Who said you could not do 1200km in a weekend? When it comes to discover one of the most typical areas of Quebec, marmots are ready for anything ;-)
Montreal, Friday, November 21, starting at 15h, 8h road ahead. A road that gradually depopulated in excess of Quebec to the north, no light and no housing for hundreds of miles (I had never seen so many stars in my life!), Then at 23.30, the arrival at the "end" of the road, opposite the Saguenay Fjord , including the 1.2 km wide at its mouth did cross by ferry; nice surprise when one has not shown before: fortunately the Ferry goes all night! It reminded me of the route (Epic sometimes) Dardanelles in Turkey, except the cold wind, the - 10 degrees jelly and foam on the waves that painfully reminded that we were indeed in Canada.
The ferry from Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay
then check in a small hostel that serves as a rendezvous for the people of Tadoussac (1000) when all tourists are gone and they find themselves separated again by any of hundreds of km: 3 hours drive south to go to Quebec City, 2 hours west to reach Chicoutimi. Here we are surrounded by "Cht'i" of Quebec, who speak with an accent so strong that even Quebecers Montreal them as "bumpkins". To say we understand a word of 10 while those who spoke to us were between 20 and 30. The evening ends in a surprising way after the confidences of the drunken prison guard for 21 years and his "buddy" who has been stabbed in the back by a friend and party receiving his $ 90,000 insurance, when Suddenly we see a young bar out a "line of coke" and bake in his nose, probably a sign that here, there's really not much to do. That is a bit much for young urbanites who we are and we therefore politely say goodnight our hosts before we lock in our room for the night, broken by the fatigue of travel, sad that the suffering we discovered on arrival and surprised to be greeted with open arms into a region so remote.
At the hostel, it was for the independence of Quebec ...
Saturday wants more playful, with a gentle wake-flavored pancake that is cooked waffles like ourselves in the kitchen of the hostel before s'emmitouffler in winter clothing who had been left in the cupboards since last year. I found happiness to be well equipped for our trip through the woods where we go from Tadoussac voluntarily paths to get lost in the forest and finally reach after a few scares and slides on very steep roads the mouth of the fjord, where we the chance to see three times the black fin of a whale (humpback whale) that repeats of plankton in the bay. The 300m high cliffs formed millennia ago by the glacier stand out a little gray skies, the wind is terrible and we face the whipping sea spray, in short, a true return to nature which is good. Tadoussac view of the St. Lawrence
We then leave for the west via the road north of the Saguenay, lost between the hills of the national park covered with pines and a few bare trees on the left, and the Sainte Marguerite right where signs to stop and offer fishing for salmon. Pause at St. Rose North (we know we are in the North!), Nestled in a cleft between two cliffs, on the waterfront, stroll on the lookout again (another cross! ), sunset on the cliffs at ... 16.30), then this is the way to Chicoutimi where we have dinner in a small organic coffee before we collapse on our bed at the cottage Butterfly Gold , where the wind hits the walls violently stopped by anything in the great plain between the Saguenay and Monts Valin we saw in the distance. Sainte-Rose du Nord in a cleft between the cliffs
Sainte-Rose du Nord at dusk and the beauty of the Saguenay 
Breakfast at Toast Blueberry, stories of bears, lynx and cougars by our host, then go again to the west, the direction Lac Saint Jean, where we will have time to admire the waves of ice (véridique!) and being disappointed by the Indian Reserve none other ... A village like the others. Then, after a good brunch on the lake, it's back already for 8h road that will take us back to Montreal, passing through the Laurentides wildlife reserve through a junction "reserved for Indians" in which we engage shamelessly to be gripped by anxiety when you find yourself lost in the forest on a bumpy road full of snow, not knowing for sure whether this good road joins the highway as it is believed from the map. Fortunately, this is the case, and after a beautiful sunset on a frozen lake and eneigé lost somewhere in the far north, we finally rejoin civilization without too much trouble and regain our fold Montreal Sunday around midnight, full of new images of Quebec ...
The shores of Lac Saint-Jean starts to freeze, the trees are covered with ice stalactites follow the wind direction and training icebériques have the form of waves!
A glimpse of the beauty of the Laurentides wildlife reserve at dusk.
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