Recapping

We've had three and a half months away from Penang, half in Bermuda, half in Toronto, and it was a great time. Visiting the place where we'd lived for 32 years, seeing friends and hanging out, going to concerts of rock bands from the 1970's who are just about hanging on but still rocking. It has been great.

Here are some highlights.

1. Bermuda Beaches

No words necessary here. I'd forgotten how beautiful they were. Here's a brief reminder.

Warwick Long Bay and one of the many nameless beaches at Coopers Island

Who wouldn't want to swim here?

2. History and Tradition

I don't think people look back enough and consider where they come from and just why what exists today exists today. It all comes from the past and whilst the way history was taught to me when I was at school was largely an exercise in rote learning dates and in a way that tried to parcel up history into chunks -- mine for example was at O Level from 1485-1688 and from 1688 to 1815... we had two exams, written essays both, covering each of these periods. In isolation this means that history did not exist either before or after these dates which is of course ridiculous.

History writers today cover this much better and attempt to contextualise history in that they also explain or rather try to explain the 'why'. Much of this is down to conjecture as nobody alive then (say in Roman times) is alive today.

I really enjoyed Quebec City but one of those history 'why' moments was the best. Napoleon's blockade of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars forced Britain to look elsewhere for timber for the Royal Navy... hence the opening up of Canada.

Trooping the color... all in French!

The St Lawrence Seaway, one of the great sea lanes that opened up the entire continent

3. Tennis

Both of us are tennis players and were able to indulge both playing and watching whilst we were traveling. I still think that our 'home' tennis club in Bermuda is one of the nicest places to play tennis and as hard courts go is up there with the best.

Beers under the trees in between the courts is very nice indeed!

We only planned to watch one day of tennis at the Rogers Cup in Toronto but ended up going 3 or 4 days... ironically the worst day was the one we'd originally chosen and the others ended up being far better. We also had visitors over this time too which made it doubly nice.

How do they manage to hit the ball?

4. Eating

We like to eat. Simple as that. So finding great places to eat and nice things to eat are important. We got really lucky!

Dodge City steak

Milanese from an Italian in Miami during our horrible hiatus

Quebec lobster

Poutine and traditional Quebec meat pie

Amazing French stick from Toronto

5. Music

Given that we went to all of those concerts, this just had to be included. I enjoyed all of the shows but if I were pushed would have to give pole position to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the last show of all. ZZ Top though were the only band to have not changed personnel for whatever reason over the years. They ran close but...

6. Selfies

Selfies are a great notion and do enable you to take interesting pictures but they do tend to be really awful a lot of the time. We tried to do at least one selfie each day and in almost all occasions deleted them immediately. Perhaps my arms aren't long enough or just as likely I am not that great a photo snapper.

See what I mean?

7. Traveling Companion

Of course the best thing of all was to have a wonderful traveling companion and I was lucky enough to have the best!

The first settlement

The full chronology of our visit to Quebec is on Chris' wonderful Track My Tour app which has a weblink here. Please check it out for the moment by moment updates (but do ignore the pic which has us over Manitoba. That was somewhere in Quebec over the St Lawrence River).

In 1538 Simon de Champlain landed in Quebec City before it was Quebec City of course and in so doing became the first European visitor to Canada... that is if you ignore the Vikings. However it wasn't until 1608 that the first settlement was established... only a year before Bermuda's first settlement. The French had it first but that ended in 1759 as part of the Seven Years War which saw the British move in permanently. This city was the first seat of all government in Canada. Well the eastern part of Canada that is.

Meat pie and poutine. A fine staple!

It is a lovely city. Well the old part is and that is the bit that we visited. We had a great time. It is a cool food city too. The local meat pie and poutine are a treat! The great and the good things that we found were in no particular order:

Chateau Frontenac

Plenty of places competed with this lovely hotel but to us if we wanted to visit, we just had to stay here. The back story is really insightful into the history of Canada too and bears repeating.

Dominion came in 1867 which brought virtual independence (although the Queen is still head of state) from the Mother country. Gone were the subsidies and monies that flowed from Britain. Canada had to stand on its own. This was one way.

One of the pre-conditions of dominion with British Columbia on the west coast (at this time there only 4 provinces -- Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia in the east and BC in the west) was the need to build a railway from east coast to west. Halifax to Vancouver. 4,000+ miles across prairie, mountains, etc.  A number of railway companies came and went until Canadian Pacific showed up. Like now they had an American CEO and he was the guy that finally made it happen. However it was in one section, the most difficult, that it all very nearly came to a crashing halt. This was in the approaches to the Rocky Mountains. The trains were really swanky but as there were no tunnels through mountains back then, it was really difficult to manoeuvre the train around the mountains and through the various passes. Particularly the dining car which was the heaviest.

So the train would stop just before attempting this bit and decouple the dining car before making its way into the mountains. Back then this was a lengthy process and so the passengers would hop off the train and basically hang around or go for a walk. This was in a place called Banff Springs and it was here that the lightbulb went off for the CP CEO who said that this place (Banff) would be one great place to build a hotel so passengers could spend some time in comfort whilst waiting for the final bit of the journey to Vancouver.

That was the first hotel of the chain that would link the railway line end to end. The Chateau Frontenac was the second. Each hotel was built in the style of the locale and remain amazing monuments to this day.

Plains of Abraham

Moving over the obvious reasons why the French aren't as appreciative of this than the British (i.e. they lost here) the plains are just a great city park. Abraham was the bloke that used to keep his cattle here way back when and that in itself is just one great reason why it should be called that! Who wouldn't want a lovely park named after them? Central Park.... really!

City Walls

Quebec City is the only town in North America that is still completely walled. Now if that doesn't deserve a mention on its own, I don't know what does.

La Citadelle

Dating from the same time as the fortifications in Bermuda (Fort St. Catherine, Paget Island, Dockyard), the citadel was built 1820-50 as defence against US invasion. A real prospect as the city had been occupied before (like Montreal and like in Montreal the Americans left because the weather was too cold), the British built this huge defence adjoining the city walls on THE most strategic height in the city. We did a tour there after... wait for it... after watching the daily changing of the guard ceremony.

View from the Citadel and the city walls controlling the St. Lawrence waterway

Lovely to see in itself, but this is the only regiment (Royal 22nd Regiment) and the only place that does this where all orders are given only in... French. I've seen this before in England and the ceremony is pretty similar with the soldiers all dressed in the same red uniforms and bearskins, but that was in English. So really nice to see this and I really do hope this is a tradition that endures. So many don't these days.

French

Quebec is far more French than Montreal. This didn't used to be the case but gradually the Anglos left for Montreal and Toronto particularly during the 1960-1970 period when the independence movement was at its height. Today less than 2% of the population's first language is English. Someone told me the number of people speaking Arabic as their first language is nearly 5%!

Charcuterie française

Anyway we were able to practice our lamentable schooldays French but unlike France in the old days, we found that people were very happy to help you out in English!

Why Canada?

One of the most fascinating things was during a trip to the Montmorency Falls just outside the city. Picturesque and a nice place to hike, but it was so much more than this. In the old days people would go logging up river and drive the logs along the river to lumber mills at the foot of the falls.

La Chutte Montmorency

But why would it be that Canada was so important for lumber at a time when let's face it, Canada was a place miles away, next to a noisy and antagonistic neighbour and which other than the maritimes didn't do very much for the mother country?

Well it was all about Napoleon Bonaparte as so much of French/British history is. Blame Boney or in this case thank Boney.

Britain had been at war pretty much continuously with France from 1792 through to 1815. First was the revolutionary period which was a bit of a shambles for everyone but once Boney had taken control of things, he created the process that governed how the war would be fought with Britain and it was called the Continental System. This closed all European ports to British ships and for a maritime nation reliant on overseas trade, this was a disaster.

If you look at it from the French side, this was fair enough for British contributions to the war were mainly naval except for the Iberian expeditions. They had blockaded the European ports first... a point that the US particularly disliked as that meant the Royal Navy would frequently stop, search and in many cases seize US ships bound for European ports and was a cause of the 1812-14 war. But from a British perspective, this was an outrage and a major problem for it meant that they could not obtain amongst other things lumber from Scandinavia to build ships.

Hence Canada and indeed Quebec for the new world at that point was almost entirely covered with rivers, lakes and .... trees. Lots of trees.

So thank you Boney.

**
Don't you just love the why's?

The Tale of Two Systems

A while ago my firm included in its client reporting a piece on the differences between common and civil law which our recent visit to Montreal gave me cause to remember.

Common Law is essentially one created over time in Britain and entirely based on precedent, meaning that interpretations have to be consistent over time.  Putting it again more simply it means that anything you want to do is legal unless its specifically illegal (as determined by past events).  This enables lawyers to write meaningful predictive opinions on which people and firms may base future decisions.  Ideal for business in fact.  Civil Law by contrast is statute driven.  Everything is illegal unless specifically permitted by law.  It is based on Roman and Napoleonic law -- Napoleonic law specifically forbids judges to rule on matters of law in any deliberations which of course creates massive bureaucratic snarl ups when things do need to change.

Common Law countries are pink, Civil Law in blue

Timing in life is everything. The British in Quebec were hamstrung by it, not really having the time to incorporate Lower Canada into the other American colonies post-war before the Colonies themselves revolted so introduced the 1774 Canada Act largely to placate the French Canadians as troubles were brewing elsewhere.  After the US secession, the British immediately were confronted with revolution in France and 30 years of war in Europe that pulled resources, immigration and their attention in entirely different directions… just when it was needed in Lower Canada in fact.

However in the usual British fashion, the legal system imposed on Lower Canada was a mish mash.  Common law was introduced for the criminal side -- a move that stopped wanton torture, arrest and all that other stuff the French used as part of their seigneurial rights. You were deemed guilty until proven innocent and could be tortured to confess your 'crime'.  Under common law you were deemed innocent until proven guilty and weren't subject to torture… any more.  On the civil side, Upper Canada was allowed to maintain its seigneurial system and most significantly their religion.  The church in those days held massive power and the belief that universal education was wrong as it would bring false hopes to the masses.  This meant that most of the rural French settlers (the vast majority) were illiterate, uneducated and still maintained their age old allegiances to church and their liege lord.

This was to prove a long term bugbear but in the near term actually helped. In the winter of 1776/7 when the revolting Americans including Benjamin Franklin occupied Montreal looking to encourage Lower Canada to secede with them, as few people actually lived in Montreal and travel during the winter is almost impossible, they published a pamphlet seeking to garner support.  This failed in the main because few people could read (this is actually what the guide said in the museum tour, I am not making this up!) so the Americans gave up and left.  History really is all about timing!

One 'revolting' American

The 7-Years War aftermath saw Montreal grow to dominance in Canada, first outstripping Quebec City as the most important city in Quebec then by maintaining a considerable lead over growing (Upper Canada) Ontario becoming capital city of the colony and guardian of all the major institutions until the 1837-38 rebellion after which the capital was moved to Ottawa, mid-way between Toronto and Montreal (rather like the siting of Canberra in Australia mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne).

Later, the separatist movement in the 1970's spooked virtually all investment and industry into moving to Ontario as well as created an unpleasant atmosphere for the large anglophone minority who similarly uprooted thrusting Toronto into its current position as the most important city in Canada.  Toronto recently took over as third largest city in North America and is one of the top 5 best places to live in the world (according to some major survey).

Sometimes you wonder why it is that people make the decisions they do.  Certainly common law isn't the simplest of systems to work with but does have the principal of equity built into it.  Civil law is tradition based pure and simple.  What happened in the past will happen in the future.  What was Einstein's definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

I know the feeling

Even the French passed laws in the early 20th century formally separating church and state.  This didn't happen until the 1970's in Quebec when universal education and free healthcare was made available to all -- something that had been the case for many years elsewhere in common law anglophone Canada.

To be fair, it is difficult giving up on past glories… and admit that you are wrong.  We see it in Bermuda which is struggling to accept the fact that it is no longer the wealthy, vibrant place it was in the offshore world heyday.  We also see it more broadly in Europe where the great empire nations of the past struggle to come to terms with their substantially smaller place in an ever changing world.  In such times, you have to adapt or wither and die.  Change in fact.

Common law enables change and innovation.  Civil law stifles it.

In Canada terms, Toronto has won.  Most business, non-oil sand investment and immigration heads to Ontario largely because of its system and English language base.  In Quebec all immigrants are forced into French language schools with the result that most immigrants to that province come only from francophone nations in Africa and elsewhere…. including France, the largest element, where people are leaving because of the economic and social mess in that country.

Toronto's canyon lands

See my travel blog here on Track My Tour.

Not the French again...

I overlooked this post from a couple of weeks ago as I couldn't find any pictures.  Now I have so here it is.

It seems to not matter where you go but there grinning at you is likely to be some Rene or Thierry smirking away because they got there first.  Or at least that's what they say.

So it is in that vast tract of land in the middle of the USA called the mid-west.

Its all about two guys Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau who in 1673 took their little canoes thousands and thousands of miles over many years from Quebec across the width of half of Canada through the great lakes and then down through various rivers until they hit the motherlode, the Mississippi, which in an instant whirled them down to the confluence firstly of the Illinois River (north easterly direction towards Chicago) and the Mississippi near a town today called Grafton, Illinois where they and their comrades carved a cross out of the rock for all to see next time they passed.

"Now listen Mr. Lewis, this is what I want you to do... see the big question mark?  I want you to fill that in..."

They didn't stop there though but carried on down the Mississippi until they came to the confluence of an even greater river system, namely the Mississippi and Missouri just outside modern day St. Louis.  There they did stop and started an encampment that they called St. Louis after Louis IX, the patron saint of France.  That was in 1674.

Other French Canadians carried on down the Mississippi until they came to the Gulf of Mexico where they founded yet another settlement called New Orleans (actually Nouvel Orleans if you want to be picky) where a whole bunch of French Canadians ended up after they lost the 7 Years War to England in 1763 and gave up all of Canada.

Fast forward 40 years to beyond the War of Independence and that other upstart Napoleon who had run the French treasury dry by his endless wars but was now at peace for a short period when the slave revolt in today's Haiti destroyed the French presence in the Caribbean.  It made him realize that (a) there was no chance France could support a colony that far away from France without a navy that could challenge the Royal Navy, and (b) that maybe as those Yankees had asked to buy New Orleans, perhaps he could actually negotiate a better deal before he lost the territory altogether.

Ever the pragmatist Napoleon figured out that $15 million in 1803 money meant he could pay his armies for another couple of years to enable him to move against Austro-Hungary, the German states and Russia in a series of shattering campaigns that catapulted him to total supremacy in Europe, and promoted him to the position of Emperor.

It also doubled the size of the USA and prompted Jefferson to ask his personal secretary, Merriweather Lewis, to head west out of the new US city of St. Louis along the Missouri River to find the Pacific Ocean, meet and deal with Indians, chart maps and any new flora and fauna he may find, and generally enable the US to lay claim to more of the Pacific North West to bring Jefferson's vision of the USA 'from sea to shining sea' to fruition.

Doesn't sound much today but Lewis had the boats built in Pittsburg and sailed them down to St. Louis.  Took months.

Lewis contacted his former Army CO, Captain William Clark, to ask him to accompany him on the trek.  Clark had opted out of the army so agreed.  He it turned out was the practical one whilst Lewis was the botanist, zoologist, and general all round recorder of the trip.  Clark was an experienced cartographer and his maps of the journey were amazingly only 40 miles out.  No GPS to help him either.

Rather like at Jamestown, this was not an unplanned trip even though big.  They took over a year to plan things out with a blank cheque from the President.  Trouble was they didn't know what to take and why... all into the great unknown.  Rather like planning a road trip today.

We started our voyage of discovery at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a national park with security like any international airport (for goodness sake), where there was a museum dedicated to this journey only and its import in the expansion of the USA to what it is today.

Built in the 1970s this is a monster edifice. Great views.

There's an interesting chronology of events year by year that follows the US between 1800 and 1900.  In 1800 the population was not much over 2 million, by 1900 it was nearly 100 million.  In summary after Lewis & Clark, other expeditions went out in other directions both further north and south as one main objective was to find a practical path through the Rockies.  Lewis & Clark's expedition nearly died of starvation in the nightmare winter crossing as where they chose to cross was not that wise.  Others found easier routes making the great westward treks more easy (they were still tough of course but not impossible).  By 1850, the far west was colonized, Indians displaced and annoyed, and settlements were starting to put down real roots.

Amazing how quick it all was after that start.

We then went to the museum at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri -- 2 huge rivers which simply joined up north of St. Louis.  Lewis & Clark kicked off from there in their great adventure and the museum made much of it (very well indeed).

Missouri to the left, Mississippi to the right.  

I'm always amazed how people with nothing more than a hope and a prayer and (in this case just as with the case of the Jamestown settlements) over a year of planning with the specific and direct assistance from the US President (Jefferson) can achieve such amazing results.

Only 1 person on the trip died -- soon from a burst appendix -- and unsurprisingly given what was to follow, there were no Indian incidents other than a couple of Blackfoot who stole from the party and were shot and the numerous incidents of STD's that the party picked up from the Indians who according to Lewis' journals were riddled with it -- not a point that is usually highlighted.

3,700 miles there and back over 2 and a half years.  Sounds like a good road trip for us sometime soon! Hopefully in less time.