{"id":2410,"date":"2019-08-22T17:55:14","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T00:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2410"},"modified":"2019-08-22T17:55:14","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T00:55:14","slug":"a-tale-of-two-cities-three-rivers-canadas-lumberjack-lore-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/travel\/2410\/a-tale-of-two-cities-three-rivers-canadas-lumberjack-lore-and-more","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Cities: Three Rivers, Canada’s Lumberjack Lore and More"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Borealis<\/a>

Borealis Museum: Timber in the factory that was the world’s top paper producer. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers), Quebec, is now filled with the joie de vivre that comes with being a leafy, French-speaking, waterfront town filled with musical microbreweries like Le Temps d\u2019une Pinte and vegan restaurants such as Caf\u00e9 Frida (where \u201cnot chicken\u201d and waffles is on the menu) – all within walking distance of the bright, modern Hotel Delta where Julie Pelletier serves a breakfast at Le Brasier in a lyrical French accent and sparkling smile so enthusiastic she makes you feel you\u2019re doing her a favor by enjoying the crepes, croissants and maple butter.<\/p>\n

But Trois-Rivieres was a harsh, not happy place in the past, and visitors who hop a Delta flight and then make the 90-minute drive from airports in Montreal or Quebec City can still experience the city\u2019s sinister side in the town\u2019s two most popular attractions.<\/p>\n

When you hear the bars slam behind you at The Old Prison your guided tour through the circa-1822 cells and down into the dungeon of doom gets real. The jail was small but its walls thick: three feet of concrete diminished dreams of escape. Death by public hanging seemed the quickest relief given from the humid, human squalor of prisoners who were sometimes caged 18-at-a-time and three bunks-high in washroom-sized cells with a single bucket for a commode (emptied weekly.) The windows for fresh air were sealed when women who\u2019d assembled on the corner below to gawk up into the windows got an x-rated \u201c3-D\u201d show when the prisoners \u201cwaved\u201d at them through the bars. Amnesty International intervened against the inhumanity and closed the jail in 1986, but it remains open as a historical site next to the vibrant Musee POP.<\/p>\n

The six-month sentences of lumberjacks were self-imposed, but sometimes lethal, as the brave boys and macho men willingly encamped in the crippling cold to load logs from dawn till dusk along the St. Lawrence each year for pay to feed their families. The dangerous work is displayed by tour guide Simon Raby at the very creative Borealis Museum located in the former filtration plant of Canadian International Paper Company – at one time the world\u2019s largest paper mill. \u201cThe lumberjacks showered once each week, ate pea soup with beans and pork every single night, and slept very close together for body heat in close quarters riddled with lice, which they put lamp oil in their beards to ward off,\u201d Raby explained. \u201cAnd still they had to pay for the food and board.\u201d (The lumberjacks could only have dreamed of the comfort and convenience of Hotel Delta.)<\/p>\n

Tourism official Josiane Gagnon\u2019s grandfather was a lumberjack named Jean-Paul Emilien. \u201cHe was away with all the men for six months each year. So all of the babies in Trois-Rivieres were born in the same month,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Borealis presents a Disney-style yet authentic experience with impressive factory equipment, touch-and-feel simulations, a scenic catwalk around a tower over the river, and spooky animated ghosts teaching history in the subterranean cistern.<\/p>\n

Festivoix, the city\u2019s annual, weeklong music festival each July is a fine time to visit and can be coupled with both Festival International de Jazz de Montreal and Festival d\u2019ete de Quebec \u2013 Canada\u2019s most important music festival \u2013 any maybe the world\u2019s most affordable: a $100 badge will get you into all 11 nights worth of simultaneous shows on multiple stages throughout the historic walled city also on the St. Lawrence River.<\/p>\n

For information visit QuebecOriginal.com\/en-us<\/p>\n

\u00a0Contact<\/em>\u00a0Travel Writer Michael Patrick Shiels at\u00a0MShiels@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0His radio program may be heard weekdays at MiBigShow.com or in Lansing on WJIM am 1240 from 9-noon.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers), Quebec, is now filled with the joie de vivre that comes with being a leafy, French-speaking, waterfront… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[204,251804,4998,1023655,1023656,1023657,1023658],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-canada","tag-quebec","tag-michael-patrick-shiels","tag-borealis-museum","tag-festivoix","tag-trois-rivieres","tag-what-to-do-in-quebec"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2019\/08\/Embedded1563616368233.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2412,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2410\/revisions\/2412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}