Veloroute des Bleuets; Biking the Trail of the Blueberry-Day 4-Dolbeau-Mistassini to Sainte-Monique

Today’s ride has been one of our favorite days (have I said that every day?). The morning started out clear and cool, just 44 degrees, so we took our time retrieving our bikes from the storage area in the hotel. Something we’ve appreciated about the lodging arrangements is that each place has had secure storage for the bikes. No need to leave them outside on a bike rack! The storage at this hotel was in an unused conference room. When we went down to get the bikes, it was apparent that we weren’t the only bikers staying here, and we weren’t the only bikers that don’t leave the bikes outside, lol.

It soon warmed up and we began to peel off layers. We began our ride with the trail travelling right alongside the river. It was beautiful!

Shortly after our ride began, really before we were even out of the town where our hotel was, we saw a home decorated with an abundance of blueberry lawn art.

The small sign at the end of the driveway was in French of course, but I was able to translate a few key words. The key words being bleuets (blueberries) , tarte (pie), etc. Funny how I’ve learned these words so quickly this week. At dinner tonight, as we enjoyed yet another slice of blueberry pie, Jimmy and I counted up how many pieces of blueberry pie we’ve eaten this week. That total is 11! Remember this is just day 4, so I’m probably on the path to coming home with the shape of a blueberry after this week.

But back to the house with the blueberry lawn art. I thought it might be a place to buy blueberry products, but couldn’t tell for sure if it was a private home or a business? There was no signage on the house itself, just the one small sign beside the driveway. I had to find out, so I went to the door and knocked. (I noticed Jimmy stayed back at the end of the driveway with his phone poised to take a picture, just in case it was something he could submit to funniest home videos). A lady opened the door and I said, “Hello, is this a market? For blueberries?” She smiled and said “oui, oui”, and motioned for me to come in. I called for Jimmy to come in, that the coast was clear, and he joined me as we stepped inside. We had stepped into a home kitchen that had been converted into a little home business.

She had a number of blueberry desserts on display, and though she spoke no English, she pointed to each and tried her best to use words we might know. It was charming! So we each picked out a dessert, blueberry cheesecake for Jimmy and a blueberry layered dessert for me. She asked us to sign her little guest book and we were on our way to find a bench to enjoy our desserts (even though we had eaten breakfast less than an hour ago!)

We rode through a couple of little towns and stopped to tour an old mill right on the river. The girl that conducted our tour did a great job translating into English, and it was a nice stop to stretch our legs and rest our bottoms!

We rode through some beautiful countryside again today. And the bright blue skies and mild temperature of 72 degrees made the day most enjoyable.

We saw many farms and large wild blueberry fields again. The most prominent crop was potatoes and there were also several large dairy farms.

At one particularly picturesque dairy farm, we saw an open door in the front building and heard voices inside. I had stopped to take pictures of the beautiful barns and decided I would like to find out if they had anything for sale or if they offered tours.

I could hear two women talking in the front office with the door open to the outside where I stood. I walked up the steps to the open door and said, “Hello”, they both stopped their conversation, looked at me and answered “Bonjour”. I asked, “Do you have items for sale or do you offer tours?” I didn’t see any type of sales in the room we were in. In fact it was just an entryway into a massive barn. They both looked at me for a second, and I rephrased my question a time or two to see if they could understand. Finally they did, and said excitedly, “ oui, oui, come!” The young woman explained (in very good English) that the two of them would show us around the dairy farm, and motioned for me to follow them. (I think my Kentucky accent was hard for her to understand initially. I sometimes have that problem even in the U.S.) I called to Jimmy to come on in (noticing that he’d hung back again, probably waiting to see if I would get escorted off the property, lol). The young woman explained that the older woman would give the information in French, and she would serve as interpreter. The Gaston Morin Dairy Farm has been in existence since the 1950s and is a family owned operation, passed down from father to son we learned. Together, the two women took us through every building, explaining the different groups of cows, how they are cared for (very well!) and all that goes into the production of milk. We saw a brand new calf struggling to get to his feet as the momma cow licked him.

They told us he was born just one hour ago! It was fascinating and the two women were so sweet. I knew we were taking them away from their jobs, but they were very thorough in their tour. At one point, we needed to cross a wooden boardwalk to access another section of the huge barn. The older woman, who did not speak English, held up her hand for us to stop. She then picked up a shovel and began shoveling off the wet wooden slats which naturally, had a light covering of manure. Once the slats were  clean, she spread out fresh hay for us to walk on. She would not let us cross the 8 foot span of boards and get our shoes dirty! It was such a thoughtful gesture.

The herd was a large one and the section of the barn we had just entered housed 470 Holstein cows. Other sections of the barn housed the newborn calves, the pregnant cows close to delivery, and cows that were recovering from illness.

We toured an additional barn as well where feed was stored and other cows were housed.

It was all absolutely fascinating. It was beautiful to hear the French language as the older woman explained things, then to hear her words translated into English for us by the young woman. We had our very own private tour (no charge!), and they paused often to ask if we had any questions. There was no indication that this farm was open for tours. I think these two women, knowing we were visitors from the U.S., willingly took time out of their day to show us their part of the world. When the very thorough tour was finished, they began to ask us questions about where we lived. They asked us where we were from and what we were doing on our travels. They asked us if it was rainy in Kentucky, lol. Then asked if it was hot and humid. YES! We answered! Jimmy did a quick calculation and gave them our temperature in Celsius on the day we left for our trip. They were surprised at that, and said they could only recall one time when the temperature had gotten almost that high in their country. As we ended our tour, the older lady said to the younger (which she interpreted for us) “I really want to learn English” I laughed and said, “well, I really want to learn French!” and that was interpreted back to the older woman. We all had a good laugh at that. We returned to where we’d left our bikes and said farewell. We realized we’d just encountered another couple of sweet Quebec residents that took the time to make our visit extra special!

Back onto the bikes to explore more of the beautiful Trail of the Blueberry.

We stopped for lunch at a small town beside the river and ate outside as we overlooked the water.

The remaining portion of the ride took us through beautiful wooded areas and close to the lake in portions. We rode to the sounds of songbirds and the sight of flowers and wild blueberries everywhere!

We arrived in Sainte-Monique and found our place of lodging with no problem. It is called Auberge Ile de Repos, and houses a campground as well as cabins right on the beach with volleyball court, fire pit and a beautiful croquet court.

We are staying on the second floor of a cabin overlooking the river. It’s very basic, no plush amenities, but it is beautiful. There’s no A/C, but it is so cool outside, we will sleep with the windows open. Bike storage tonight is our deck, so we had to take both bikes up a flight of stairs and through our room to access the second story deck. 

We ate dinner at the restaurant on site in the main building, and it was delicious! We ate outside overlooking the river. I ordered salmon and Jimmy ordered walleye. We started with a bowl of warm Gourgane soup again, which we will really miss once we return home. We could not resist another slice of blueberry pie for dessert, and I think it’s the best pie we’ve eaten yet! But we will try more tomorrow, so I will let you know!

After dinner, we walked along the small country road that led to our cabin, taking in all of God’s beautiful creation and sorry to realize that tomorrow is our last day on the Trail of the Blueberry!