A Laurentian Jaunt, Part. 3

Nature

It was cold and rainy when we were at Mount Tremblant. Well, “cold” — it ranged between 8C and 15C (46ºF to 60ºF). As mentioned in Part 1, this was actually a good thing, as it kept away the mosquitos.

I went walking along the multipurpose path of the P’tite Train, which took me along the banks of Lake Mercier and through woods of a different sort than I’m accustomed to in Montreal. What’s not immediately obvious on the trail is that it’s largely passing through the back yards of homes (or perhaps summer homes) ranging from quaint mountain cottages to massive classical chateaux or modernist mansions. But between these houses, there are areas of woods and rough drainages that are filled with trees, shrubs, and flowers.

Unless you were looking, you’d barely notice that there was a modest retreat concealed in the woods.

When one isn’t looking for houses, one can find all manner of interesting plants and flowers in the forest. But how wild is the forest, given that we know there are a lot of houses and gardens? In some cases, the proximity of the gardens made it difficult to differentiate between forest species and garden escapees.

Some spots look like the forest primeval, and I shouldn’t have been surprised to have seen dinosaurs wading and foraging.

I did encounter a few small modern dinosaurs too.

This dinosaur was playful, in that it kept coming in close, hopping about, until just a fraction of a second before I could get focus, when it’d flutter off to another position.

This was not the only trickster around. This chickadee dematerialized before my very eyes!

Our pleasant weekend passed too quickly, and unfortunately we had to return to civilization. While waiting for the bus, we had one last wilderness encounter out behind the Timmy’s — a confident, swaggering fellow who went through most of what appeared to be a fried chicken and then grabbed some other scraps to go.

Thus wraps up my postings on our journey to the Laurentians. There’s a bus company that specializes in day-trips to various national parks (including some in the mountains), so this may not be our last visit there for the season. As always, anything interesting will be reported here.