Gaspesie Route 132

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Rimouski

   Rimouski stands on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, where the river has widened into an estuary so broad that the far shore, forty kilometres away, is a blue line of mountains. The sea is only a taste of salt and a tide here, but it changes the weather, the light and the character of the town. About forty-two thousand people live in this lively regional capital of the Bas-Saint-Laurent, with a university, a long waterfront and the unhurried feel of a place that most visitors pass through on the way to somewhere further east.

   Read the complete Rimouski write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rimouski is where the day begins. Next is Matane.

2. 2. Matane

   In Matane, the fish run uphill. Every summer, Atlantic salmon swim up the Matane river, and the town has built a viewing station at a dam with a glass window into the fish ladder, so you can watch them fight their way upstream. It is a small, quirky sight, but it says a lot about the place: this is a working port on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, where the river is so wide that you can hardly see the north bank.

   Read the complete Matane write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Matane comes up about 95 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sainte Anne des Monts.

3. 3. Sainte Anne des Monts

   Sainte-Anne-des-Monts is the gateway to the Gaspésie National Park, on the north coast of the Gaspé Peninsula, where the St Lawrence River widens into the Gulf and the Chic-Chocs mountains rise abruptly behind the shore. The town is a pleasant, working place of about five and a half thousand people, with a church, a fishing wharf and a main street running along the coast. Behind it, the road to the park climbs into the mountains, where a herd of woodland caribou, the last south of the St Lawrence, survives on the high plateaus.

   Read the complete Sainte Anne des Monts write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 181 km into the recorded legs you reach Sainte Anne des Monts. Next is Gaspe.

4. 4. Gaspé

   Gaspé is a town of around fifteen thousand at the eastern end of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, built around a deep bay where, in 1534, Jacques Cartier is said to have come ashore and planted a cross claiming the land for the French king. Mi'kmaq people and Iroquoians of the St Lawrence had long lived and fished here, and the name itself is a Mi'kmaq word for the end of the land. It is a good start for a ride around the peninsula on Route 132, which in this area means a loop of nearly a thousand kilometres right around the coast and back.

   Read the complete Gaspe write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gaspe, about halfway. Next is Perce.

5. 5. Percé

   The rock at Percé is one of the most photographed things in eastern Canada, an enormous limestone wall rising out of the Gulf of St Lawrence, hundreds of metres long, with a natural arch at one end cut by waves. Another arch collapsed in the nineteenth century, in 1845, leaving the stack known as the Obelisk beside it, and the whole structure continues to erode slowly. The name means pierced in French, and from the village you can walk across the sandbar at low tide to the foot of it, though checking the tide tables is not optional.

   Read the complete Perce write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Percé sits at 493 km, about halfway. Next is Bonaventure.

6. 6. Bonaventure

   Bonaventure sits on the southern shore of the Gaspé Peninsula, on the Baie des Chaleurs, the Bay of Heat, whose waters are among the warmest in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and its sheltered beaches are popular for swimming in summer. The town was founded in 1760 by Acadian refugees, who had fled the British deportation of their people and found shelter in this quiet bay. The Musée acadien du Québec, in the town, tells the story with objects, documents and a gentle, human touch. The Acadian flag, a French tricolour with a yellow star, flies from many houses.

   Read the complete Bonaventure write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bonaventure comes up about 582 km into the recorded legs. Next is Matapedia.

7. 7. Matapédia

   Where the Matapédia river runs into the Restigouche, the Gaspé peninsula begins, and so does one of Canada's best salmon rivers. The village of Matapédia is a small place of a few hundred people squeezed between the water and forested Appalachian hills, right on the border between Quebec and New Brunswick, and for anyone riding Route 132 it is both a doorway and a full stop. The big loop around the Gaspésie, nearly nine hundred kilometres, is usually started here or finished here, and arriving after days of coast and cliff, you feel the road softening into river valley.

   Read the complete Matapedia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Matapédia closes the day.