Precerpt from In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Canada: Quebec
Quebec
On our way back home to Pittsburgh from Maine on one visit
when the kids were little, we came pretty close to South Hero Island in
Vermont. (That story will be told in another volume because there was a story
that took place on South Hero Island.) Once on that island, we were intrigued
by the chain of islands in Lake Champlain that separated Vermont from New York.
The islands felt almost like stepping‑stones laid across the
lake—long, low stretches of farmland and shoreline, connected by narrow
causeways that skimmed just above the water. Each island had its own quiet
personality: a cluster of houses here, a field of grazing cows there, a glimpse
of blue water widening on both sides. It was the kind of landscape that pulls
you forward without your noticing, island after island, as though the lake
itself were guiding you north.
That chain, island after island, pulled us straight up to
Canada. Once again, we were in Canada, unplanned. The crossing itself was so
undramatic that we barely registered it—just a small station, a brief pause,
and then the road continuing on as if nothing at all had changed.
The landscape did not look like what I expected from Quebec,
but then I did not know what to expect. Instead of dramatic mountains or old
stone villages, we found ourselves in wide, flat farmland—hay fields, dairy
barns, long straight roads bordered by hedgerows. It was rural, quiet, and
surprisingly empty. At one point, we got lost winding our way north, en route
to Montreal, which we decided would be a nice stopping point for the night.
This was before the days of GPS, circa 1978, and we stopped near one field to
ask some folks there for directions.
After all, I knew French—grew up with Acadienne French,
learned Parisian French in college—but, ooh, they understood me, and I did not
understand them well. This was rural Québécois. Their vowels rolled
differently, their consonants softened, and the rhythm of their speech felt
like a dialect with its own internal logic. After a little negotiation, we had
a pretty good idea of how to get to Montreal and that it was not all that far
away, and we set off again.
Once in Montreal, everything—all the signs and the
directions were in French. Good thing I could read French because the signs on
the bridge we were crossing told us to roll up our windows because there was
sand blasting going on.
As it turned out, we had arrived in the French Quarter. Too
late to do anything about anything; it was nearly 10:00, we needed a place to
sleep, and the kids were hungry. So, I negotiated a room at the first hotel we came
to, and we were pleased to learn that the dining room would be open for another
15 minutes. We hurried there first.
We had a delightful waitress, but she spoke no English. For Fawn, that was no
problem. She chattered in English, and the waitress responded in French. They
were talking about very different things. Neither cared. They were communicating.
For Shawn, it was a different experience. He was barely two,
and I ordered spaghetti for him. He liked that. The waitress brought him a
fork, but he could not handle a fork. He needed a spoon—and I could not for the
life of me remember the word for spoon. After some attempts at charades, I
looked over, saw that Shawn had fallen asleep face first in the spaghetti, and
given that the restaurant was now officially closed, gave up (and looked up the
word in the morning should we ever need a spoon before we got back to Pittsburgh).
It would not have mattered anyway. It turned out that une cuillère in Quebec
was pronounced like “cuiyère.” Once again, standard French would have
failed me!
The next day, the kids wanted to play. Isle aux hommes was
right there, across the river. We had to stop; there was no question. It was a
tiny amusement park, and even though the kids spoke no French, they did speak
fun, play equipment, and games.
After a couple hours, the kids tuckered out. We tucked them
into the car and headed west, to Ottawa. An English-speaking world! Ah, no,
once again, we ended up in a French-speaking area. This time we arrived early
enough that the kids could relax and watch TV. Uh…the channels were all in
French, but Echo found a cartoon show, and soon they were watching and giggling.
It seems that cartoons are a universal language.
In the morning, we headed back to Pittsburgh in earnest. I
do not remember crossing over into the Usa any more than I remember crossing
into Canada earlier. Just a perfunctory passageway and a wave-through.
Volume 1: ABC Lands
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
For more posts about and from this book, click HERE.
For more posts by and about Betty Lou Leaver, click HERE.
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