wide range of activities, many of which are free for guests. It’s a massive log cabin building filled with stuffed animals including a moose, otter, caribou and this porcupine. Rooms are rustic, wood paneled, and short on luxuries like air-conditioning or even a TV (but as is obvious from me blogging, they do have wifi). It’s the sort of place you’d visit for a few days just to do nothing but relax by a beautiful lake and eat good food.

When we arrived we went for a hike along one of the many trails, which was more an overgrown road that what you may expect. This is because in winter the trails are used for snowmobiling or dogsledding, both of which are offered by the hotel. We didn’t see any large wildlife, but we saw a few birds and 35 (yes we counted) frogs! At one point we heard what sounded like growling and was probably a distant engine, but in the middle of the otherwise quiet woods it was momentarily disconcerting.

The above is the path down to the lake from the hotel, which is a fair descent. The path runs along a steep mountainside and has 129 steps, all of which were agony on the way back. The beach is nice, and there are ample free kayaks and canoes for guests to use on the glass-calm lake, as well as motorboats to rent if you want to go to the islands. Somehow you can even rent a seaplane for a sightseeing flight, and we saw it flying over yesterday.

There’s a… mystery about this place. The building seems simultaneously very old and very new, and the lack of signage is unusual to travelers used to hotels in places like Japan. For example we’ve explored the building and still don’t know where the spa is! Also no vending is strange, especially when rooms have no fridge and shops are a significant drive away. What is a guest to do if they need a drink after the bar closes? Some of this eeriness is likely due to the fact that all signage is in French and most of the staff don’t speak English, but it also feels as if some of the hotel policies are different from what we’re used to.

And last night when we went out to see the aurora there were people just standing in the hall and others sitting in a dark common room. Kristin said we may have inadvertently stayed in a ‘vampire hotel’ and perhaps she’s right!

As for the Northern Lights…

That’s what we saw. The terrace of the hotel afforded uninterrupted night sky viewing, and the haze from earlier in the day had burned off so we could see stars, but only stars. Kristin had downloaded an app to help us, and it reported our chance of seeing aurora at 0% unless we drove much further north (to Greenland). Ironically the lights have recently been viewable in Albany. Oh well, a goal that will survive for another day 🙂

We skipped dinner – which is to say that five ramen debacle detailed in the last entry was dinner – so it was good that the buffet breakfast was quite magnificent. It’s time to leave this strange hotel now and head back to civilization. We’ll never return here, but I think the trip was worth it just this once 🙂

We were going to climb Mount Royal today (the mountain from which the city is named) but it was hot and we decided the effort may have been a bit much after the last two days so we returned to the Olympic park to visit the Insectarium, which we overlooked yesterday.

I visited this place with Jim when I was here 11 years ago, but the place has changed quite a bit. It’s a small museum/zoo dedicated to insects with only a few displays, but the quality of what they have is very high. After a walk through a simulation of an anthill, you enter a large dimly-lit circular room with dozens of displays of mounted insects, and it was mesmerizing.

The top row of displays were sorted by colour, from white to brown through the entire rainbow, and the bottom was sorted by category (size, wings, long legs, camouflage etc). It was fascinating seeing the incredible variety, and there must have been thousands of different insects in total. Our favorites were the metallic bugs and iridescent butterflies, which in some cases looked like they were fashioned of precious metals or gems!

As beautiful as the insects in this room were, the fact remains they were all dead. This made the next section – a massive butterfly ‘house’ – all the more impressive.

This was a large space with hundreds (thousands?) of butterflies. Everywhere you looked there were butterflies flying, sitting on a leaf or eating from a fruit buffet. There were dozens of species and sizes, and they even had pupae on display since they breed some of the butterflies on location. On average they live for only a month, and they track the lifespans by keeping track of individual specimens via stickers attached to their wings (bottom right in above pic).

While the Insectarium was small and (possibly) overpriced, I’d say it was worth it for the butterflies alone, especially if you’re a fan.

In the afternoon we explored some more of the Underground City (the above was part of a large fresco we found in a dead-end corridor), did some more shopping and ate some delicious food. And yes, that includes poutine, although you can guess which of us declined to sample that famous Canadian speciality!

That’s Kristin’s vegetarian breakfast skillet, which she said was great. We went to a breakfast restaurant and somehow avoided eating too much since the food was plentiful and delicious. As it turned out we’d need the energy!

The subway here is artistic and retro-futurist and reminds me of Paris or Berlin, which I’m happy to say since it makes me sound cosmopolitan. We took a train to the old 1976 Olympic stadium to visit the Biodome, which is an indoor zoo occupying the old Olympic velodrome.

In four large biomes animals can be viewed in convincing approximations of their native habitats. Some of these – like the tropical rainforest seen above – are so cleverly engineered it’s not at all obvious how the animals are kept in their enclosures since there’s no visible fences (and indeed some, like a sloth, are free to wander where they like in the vast space).

We saw lots of birds (including penguins in a very cold Antarctic biome), fish and many different mammals. It’s a wonderful attraction, probably the best of its kind I’ve ever visited, and definitely worth a visit if you’re ever here.

In the afternoon we explored the ‘underground city’, which is an expansive network of shopping centers and tunnels running under much of the downtown area. Apparently there’s a total of 32 km of tunnels, and although we didn’t explore them all we managed to travel about 2.5 miles underground as we made our way to the Old Port area on the St Lawrence river. This is a tourist destination full of restaurants and souvenir shops and – right on the river’s edge – this:

I’ve never seen a Ferris wheel I haven’t ridden, so naturally I had to ride this one as well! Kristins not a fan and waited down below as I threw them my $31.50 and hopped into my own private car (which normally seats 8).

The wheel was very tall, very smooth, and very comfortable. The weather was wonderful and I got lovely views of the city and the river. The ticket included three rotations and although I’ll admit it was on the pricey side I’ll say for me it was worth it. Recommended if you like Ferris wheels 🙂

Shortly afterwards the skies became threatening and we ducked back into the underground city for our return walk to the hotel. Our timing was fortuitous since a heavy rainstorm soon fell, but since we’d found the underground pathways we stayed nice and dry.

It was a long and tiring day. Will we have the energy for tomorrow’s plans? Wait and see…

We’re in Canada! We drove up to Montreal today, which was a trip of about 3.5 hours through the beautiful Adirondack mountains. Crossing the border was easy and the wait wasn’t very long, and before we knew it all the signs were in French!

Our hotel room is unexpectedly fantastic. It’s big and comfortable and the bath could hold a hippo with space to spare (I’m only slightly exaggerating; it’s truly enormous). We’ll be very relaxed here for a few days.

We learned today that Canada is a country in which most stores are still closed on Sundays. Even some fast food places (such as McDonald’s) were closed! So we just wandered around the city this afternoon to soak in the vibes. As it turned out there was a massive pride parade in the city today and it was full of people – many in outrageous outfits – so that was amusing. It also made it even more unusual that almost all shops and restaurants were closed!

We went to a big church and saw the above sarcophagus in which a senior priest was buried. This wasn’t the prime tourist attraction church in the city, but the main one was asking $16 just to walk in the door so we passed.

We discovered a ‘Barbie expo’ in a mall near our hotel so we stopped off for a gander. It’s a mysterious display of hundreds of Barbies with no explanation or documentation (or entry fee), so I assume it’s someone’s collection they’ve just put on display.

We had no idea this many collectible Barbies existed, and it was a treat seeing them all. Our favourites the the ‘Vampire’ and ‘Empress Of The Aliens’, and I look forward to both of them taking lead roles in the inevitable Barbie film sequel 🙂

It took us a while to find dinner, but the fish and chips we shared was great. On the way back to the hotel we got caught in a sudden torrential rainstorm, but the discomfort of wet clothes was soon abated by a steaming hot bath 🙂