Quebec... Parlez-vous Anglais?

Lac Poigan, Réserve faunique La Vérendrye

Clues we weren't in Ontario anymore

After spending a couple of hours digging ourselves out of the sand pile (see previous post), we were ready to leave the backroads and go in search of coffee and breakfast. Heading to the next town meant crossing the border between Ontario and Quebec. We didn't fully appreciate what this would mean until we suddenly found ourselves transported to the  French countryside.  While bigger cities like Montreal and Quebec City are much more bilingual, the little provincial towns of Quebec are exclusively French speaking, even 10 km from the Ontario border.

My introduction to poutine

The first town we came upon, Duparquet, was hardly more then an intersection with a gas station, thrift store, and a tiny restaurant with a takeout window. We made the mistake of wandering into the thrift store first, after picking out the word "cafe" from a  sign on the window written in French (Ben last took French in elementary school and his French is better then mine). Fortunately there was  a coin operated coffee machine in the quarter so we at least got our coffee before attempting to order food from the restaurant takeout counter. Again we were faced with a menu completely in French and a counter worker who spoke no English. We were saved by a super friendly women from Ontario who approached and helped us order two plates of poutine. I had never heard of this magical dish before... it was delicious!
   

Well fed and caffeinated, we continued driving until we got to the town of Rouyn-Noranda. We decided to celebrate getting unstuck with a hotel room and a few beers. This down time also allowed us to clean out the 3 inches of sand that had accumulated in the van. Rouyn-Noranda was a random town but we really enjoyed our recovery time here. The town was even raffling off a Westfalia as some sort of promotion! We never did figure out the whole story, but we figured one Muskey was enough for now.

Beers celebrating the van being unstuck

Rouyn-Noranda

 After a good night's sleep we were ready to continue on. We decided to spend a couple of nights camping within the Réserve Faunique La Vérendrye, a nature preserve south of Rouyn-Noranda. Within the preserve you could camp at rustic campsites, accessible by gravel roads. This seemed like a good compromise to camping: a way to get away from the big RV's but still camp at designated campsites (i.e. less likely you will get stuck in a sand dune). Ben wasn't  tired of the back roads yet so he picked one of the most remote sites the park had to offer, Lac Poigan, 41 kilometers off the paved road. .

Our effort paid off. Our campsite was on the edge of a lake which we essentially had to ourselves. 

The lake was connected to a larger reservoir by a chain of lakes and waterways. This allowed for a lot of exploring with our inflatable kayak. Ben also tried his luck at fishing but unfortunately the walleye weren't biting.