Second Wind on the Great Loop and Beyond

Thursday, June 21. Yuck, the boat was dotted with mayflies when we woke up. What a mess! After an easy lock-through at St. Anne de Bellevue, we cruised through whitecaps on the large Lake of Two Mountain on the Ottawa River. Cloudy and cooler today, a light rain started falling when we entered the Carillon Lock, which looked and functioned much like a guillotine. After pulling up to “the Blue Line” to indicate our readiness to lock through, Bob got off the boat and used a telephone to call the lock master. The “guillotine” lock wall lifted to let the waiting boats enter the chamber, then it closed behind us. Tied comfortably on a floating dock inside the chamber, we could look up at the 65-foot high lock walls and see the lock tenders above us. Right in front of us, though, was a huge concrete lock wall. Eventually the water rose and lifted us above the wall. Then the front gate opened and we were out onto another lake on the Ottawa River.

By late afternoon we pulled into the Montebello Marina. The main feature of Montebello, Quebec, is the Le Chateau Montebello, the estate of Louis Papineau, a leading figure in Canadian history. We walked about a half-mile to Montebello Manor to see the largest log cabin in the world. This structure, built in 1930, was a project similar to America’s WPA program to provide employment. This structure and other buildings in the Papineau estate are now operated by Parks Canada. It was too late to go inside, but the structure was pretty amazing.