Goodbye, Quebec. Hello, Ontario.

Well, not just yet. We'll leave the French-Canadian province of Quebec in about 36-hours, after a weather front moves on. Right now Carina is moored past the lock at the beautiful village of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. (That's Quebec's provincial flag flown by many instead of the national flag.)






You may have wondered if we ever learned the French word for restrooms. Yes, it's toilette. Ice is glace. Market is marche. 





We've even eaten one of the national dishes of Canada -- twice! Poutine (pronounced like the last name of Vladimir Putin), was created in Quebec, so we thought we'd come to the right place to try the dish. It's French fries with cheese curd (think of small, tasty mozzarella balls) on top, all covered with thin beef or chicken-based gravy. It's an acquired taste, we think. Two tries were enough. Our arteries couldn't take more.

Our Chambly Canal Adventure

After clearing Canadian Customs, we continued north. Aubrey, who works for Parks Canada in the warm months and for a ski lodge in the cold, sold us a seasonal lock pass and seasonal mooring pass at Saint-Jean-de-Richelieu, the start of the Richelieu/Chambly Canal. Our new route takes us through so many Canadian locks that it was cheaper to buy the seasonal pass. The same holds true for the mooring pass. The pass allows us to tie up to a bulkhead at the locks, what Parks Canada calls mooring. 

Saint-Jean was the start of the Richelieu Canal. The canal is on the Richelieu River with nine locks in a 12-mile section near the village of Chambly. It's often called the Chambly Canal in Canada.


The locks are unique because they are totally hand-cranked by Parks Canada employees. They crank the gates closed, crank a valve to release water or let water in, and crank the other gate open for us. All locks used to work this way. Going through these locks is one of the most incredible experiences we've had.






The four locks on the right were almost back to back, with just a little space between. Parks Canada workers leapfrogged from one gate to another to open and close them for us -- by hand.







The last three locks were actually stair-stepped. When the front gates opened for the first lock, they turned out to be the back gates for the second lock. It was an awesome view from the top. Look closely to see the tops of the gates and the 50-plus-foot sailboat in the basin beyond.

As the Song Goes, It's a Small World After All

At Chambly we stopped for the night "mooring" on the bulkhead wall before going through the last three stairstepped locks. An hour later, Aurora, a 22-foot Hunter, with Mike and Cindy from Minnesota, came along to tie up for the night, too. They call their boat a gypsy boat, too, now that the mast is down and "stuff" stored on deck.

We had a lot in common discussing small sailboats, since we still own two Catalina 22s. We asked how long they'd been on the Loop. Ten months was the answer -- about the same time we've been on it. When asked about the Gulf crossing, Mike and Cindy talked about the horrible weather, the horrible seas and how the weathermen had gotten it all wrong. Funny, we said. That was our experience, too. 

It turns out that both boats had been at Captain's Quarters Marina in Carrabelle at the same time, not meeting each other, and we'd both started our Gulf crossing the same day. The wind and waves were too much for them, so they went inland to Steinhatchee long after dark. We had heard other boaters mention the "sailors on the 22-foot boat" on the radio, never hearing their names. Boaters making the crossing were relieved to hear they'd gone inland and were safe. Now, nine months later, we meet up.

Why There's a Rooster Atop Church Crosses

Along the Richelieu River and the St. Lawrence Seaway around Montreal, we saw many glorious silver churches with tall steeples. What was mystifying was that they often had a rooster wind vane mounted above the cross on those steeples. 










We've read that there's a French Catholic tradition of putting roosters on crosses. And Quebec is the most French Catholic of all provinces in Canada. 

The rooster is a symbol of the Apostle Peter, the first Pope. It refers to Jesus telling Peter at the Last Supper that he would betray him before the cock crows three times. Peter denied that he would, but out of fear, he did. The rooster is a symbol not to give in to our human fear, but remain faithful to Christ.

The symbolism is moving. Being from another culture, we are still surprised to see a rooster sitting atop the cross. 

For awhile, we'll be traveling with Mike and Cindy. (Here they are this morning with Montreal's skyline ahead of them.) We've slowed our travel speed down to match them and are going longer days. Like us, they have a sense of urgency, feeling that we have to keep moving to avoid bad weather that starts mid- to late September in the Great Lakes.  

Our next destination after the weather clears here will be the province of Ontario. We'll go up the nearby Ottawa River to Ottawa and connect to the Rideau Canal. At the end of the Rideau is Kingston, near the start of the Trent-Severn Waterway, the last and the best of the Canadian canals, so we've heard. We're looking forward to getting there.