Excursion to La Malbaie
By student Lucas Flake
We went up to La Malbaie, and on the way there, you can notice so much. One is the rich beauty of the green Quebecois countryside. The architecture is homely and inviting, with small and well-crafted homes. They are all very inviting and would be a lovely countryside home for anyone with the money to afford a second home there.
La Malbaie was a super comforting place for me as it has all these lovely elements to it. It is right on the bank of the Saint Lawrence River and has a seaside town feel to it.
The sight of the ocean and the towns around the river and bay was breathtaking. You can see the western heritage in its North Atlantic colonial feel. Walking on the rocks, I could see why Samuel de Champlain failed to anchor in this location, hence its name, the bad bay. The town was created as a place to facilitate trade along the St. Lawrence River, especially in the fur trade.
Quebec culture and its history can find its DNA, so to speak, in the strong effort to profit and make a living in these sometimes unforgiving lands. The people of this land clearly worked hard to survive and work these lands. You can see the Western mindset to dominate and conquer nature in towns like this. Despite its rougher geography, with it hard to anchor ships, they managed to make it work.
