Perce, Quebec

Drive to Perce was very pretty. Lots of little fishing villages along the route.

We have a book called "Places to Eat in Canada" which we decided would be a good guide. OK...we're eating our way across the country! One of the restaurants in Perce sounded quite intriguing. The owner is now 90 years old and he still loves to chat with all the customers. They bought the piece of land 50 years ago, pitched a tent and loved it so much they opened a restaurant. So we wound our way up the road to the top of the mountain and this is what we found....

Definitely not serving meals! I hope it's a case of they are closed for the season rather than closed for good! A lot of the restaurants in town are closed along with many of the shops. So you either get great fall colours or tourist attractions, but not both. The view at the top is beautiful. I can see why they fell in love with the land many years ago.

We found the Hotel Normandie without any problem. The GPS (nickname Garmie) has taken us on a few goose chases, but hit the hotel bang on. We had a lovely view of Perce rock from the room and it was a beautiful sunrise the next morning.

We took a boat cruise over to the rock and then to Bonaventure to see the gannets. The boat goes all around the island so you see different birds and also seals. Then if you want to get off on the island to go for a walk you can. I could see Jim was not overly enthused about getting off, but he agreed to go for a "small walk." Well, the trail over the island to see the gannet colony is almost 6 km and it was straight uphill at first. I tried to walk in front so I couldn't see the daggers Jim was shooting at me!

Most of the gannets are gone for the season. Bonaventure is one of the world's largest gannet colonies. The birds fly to Mexico and warmer climates leaving at the end of September and returning in April. They have over 300,000 birds during the summer. Here are some of the ones that were remaining. The gray ones are babies and don't fly for the first three months. They're too fat!


I read that in the spring when all the birds return, that it is just a sea of white. The noise just from these birds was deafening, so I can't imagine what it sounds like when they are all there! Here's a video of what you can hear at the colony....



We are heading towards the town of Gaspe today....