Tag Archives: Quebec

A Sign Of Spring In Quebec

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The Internet has affected our views of the world and for the past month or so I’ve ‘experienced’ spring in many locations on our fair planet as people talk about flowers popping out of the ground, birds chirping, etc.  In Quebec spring is a bit different.  It’s a time when temperatures fluctuate a lot.  One day we’ll be in shirt-sleeves and the next we’re back in our heavy coats.  Spring is when the snow melts, though, and we’re left with a bunch of brown, matted grass and no green on the trees.  When the trees finally flush, it seems they do it overnight and summer begins.

So, while we “know” it’s spring, the birds haven’t shown up yet and there aren’t those flower indicators of it.  Instead, our indicators are big blue trucks.  All winter the city’s efforts to keep us moving involves regular gravel/dirt treatments of our roads and sidewalks.  Spring snow melt leaves a coating of the stuff everywhere and so the big blue trucks come along, with nice guys in orange coats who wash the sidewalks with power hoses.  later, other big blue trucks (actually streetsweepers) come along and suck up the gravel from the streets.

A couple days ago they came and while they weren’t in one place long enough to sketch, I took a couple photos and did this quick, for me, sketch of the activity.  We like it clean in Quebec City.

Stillman & Birn 5.5×8.5 Alpha; Lamy All Star w/Platinum Carbon Black ink; W&N artist watercolors

 

Buskers Have It Tough During Carnaval Du Quebec

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Some of my fellow urban sketchers have chided me for being a sissy because I won’t go out sketching this time of year.  “Cold…I remember the time when the water froze on my palette and we were still….”  Well, you get the picture.  After I heard that enough times I actually put my palette out on my porch with a wash mixed up on it.  It took all of two minutes for ice crystals to start forming and within ten minutes it was frozen nearly solid.  I brought it back in for fear the cold would damage the paints.  I was right; they were wrong.  It’s just too darn cold to paint in Quebec in February.

But yesterday, it “warmed up”, a term I put in quotes because only someone who live here would think of the word “warm” and yesterday’s temperatures together.  And it was Carnaval du Quebec; the time of year where god awful horn sounds are blown to the tribute of the many people selling these sinister souvenirs (remember the soccer horn sounds that made news?).  It’s a time of snow sculpture competitions and spreading maple syrup on snow, rolling it onto a stick.  It’s a time for crazy guys to race in large canoes across a partially frozen St. Lawrence Seaway and for people to brave the cold by drinking Screech (a horrible concoction similar to backwoods corn whiskey) to keep warm.  And, of course, it’s a time when parents wear themselves out hauling their kids up the hill for another ride down …just once more dad.

And even I got up from my hibernation and went outdoors.  I was “warm”, all the way up to 6F for goodness sake.   And it wasn’t too windy.  I bundled up with the required 20 lbs of clothing and pointed my walking shoes towards the old city.  I spent the next couple hours walking fast enough that I didn’t get cold.  It was a good day to be me.  Did I mention how warm it was?

Anyways, I came across this busker, who demonstrates the resilence of Quebecers when it comes to cold.  It far exceeds my own.  I’m an Arizona boy, after all.  Bundled up and wearing big heavy boots, this busker stood outside the information center in the old city (a walled city officially founded in 1608 and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site).  As anyone attempting to play a saxophone in these temperatures would freeze their fingers in minutes and possibly permanently attach them to their metal saxophone, he had an interesting solution… don’tcha think?

And no, I didn’t sketch him.  It was too cold.

 

When Was The Last Time You Looked At A Fire Hydrant…

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… really looked?  Me neither…until I got interested in sketching.  Even then I didn’t give them a glance until I found the sketching work of Pete Scully.  Pete is a master urban sketcher, mostly doing sketches of buildings in the US Davis area and mostly of the buildings there in.  I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from his work.

One of the things Pete is known for are his fire hydrant sketches.  He’s found some of the most wonderful fire hydrants in his travels and he’s made a point of sketching them.  This caused me to look at the fire hydrants we have here in Quebec City and I was surprised to find that ours are pretty cool too.  They are mostly a pale red (sun bleached?) and yellow but their shapes vary as they represent vintages that probably date from the Victorian era to the present.  I had fun drawing this one and so I share it here.  One in a Stillman & Brin Alpha journal using a Noodler’s Ahab flex pen and Winsor & Newton watercolors.

Beautiful Quebec And Family Visits

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It’s been a week since I’ve posted but finally I have a good excuse.  All those other times I was just goofing off.  My brother and his lovely wife came to town.

This might not seem like much to those of you who actually get to see their families on a regular basis but for me, it was a special treat.  As much as I love Quebec City, it’s roughly 3000 miles from my “home”, which is (was?) in Arizona.  Most of my family still resides there and it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen my brother.  While I won’t waste your time with details of our visit, I thought I’d share a few of the snapshots I took as we wandered parts of Quebec City.

We started on the Plains of Abraham.  This is a very large park that used to be a farmer’s field, Mr. Abraham’s field to be precise.  But then the British climbed the cliffs, the French came out of the walled city.  They both brought guns.  Now, Mr. Abraham’s field commemorates the battle that saw the British take control of Quebec City.  Unless you’re a historian, all of the battles that preceded this 22 minute interaction, and the months of bombardment, are lost in the pages of history books.

What is not lost is the beauty of the place.  Not only are there rolling hills and tall trees, there is an extraordinary garden, called…wait for it…the Battlefield Park Garden. For reasons unknown to me, a statue of Jean d’Arc looks down upon it.  It’s a copper statue much like the Statue of Liberty so I’m guessing it was a gift from France at some point.  Ignorance am me.

From there we headed to Rue Cartier, a wonderful street filled with small shops and restaurants.  We were foraging.  The photo is of my brother, his wife and my daughter.  They’re smiling because the food is on its way and hopeful that this will be the last time I have them pose for a photo.

After lunch we visited the Citadel. Quebec City is, or was a very strategic location, the walled city sits on a point, high above the St. Lawrence and this is the place where the Gulf of St. Lawrence shrinks down into what is to become the St. Lawrence Seaway.  This access point is very narrow and so anyone with a pop-gun could defend it against invading ships, which is one of the reasons it was so hard for the British to invade in the first place.

But invade they did and when those rebels in the US started shooting at Red Coats and dumping tea in Boston Harbor, the British in Canada got worried.  When those same infidels tried to invade Canada, they were even more convinced.  They used a French fort design and constructed a great fort to defend against American invasion. 

This fort is now the home of a French-Canadian regiment, the 22nd, which has a long and illustrious history.  The fort has never been attacked, at least not by a military.  Annually, however, tourists invade to tour the place, see the museum displays and to buy pieces of wood, plastic and paper.  These “souvenirs” are smuggled from the country, to rot in closests around the world.  It’s really amazing but very good for the Quebec economy.  Last weekend, we were part of the invasion force.

No visit to Quebec is complete without enjoying the fabulous architecture.  The “castle” as most call it is actually the Chateau Frontenac, a huge luxury hotel built long ago.

It’s currently having the upper roof replaced and not wanting the view disrupted too badly, they wrapped the area with large canvases painted to resemble the hotel behind them.  From a distance, it was surprisingly effective.

We saw statues…lots of statues.  This one is of Sam Champlain.  While French folks were living in the Quebec City area long before he showed up, he was an organizer… a doer.  He is considered the founder of the city so he gets a big statue.

In front of the Chateau Frontenac is a long promenade that is absolutely delightful.  There are a number of reasons for this, not the least being that you can buy ice cream cones there.  I guess, though, that most people go there to look down on the St. Lawrence which is a couple hundred feet below.  It’s quite a sight.

This is a photo of my wife and I, in our go-to-market clothes.  You’d think we could get dressed up to show family around but we’re a casual lot here in Quebec.

I’m sad to say that while we went other places, I seemed to run out of motivation to take photos so there are no more.  I’ll try to take others before the snow flies.

Cheers — Larry

Blooming Quebec, Why Doesn’t Everyone Live Here?

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Winters are hard in Quebec City.  It sits at the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the wind blows and the snow falls sideways.  During winter we have only eight hours of daylight.  Many of my friends wonder why anyone would want to live here and, along with fellow Quebecers, so do I when February rolls around.

But when summer arrives, we get the answer.  Sometimes it’s unbearably hot with high temperatures (winter temps by the standards of this Arizona-raised boy) and humidity readings that match them.  But most of summer is idyllic.  It’s time to sit outdoors, stand outdoors, and for the adventurous, move around outdoors.

I’m a walker, myself and this is the time I enjoy my river, the Riviere St. Charles.  The province has created what they refer to as a linear park along some 32 kilometers of the river.  There are walking trails that wind their way along the river, sometimes through forests, sometimes along more urban trails, skirted with well-maintained gardens.  And there are the flowers….oh my goodness, what flowers.