August 10th - The thoroughly intriguing city of Saguenay
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 10 August 2022
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today I’ve travelled 100 miles north from Quebec City to the thoroughly intriguing city of Saguenay. As you approach, you drive through the usual North American suburban tedium – and suddenly find yourself on the shore of a fjord that runs east to the St Lawrence River. A waterside boardwalk takes you towards a compelling industrial archaeological site. The old papermill is now a museum, while the ruins of an early hydroelectric project on “Electric Island” are at the centre of a thrilling urban park.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder and I'm coming to you from the middle of a paper mill. |
| 0:12.0 | It is a paper mill that was created in the early 20th century and has now more or less collapsed along with the paper trade in this corner of |
| 0:24.3 | beautiful Quebec, Saguenay, to be exact. And no, I hadn't really heard of it either. It's about |
| 0:32.9 | a hundred and something miles north of Quebec City where I was yesterday and it is a place of |
| 0:43.3 | immense surprises not least the best collection of industrial archaeology I have ever seen as it were in the wild. |
| 0:53.3 | There's a museum de la Pulperi. I have ever seen, as it were, in the wild. |
| 1:02.5 | There's a Muse de la Pulperie, a museum of the pulpery, and that's high on the hill above me. |
| 1:10.0 | It looks a bit like a kind of vast engine shed, and indeed there is a locomotive outside. |
| 1:17.8 | But what is much more remarkable is the history of harnessing hydraulic hydropower in a location which is immensely beautiful as they they tend to be, because of course you require |
| 1:29.1 | a lot of rushing water generally through a gorge, and that's what I'm looking down at now. |
| 1:36.5 | This is the Chikotomi Pulp Company, decided to harness this river, and it flows out into the St Lawrence River eventually |
| 1:49.0 | well actually into a fjord and Saguenay itself the city is on the side of a |
| 1:57.0 | huge Norwegian-style fjord yes it is And I'm looking up at the surge tower that is looking a |
| 2:05.7 | bit like a moon rocket ready to blast off and it was just there so that if there was a surge in water |
| 2:11.7 | pressure it could be relieved by guiding the water uphill. I'm talking of uphill, I'm looking at a whole series of kind |
| 2:21.6 | of crescent-shaped supports which would be holding the pipes which were driving the wheels that |
| 2:30.1 | were creating the power. And this was known as Electric Island. |
| 2:36.0 | Yes, I'm standing on electric island because that's what they produced here. |
| 2:41.0 | And what's lovely about this is that they haven't kind of knocked it down or indeed turned it into a theme park. |
| 2:50.0 | They just let it quietly fade away all the |
| 2:54.8 | stories of all the men and women who worked here are kind of hidden in the stones but they've also |
| 3:02.4 | make it incredibly visitor friendly with a wonderful series of steps that will take you up and around the gorge |
... |
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