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Show Gaspe Peninsula Gaspe Peninsula : ) t ' i.X. -J- , j J y Tz ww i x - - X t - . vc v ' . - x X""-v V , X X' ' vX. ""v e . .XV ; r . - I iX -V i I v " ' . $ 4 $ nx X C'leanmg Cod on the Gaspe Peninsula. ' Prepr.rpd bv National GPofrraphlc Society. Washington, D. C. WXU Service. C2 an out-thrust tongue of land at the wide mouth of the St. Lawrence river lies the Gaspe peninsula, one of the newer wonderlands of North America. With completion of the Perron Boul-vard Boul-vard in 1928, it was opened to motorists motor-ists around its entire area about ten times that of Rhode Island. This summer it is being visited by an increasing number of vacationists I from the United States, i The climate is literally unique, j There is plenty of bright sunlight but no really hot weather. July and August seldom see more than 75 degrees. Thanks to Gaspe's northern latitude, lat-itude, it has an hour or so more daylight day-light each day in midsummer than Toronto or Boston. Best of all in this favored land is the air once breathed, never forgotten. "Atmospheric "Atmos-pheric champagne," it has been called. Here northern outposts of the ancient an-cient Appalachian Mountain system, eastern backbone of the continent from Alabama to Canada, meet the sea and sink beneath it in a chaos of cliff and headland. Tremendous forces of nature have left their mark all over the area. Ages of erosion have hollowed out huge valleys on the northern shore. On the south side of the peninsula, red cliffs and red pinnacles stand out in striking contras' with the blue of the water and the green of pines. Beneath the waters lie other mountains, moun-tains, worn and leveled by the waves of centuries. Into these shallows, in countless millions, swarm the cod. Down the slopes flow rivers filled with salmon, streams with romantic, musical names Matapedia, Res-tigouche. Res-tigouche. The Gaspe folk are a strange and interesting mixture. People Are a Mixed Race The first settlers, were a few Norman Nor-man and Breton fishermen who annually an-nually made adventurous journeys across the Atlantic to these famous codfishing grounds and finally decided de-cided to stay the year round instead of returning to France when the season was over. Next came the Acadians, driven out of Nova Scotia. A few of them reached some isolated spots on the ; north side of the Bay of Chaleur, began fishing, and have been fishing ever since. These Acadians have a distinctive accent and a way of speaking largely produced by their maritime habits. A horse "swings" in its course to starboard or larboard, as old time sailors said and when you stop the steed is "moored." After the cession of the country to Britain came the Channel Islanders, Guernseymen and Jerseymen from the English islands off the coast of France. Those English-French newcomers, new-comers, speaking either language with complete facility, as they still do, settled down in some vacant spaces, set to fishing and privateering, privateer-ing, and left plenty of descendants behind them. A few years later, about the time of the American Revolution, groups of "loyalists," or "Tories," left the new United States to establish themselves them-selves at the head of Gaspe Bay and in other well-selected spots. Then the Irish arrived they, too, had settlements of their own and another group, northern Irish or Scottish, of bold sea-roving stock in either case. The Canadian habitant, most persistent per-sistent and prolific of colonists, finally fi-nally worked his way along both north and south shores and set an example of farming in a country which so far haH been entirely devoted de-voted to fishing. Finally, on the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Metis river, at the landward end of the peninsula, was established a colony of Scottish and English settlers. Revealed by a Highway Ten years ago only a few outsiders out-siders had any idea of the interest and beauty of the Gaspe area, for it was difficult of access. The last few years, however, have seen astonishing as-tonishing changes. By a remarkable f jat of highway engineering, a broad safe 553-mile road, linked with the general systems sys-tems of Quebec and New Brunswick, and so with those of New England, has encircled the entire peninsula. Automobiles can tour the area where ox carts and dog carts were outdestanced formerly only by the horse and the reckless bicycle. A popular approach is to cross the St. Lawrence from Quebec to Levic. An easy day's journey eastward, with the St. Lawrence at the left of the highway growing constantly wider, leads to Metis Beach, one of the most northerly summer resorts of eastern Canada and the first town to be encountered in the Gaspe peninsula. Here at Metis Beach the golfer has his last game, for a while, at any rate. The sportsman who is not afraid of cold water goes for a swim or a sail. Turning south from there, the road crosses the base of the peninsula, penin-sula, climbing the hills behind the village to the watershed which separates sep-arates the valley of the Metis river, flowing into the Saint Lawrence, from that of the Matapedia, flowing toward the Bay of Chaleur. Bay of Chaleur rivers, and there are plenty of them, are full of salmon. The small white town of Carleton was named for an Eighteenth-century governor general of Canada. Acadians of the original settlement in 1775 called the place Tracadi-geche, Tracadi-geche, from a Micmac word meaning mean-ing "Place of Many Herons." The name was later changed, under the influence of Americans who came to Gaspe rather than fight against the English in the Revolution. A few miles farther, at the mouth of the Cascapedia river, a road runs off to the north to zinc and lead mines. Hereabouts there are many farmers, farm-ers, mainly Canadiens from the upper part of Quebec. They share their machinery and they have technical tech-nical advisers from the government, govern-ment, so that their, farms, although small, are good. Farther up the coast, at Cape Cove, have been produced the finest peas in North America. An Old Codfishing Town The town of Paspebiac, old-fashioned old-fashioned codfishing center, is an odorous introduction to the authentic authen-tic Gaspe industry. Down on the beach are warehouses, where many practices have remained the same since the industry began soon after the time of Jacques Cartier, 400 years ago. Cod are stored about as they were by the first local fishermen, fisher-men, in stacks resembling huge pine cones. Cod are split, spread open, and dried so that they are hard and flat as boards. Then they are arranged ar-ranged in cylindrical piles, the lower end smaller than the top and covered by pieces of birch bark held down by stones. A few miles more brings the traveler trav-eler to Port Daniel where Jacques Cartier made his headquarters while he explored the Bay of Chaleur. A wide sand bar almost closes the mouth of the Port Daniel river, and most of the village is built on the sand bar. The road for the next 40 miles hugs the shore. Then suddenly Perce comes to view. On the lanc'ward side are red peaks partly covered by greenery, then the tops of three fanglike cliffs and a white village nestling between them and the headlands fronting the bay. Off shore stands the magnificent Pierced Rock (Rocher Perce) looking like the wall of some huge sea fortress or a monstrous battleship, battle-ship, dwarfing to insignificance the village to which it gives its name. Near its outward end an arch has been cut through by the action of the water. Farther seaward was the sentry tower of the wall, a smaller pinnacle of rock, originally joined to it by another arch which has long since fallen in. Farther out still lay Bonaventure island, its cliffs topped by trees and meadows. The road from here to Gaspe climbs through mountain valleys and up peaks which are green and rounded on the landward side but fronting the sea as vertical red cliffs, Around the end of the peninsula lies Gaspe Bay. On its south side, along which the road runs, are hills and woods and farms. On the other side' stands a range of wooded heights ending in the 700-foot cliffs of Cape Gaspe, a long stone finger pointing southeastward across the mouth of the bay. An extensive drawbridge crosses the bay where the French explorer, Jacques Car-tier, Car-tier, discoverer of the St, Lawrence river, took refuge during a storm. Along the North Shore Gaspe village two years ago celebrated cel-ebrated a four-hundredth anniversary, anniver-sary, with French and British both participating in the ceremonies, A huge granite cross was unveiled near the spot where Cartier landed in 1534 and took possession of the soil for France. The north shore of the Gaspe peninsula provides thrilling automo-biling automo-biling through the wild green Shick-shock Shick-shock Mountains. This northerly range of the Appalachians, rearing to a height of more than 4,000 feet, is strangely shaped. The summits are almost level; the peaks have been washed and ground away, and only the flat foundations are left. In the distance it looks like a barrier wall with higher towers rising here and there above it , |