The road followed the north bank of the St Lawrence, but it was mainly back in the hills, going through a succession of small, attractive towns, and then we turned north up into the mountains and Grande Jardin park. The trees here appeared to be much further along with reds and golds up on the hillside, but hard to see through the fog and rain. We camped at the Pied de Mont campground, presumably at the foot of some mountain that was hidden in the clouds.

Friday September 23rd

Two lady rangers came to visit us in the morning. Apparently we were supposed to put money into an envelope. I paid up and pleaded darkness and ignorance and was forgiven.

We had a message on the satellite phone that there had been a tornado running down 694 and it had gone past Joanna's house and ours. She had a tree on her house and some broken windows, and we had a tree down. Michael wanted to know how to start the chain saw. It turned out that Joanna's had power lines down so she was at our place, waiting for the power company and insurance to sort things out. My advice to Michael was to get on with fixing the Geo and forget the chainsaw: cutting up a tangled big tree is not a good way to learn how to use one!

The weather cleared after breakfast and we went exploring the park's mountain tracks and lakes. Much of the area had recently burned, so Lac Bois Vert had neither "bois"(wood) or "vert" (green), but the undergrowth had grown back and had already turned red and yellow. Some of the surviving trees were tamaracks, which are like fluffy spruce but are not evergreens, and these were already turning gold. We had the place largely to ourselves and had a good morning driving and walking around the backcountry.