After spending a night at Contrecouer due to the tough upstream current on the St Lawrence, we arrived at Port d’Escale marina in Old  Montreal on June 19th, our daughter Meg’s 45th birthday! As the days fly by, apparently so do the years!!   We explored a bit, enjoyed a nice hazy IPA at Pub BreWsky, as well as some fish and chips, and planned the next day’s outing. 

Because of its size (1.8 million) and diverse population, it was the first time in a week we overheard conversations in English and did not have to begin conversations with others by apologizing that we did not understand or speak French. It has been fun and amazing to experience this immersion into French culture without boarding a plane and we look forward to a few more days of it after leaving Montreal and possibly more in the future when we return to bike on the fantastic bike paths we have seen in the Lake Champlain area and small Quebec towns!

After morning boat chores (laundry, strainer cleaning, etc), we ubered to the Arts neighborhood just south of Parq du Mont-Royal and had lunch before heading up the hill to hike the park trails. After a very serious stair descent from a fabulous park overlook to street level, we trekked back to the boat, had dinner and gelato, and watched some Montreal high school grads promenade onto a small cruise ship to party and dine – seemed a little over-the-top by Northwoods standards, but looked like fun nonetheless.

After an early morning run to the boulangerie for croissants, we left  Montreal and transited two large commercial locks nearby on the St Lawrence. Reservations were required for pleasure craft lockage and we were required to raft off other larger pleasure boats during the process. It all worked fine and within a few hours we were on our way up the Ottawa River to St Anne-de-Bellevue, a small Quebec town with a lively waterfront promenade filled with restaurants and people – even on a Wednesday evening!

We were tested the next day during the locking process for the Carrillon Lock, a 68-ft rise with the most inefficient process we have ever seen in a Canadian lock. After 2 hrs at the lock and 62 miles on the water we finally arrived at a quiet marina in Papineauville, within striking distance of Ottawa the following day. The friendly, local boaters who helped us dock, the evening calls of thrushes and bull frogs, the marina’s woodsy setting (with no bugs!) And wonderful clean showers revived us!

We arrived in Ottawa and immediately turned south onto the Rideau Canal to enter a “flight” of 8 locks, beyond which is a first come-first served public wall ( with electricity) in downtown Ottawa. It was a gamble whether we’d find a space on a Friday afternoon, but we lucked out! Within a few blocks were wonderful fresh food markets, beautiful historic architecture, pedestrian-friendly spaces, great artwork, many restaurants, and great bikepaths that went for miles. And…the venue for the week-long Ottawa Jazz Fest was across the tree-lined canal a few hundred yards away so we could listen from the flybridge on the boat in the evening. Although croissants could still be found, the ubiquitous bakery treat for sale in grocery stores, bakeries and food stands was now “butter tarts”, Ontario’s version of mini pecan (or raisin 🤔) pies. We found an open air restaurant/bakery that had a whole corner counter dedicated to “Obama” cookies with photos of him stopping in to buy treats when he visited Trudeau. Made us smile….