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| On August 26, 41 members and friends of
RTO-ERO boarded a bus to Montmagny Québec and a trip back in time, through
history and culture. Our first stop was at the Wildlife Centre in Monmagny where we watched hundreds of thousands of magnificent snow geese in their migration from the Arctic to the south coasts of the U.S.A. We learned much information about these birds and we were also able to see the maquettes of some of the Grosse-Ile buildings to be visited the next day. Towards the end of the day in St-Jean-Port-Joli our guide, Wayne Gosselin, suggested that we stop at the "Anciens Canadiens" museum where we could see the evolution of wood sculpture in that region from its earliest beginnings to nowadays. It was a wonderful little museum. The next day, on Grosse-Ile, known as the ''quarantine island'', we discovered through various media, the hardships of arrival and the daily life of the 19th century immigrants, many of whom were Irish in origin. We had the rest of the day to walk about the island and discover some unknown facets of our history. Some of us tried to retrace our ancestors at the memorial and had a special thought for them at the cemetery's Celtic cross. Come evening, we attended the International Festival of Military Bands of Québec. This year the theme was a retrospective of musical themes of the most popular movies of the last several decades. We had a wonderful and colourful evening that revived good memories. We spent the last day in Old Québec, retracing the beginnings of the Colony, under Champlain and the French Regime. We made one last stop at the "Aventure Leclerc", a small museum that told the story of the biscuit from its origins to today: Maman Leclerc prepared her delicious biscuits and Papa Lelerc made the deliveries on his horse drawn cart. We also saw a multimedia virtual visit of the Leclerc factories. Ideal weather made this 3 day voyage back in time even more enjoyable. |