Coastal Adventure # 3: A Tale of Two Houses

Although often called a river, the Saguenay's easterly portion is actually a wide, deep, and long saltwater fjord.   At the head end of the fjord stands a cluster of several small cities now joined together into a single unit, the urban Région de Saguenay.  This was our second stop of the cruise.

On the whole, the Région de Saguenay is not a tourism superstar like Vieux-Québec, but my day here left me with me with two indelible images – a pair of houses.  The houses themselves are not remarkable – just typical, everyday little homes of typical, everyday citizens of the Saguenay region.  More on them presently – because our day was dominated by an even more remarkable factor which almost none of us – Canadians included – had properly considered in our planning.

In the low areas next to the river and fjord, it came down mixed with rain.  As soon as we began climbing, even a short distance, there was slush on the ground.  By the time we got up on top of the ridge overlooking the fjord, it was winter and no mistake.  Our guide explained that this was appropriate because ours was the final ship of the 2016 cruise season.

Our ship docked in one branch of the fjord, the dead-end of the Baie des Ha! Ha!  (yes, that really is its name and I have never heard any two people give the same explanation of what this very odd name means).  The single-ship cruise berth is in the small community of La Baie, the easternmost anchor of the Région de Saguenay.

We had four stops on today’s tour, each one different and each one interesting.  First stop, shortly after leaving the ship, was a museum of the fjord.  There was a kitschy but well-produced show like an imaginary spacecraft voyage which took us through the evolution of the fjord over hundreds of millennia, and the peculiar natural environments found in it today.  The museum also included a small aquarium of fish species from the Saguenay fjord.  Outside, there was a view over the Baie des Ha! Ha! at low tide, with a flock of snow geese grazing on the tidal flats to build up strength for their migration south.

Just around the corner from the museum, we next visited a glass blowing studio.  We watched the master craftsman and his assistant create a beautiful multi-coloured glass hummingbird from start to finish (or at least until it went into the kiln to be cured).  It was a fascinating display of an art too seldom seen any more, and the inevitable tour of the store was lovely too, even for those who bought nothing.

There then followed a lengthy drive, some 45 minutes, west along a local road into Chicoutimi (the central city of the Région de Saguenay complex), where we crossed the river to the north side.  We then backtracked some 10 kilometres, and turned uphill to a goat farm where goats were raised to produce mohair.  That’s where all that beautiful snow in the first picture was lying all over everything.  One of the billy goats in particular was very friendly and wanted to lick everyone (apologies for the blurry picture), as well as trying to get a taste or a mouthful of my phone after I photographed him.

Back in Chicoutimi, we drove briefly past the little white house.  It’s totally unremarkable, apart from the way it perches on top of a ridge on a tall concrete foundation all by itself.  But this house was the lone survivor of a hillside of houses and other buildings that washed away during the great Saguenay flood of 1996, and it was the solid foundation that saved it.  

The natural catastrophe had a monumental impact: dozens of people died and over 3,000 had to be evacuated from homes in danger’s path.  The little white house is now a museum of the flood perched amid a decorative waterfall evoking the flood.  I’ve had to resort to an internet picture, as the bus windows were so badly messed with slush and dirt.

We then went on to the Regional Museum, housed in the machine shop of an old pulp mill, and here was the other remarkable house – inside the museum.  To get it there in 1994, they drove it on an immense float from its original location several blocks away, and then tore out the entire end wall of the building to get it inside.  The stones of the end wall were carefully numbered and marked so that the wall could be restored after.  Obviously this house had to be pretty special.

It was the home of Arthur Villeneuve, a barber of modest means who actually ran his barber shop in the front room of the house.  One day at church, he heard a sermon which fired him with the desire to paint, and it was the house on which he set to work.  Without any formal instruction, and using unfinished cans of paint, he decorated every wall of the house inside with his extraordinarily vivid, imaginative, primitive, colourful paintings of the history and life of Chicoutimi and the region.  He then decorated the front wall of the exterior -- as shown in this photo taken in 1968. 

In time, Villeneuve gave up the barbering business and devoted himself full time to painting, gaining skill and finesse all the way, and completed some 5000 independent works before he died. 

The house is now the centrepiece of an exhibition about Villeneuve’s life and work, and reproductions of some of his significant pictures are hung in bright light where they can be thoroughly studied -- like this vivid scene of life in Chicoutimi back in the "good old days" of the artist's youth.

This original -- and imaginative -- painting of the Vatican is displayed on the front porch of the house.

The house itself is kept in dim light to protect the precious pictures all over every inch of the interior.  Signs admonish visitors not to touch or take pictures inside, but I saw people doing both and wanted to scream -- every time a flash went off.

Twenty minutes just was not enough time for the Villeneuve House (the curse of the guided tour).  I want to go back, and spend more time there – and in the rest of the museum, and in the surrounding areas outside of Chicoutimi and La Baie which I didn’t see at all.  A future trip to spend several days in the Saguenay is now on my bucket list – but in the summer!