A hike through a maritime forest in Rimouski, Quebec Province

This past Saturday, after a pleasant dinner at the house, Lisa, Woody, and I headed to a little beach community in Rimouski, a small city about 15 minutes away. We'd been here before, enjoying a walk along the beach. This time we took the hiking trail from the beach parking lot. Starting out in a field, with lots of weedy species, our expectations were relatively low. Much to our surprise, the trail soon transitioned into a walk through the woods, an interesting maritime forest on the edge of an urban environment. As the trail narrowed, and got rockier, the vegetation got more interesting. At a fork in the trail, we looped to the left and found ourselves on the headlands above the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Here, the spruce and fir trees were stunted, reflecting the thin rocky soils and periodic high winds blowing onshore. Several viewing platforms along the trail provided fabulous views of the Seaway through the evergreen trees. Particularly stunning, was the last vista, looking south along the coastline, towards Bic National Park in the far distance.

Trail map signage

Maritime forest on thin rocky soil

Ground-hugging plants on rock outcrop

Stunted spruce and fir trees with Woody on the trail

Wind battered trees on bluff above the Saint Lawrence River (Seaway)

Looking south with Bic National Park in the far distance

Signage indicating view scape in above photo

Sunset from beach in Rimouski near the trailhead

Kayaking in Le Bic National Park

Kayaking in Le Bic National Park is lots of fun. Before setting out we checked the tidal charts for the next high tide - 10 o'clock that morning. We put in about 9 a.m. in near perfect conditions - winds calm, the water smooth as glass, sunny skies. We headed to a small forested island that is a rookery for great blue herons. We could see them perched on the tops of spruce trees. We heard their loud calls. We then paddled across the bay to a peninsula which we explored a bit. It was a great day to be on the water.

On the loading dock

Getting in the kayak

Heading out

Lisa cruising along

Lisa in calm waters off Bic National Park

A cool June

Here in Le Bic and the Gaspe Peninsula, June was cooler than normal with high temperatures often in the lower 60s. Quite a few days were cloudy and windy, at least for part of the day.
Today (2 July), in contrast, was unusually warm with a high of 87. After dinner, we took a walk along the beach at Saint Fabian. It was definitely cooler  than at our more inland house. Oddly, as we walked up the road we kept encountering areas of cold air interspersed with spots of unusually warm air,  perhaps due to shifting winds sometimes blowing onshore bringing air cooled by the Saint Lawrence River. Cold air downdrafts from the cliffs above may have also been a factor. Driving home, the sky got very dark with billowy clouds and we had a brief thunder storm as shown in the photo below.

Thunder storm developing on an unusually warm July 2 evening

The trains running by our house

We love our old house, large (one-acre) garden, and four small outbuildings, as well as our neighbors, the horse ranch, adjoining hayfields, and big barns. It's a lovely setting. But it takes some getting used to the trains that travel along the single rail line just below our house. A freight train typically goes by the house twice a day, once in the morning, just past 9, returning in the afternoon, about 3. The freight train is often long and noisy. The heavier ones can cause the house to shake a bit. The most piercing sound is the train's engineer tooting the horn 3-4 times as it approaches an ungated railway crossing just west of our house. While the freight train runs daily, the passenger train runs only three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), but it passes by our house in the early morning hours, the first one about 2:30 with a second train about 3:30. If you're wondering about its route, the passenger train travels between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Montreal with many stops along the way. I don't know where the freight trains originate and end but it's kind of fun to watch the kinds of cargo they carry.

Unknown cargo on train running by our house

Train crossing road road just west of our house

Green False Hellebore

Yesterday I was digging holes in preparation for planting a half-dozen small (1-3 ft tall) white spruce and balsam fir trees on the northern side of our Gaspe home landscape. The hope is that in time they will get big enough to  provide a screen to obscure the view and dampen the sound of the adjoining highway (#132) and train. Glancing downslope, just beyond our property line, I was surprised to see a patch of green false hellebore (Veratrum viride), a plant which I first saw, and immediately liked, while hiking in Lassen National Park, California, during my college years in the early 1970s. This tall (up to 6 ft) herbaceous perennial has a leafy stem that superficially resembles corn, but which is highly toxic if ingested. Interestingly, Green False Hellebore occurs in the mountains of both western and eastern North America, including the southern Appalachians where it can be found in mountain meadows, bogs, and boulder fields. Here on the Gaspe Peninsula, I've seen it growing mainly on moist open sites in the boreal forest where white spruce and balsam fir are dominants.

Green False Hellebore