July 26, 2024. Edmundston, NB to Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! Quebec


  We began slowly this am. Part of challenge was that the clothes that we had hand-washed last night had not dried overnight. We almost got walked in on by housekeeping while still poorly clothed and with no chain lock on the door, as this was a small non-chain motel. We figure they thought we’d already left as there was no car in front of the door. We finally got started about 10 Atlantic time. All we had to do was walk behind the motel, and there was the rail-trail, the Petit Temis Interprovincial Linear Park, which would take us all the way to the St Lawrence Seaway.  
   A few miles down the trail, there was a beautiful arboretum. The beauty of the flowers with music playing in the background seemed mystical.
We stopped for a pit toilet break, and there at the adjoining picnic table under a roof was a family of 6, mom & dad and 4 elementary-aged children. They were cooking up a pot of oatmeal or something similar to eat on a small wood stove. We found out they were walking the whole trail from Rivière-du-Loup to Edmundston, doing up to about 6 miles a day pulling two wagons loaded with their gear, including all the food that they would need that they had dried or prepared themselves. (They had made dried apples too!) They had a friend drop them off at the beginning, who was going to pick them up when they got to the end and take them home. They figured to walk the whole trail would take them about a month. Their home was about 60 to 80 miles west of Edmundston and their work was such that they could leave it easily for this adventure and they also home-schooled their kids. The family had just spent two days in their tent because of rain., which amazed us. They were impressed to hear how many kilometers we went daily. 
  
   Not too long after that we crossed into Quebec. We are traveling upstream along the Madawaska River on a good-quality trail that is unpaved for the most part. Occasionally there were some wild raspberries that were tasty to nibble on. After a while we came to an impoundment, and the trail continued along the lakeshore. 
 
Sometimes we were going through trees, sometimes by homes or cottages, and there were more and more of those as we approached the resort community on the lake. At a campground that also had an ice cream stand, we chatted with a family on bicycles with 2 daughters who were about 10 and 12. All were carrying at least a little bit of the gear their family needed for their self-supported adventure of a bicycle ride plus camping. We were impressed!
    We are camped a little bit beyond Saint-Louis-du Ha!-Ha! It is very primitive with a small wooden bridge crossing to a bench and trash can, a small flowing stream, and so far very few mosquitoes. We also went back beyond where we pitched our tent to see if we would be able to see the sunset, and found a large patch of wild raspberries. We are blessed.
CCAMPSITE PHOTO

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