On most Sundays, Ashley is a junior tour guide at the Lenape Village at the Churchville Nature Center. Her knowledge of their pre-Colonial lives is vast. I specifically sought a Native American site for Ashley to visit. in order that we could compare the Lenape Culture with the Hurons.
My search yielded the Site Traditionnel Huron, located on the Huron-Wendat Reservation just outside of Quebec City.
The tour began with a native dance. It included several buildings including a long house, explanation of smoking food, a sweat lodge and a tepee with ritual masks inside of it.
We had a private tour. The guide was able to help us work through how the Lenape and Huron cultures were the same and how they were different. They were both matriarchal, and they both had clans. The languages were different. Lenapes were more nomadic, hence the structures built by the Huron were more permanent.
The tour was fine. It ended with an incredible gift shop filled with crafts made by First Nation people from all over Canada. It lacked the charm of Churchville Nature Center. I felt rushed through the tour, even though they said we could go back to any site afterwards, I still felt in the way.
Unless you have a strong love of Native American culture, I would not spend the 30 minutes driving to Wendat to visit this site. We had thought we would spend all day. However, the restaurant with lots of Native American food did not open until noon, and we were done with our tour by 11 AM. If you do decide to go, aim for later in the day in order to also feast on their delicacies.
Local friends, if you have a free Sunday afternoon between April and October, check out one of Miss Patti's tours at Churchville Nature Center. With any luck (or coordinating in advance) Ashley will be there helping Patti. The tour is only $5 and lasts at least 90 minutes. It is very interactive.
Our time in Quebec City was limited. I had hoped to visit the Museum of Civilization, but ran out of time. Also in the Old Port section of town is the charming Center of Interpretation of Place Royale, a low-budget museum about the 400-year history of Quebec City. Instead of a glossy brochure, the museum hands out a photo copy sheet with all the necessary information. Their website is not nearly a glitzy as others.
The museum has three main exhibits, plus a 3-D movie called "Facing Champlain" about Samuel de Champlain -- the man who discovered Quebec. The exhibits are hands-on. They are fun to play with, as well as educational. Fortunately (for us) everything is in English, as well as in French.
The real treat with this museum is the enormous dress-up area in the basement. There are costumes along all four walls in sizes ranging from toddlers to grown men. They also had hats and bonnets (which we skipped due to fear of lice). Our only issue was that Ashley's size did not seem to exist. They had dresses for little girls, and for teenage girls, but some were way too short and others dragged on the ground. We spied a group of teenagers hanging out in there and having a blast.
We each put on a costume. Then moved into the enormous play area. This section was designed like a house of a middle-class person -- or someone even more affluent. There was a master bedroom, eating area, play area. and large spaces in-between. For a while we had the space to ourselves (the teens had moved on to another part of the museum). We had fun taking pictures of each other. Fortunately an older couple came and took a couple of family pictures for us. The husband was deaf, and could only read lips in French. that added a small challenge for me.
After all that playing, it was time to hop in the car and head towards Montreal.
Wishing I could go to Quebec, somehow failed to translate into "what would I do if I went to Quebec?" A couple of weeks before we left I started searching websites, and asking friends for advice. After subtracting time for the drive, we were only going to be in Quebec City for two days.
I looked for something to interest each of us -- First Nation (Native American) site for Ashley, biking for Don, history for me.
The Morrin Center quickly floated the top of the list of places I wanted to visit. We were lucky in two ways. One, the Morrin Center is located down the stairs from out hotel (yes, stairs to cross streets), and two the Morrin Center started up tours on the our full-day in Quebec. A week earlier and we would not have been able to go on a tour.
Our tour guide, Ben, lead us through the Morrin Center's unique history. It started off as a military barracks (1712-1808) the the prison for the city of Quebec (1813-1868). They held the worst criminals of the day -- people who stole tea (which came from China), a horse thief, an indentured servant who ran away from his master, as well as the lesser criminals. They adhered to the most modern prison reforms of the day -- including separating inmates based on the severity of their crimes and prisoners bathed on a regular basis. Some of the criminals were hung out front off of a balcony that no longer exists. It was a pretty scary place to be sentenced. Unfortunately as the city grew, they outgrew their space.
A few years later (1862-1902), it was converted into the city's first English-language college. In 1885 they started admitting women to the program. The rooms that exist are stunning. In the far back corner of the science lab is a dark room that was donated by Mr. Eastman (of Eastman Kodak).
Today it is the only English-speaking library in Quebec City. Rather than waiting at our hotel room for our tour in English, Don and Ashley sat in the children's section of the library and read books.
This is the first collection I have ever seen that uses the Cutter System. They are quite proud of the fact that their entire fiction collected is sorted by author, and not by genre. I'd be interested to see how this kind of system could work on a much larger scale. I'm always curious as to how places organize their collections.
The tour was fascinating. I am glad it worked out so we could see the place, and have a tour in English. Don and Ashley were happy for a little bit of quiet time to sit and read. A win for everyone.
A weekend of bike tours in Montreal prompted us to go to Canada. After years of drooling over images of Quebec City, we decided to drive the extra three hours and also visit Quebec City.
Quebec was everything I heard it was -- more French than France (stop signs say ARRET instead of STOP), "Old World" charm in a relatively new city, and old walls to walk around. It was easy to pretend we were in Paris.
We stayed in the center of the Old City at the Jardin de St. Anne (Ashley cannot seem to avoid St. Anne wherever she goes we find Mary's mother haunting us). It was a quirky hotel with a spinning wheel decorating a hallway and lots of exposed stone walls. In addition to being downtown, one of its best features was that it had a dining room on the first floor where you could bring a meal and eat it at "home."
It is a wonderful city for walking, and a miserable city for driving -- which suits us perfectly. Once we parked the car, we did not need it until we left town.
It is also a very hilly city. Our first clue of how hilly it is should have been when we learned about the funicular and saw stairs and elevators linking streets together. Between the stairs and the cobblestones, it is not the most bike friendly city. I did see a lot of people out running, so it is a good place to go for hill training.
My favorite part of the city was just walking around and soaking up French. I chuckled when when I saw an "Ecoliers" bus. I rolled my eyes at phrases such as "fin de la semaine" instead of "le weekend," which the French use. I think I could have spent days just sitting on benches eavesdropping on conversations in French. In some ways, a foreign language is like riding a bicycle -- you might not use the skill for a few years, but it comes back to you.
Eating was another big treat. Lots of restaurants. We left our eating comfort zone and had crepes instead of sandwiches (so it wasn't a big stretch).
Beautiful weather also helps, and we had picture perfect days.
The tour began with a native dance. It included several buildings including a long house, explanation of smoking food, a sweat lodge and a tepee with ritual masks inside of it. 
