Thankfully our faces have sun kissed glows from yesterday, because today isn’t nearly as nice. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like summer at all. When the wind blows in off the water, the temperature drops considerably. Chilly temperatures and wind aren’t great for taking photos, but overcast skies tend to give agreeable soft light.
Our first visit of the day was to see Roger. Roger is a self-taught naturalist who welcomed us into his home for a short lesson on the island’s flora and fauna. He’s been an avid bird watcher for 39 years and has a cabinet full of dried vegetation specimens. Plus, he’s a dedicated whale watcher. He showed us how to differentiate between different humpback whales by comparing their flukes (tails), which act like fingerprints. The big bonus for Elise was that he spoke English incredibly well. Apparently translating is way harder when you don’t even know the words in English, go figure.
For a small community Miquelon has a significant amount of historical artifacts. We visited their museum and it was full with rare stuff including: old French money, a funny cigarette making machine, a dried/salted cod from 1992, along with more interesting but less bazar fishing things and some old radios.
The archipelago, or group of islands, has a long history of being fought over by the French and the English. From what we understood, most of this had to do with wars and fishing rights. And no matter what the English did, the French always returned. We’re not doing their history justice. It sounds incredibly interesting but would take more than a year to comprehend and more than a paragraph to explain.
We took lots of pictures today, including some calendar worthy photos of a musician, a fisherman and also Patricia’s dad who seems to be a jack-of-all-trades from fishing to music and gardening.
Big thanks to Patricia, from l’Auberge de l’Ile, who introduced us to many wonderful people during our stay and made things happen.
Demain c’est le retour à Saint-Pierre.
