Thursday, August 14, 2025
Another early room service breakfast means another early tour.
The HAL Tour: Parc Nature Pointe-aux-Outardes
ABOUT THE EXCURSION: With six miles of trails, the nature park of Pointe-aux-Outardes offers many great beauties to explore. The park’s mission is to protect and showcase wildlife. Its rich yet fragile ecosystems include many birds of prey and shore, forest and sea birds.
Wander with your guide over majestic sand dunes to contemplate the beauty of the lower estuary and the Rivière aux Outardes as it flows into the immense St Lawrence River. The eight different ecosystems here include dunes, boreal forest, a salt marsh, and a beach.
If time permits, at the end of the guided tour, enjoy some free time staying close to the interpretative center.
Notes: Tour requires approximately one mile of slow walking. Terrain includes flat paths or boardwalks and a flight of stairs.
I was leary when I saw another school bus but this one was much nicer than the last one. Also, this guide handed out headsets, so we were able to hear his commentary. His English was very good. I looked up and saw that this school bus assigns seats.
The ride took about an hour but the guide was very informative.
However, once we got to the park we were met by two young guides. The problem was that we were too big of a group to only go with one guide.
And we found out that one guide was told to take a group on a walk that would go a little over a mile and the other guide was to take a group on a walk that was a little less than a mile. Nobody wanted to leave the “more than a mile” group.
So the guide had to eventually split the group. I am sure the HAL Shore Excursions department was going to hear from the group that ended up in the shorter time frame.
The path was mostly flat through the different ecosystems and the guide stopped often to talk about the importance of the different systems and identify some plants. At different points, he would let us touch, smell, and/or taste different plants. (For the record, I would not taste any of the plants.)
Part of the path was a boardwalk, and you could walk up a flight of stairs to an overlook to view the marsh area and the St. Lawrence River. He talked about how during the winters the River freezes over and you could walk from one side to the other.
It was a pleasant trek. It was a warm day but breezy. I was glad there were no bugs. I was also glad we did not come across the animal that left a lot of scat in several areas on the path. Definitely marking its territory.
We had another one-hour ride back and the guide didn’t give any more information, so I just watched the scenery go by. I’m glad we took this tour and the weather was nice. Wouldn’t have been good if it had been raining.
We came back to the cabin to find birthday wishes from the Captain and the Casino.
It was another dressy night and we went to the Main Dining Room. We each had the beef tenderloin with crabmeat topping which was excellent. The wait staff presented a birthday cake and sang the Philippine birthday song. It was fun.
The HAL singers and dancers show was cancelled for the second night in a row due to technical difficulties. Disappointing because their shows have been very good.
However, the cancellation of the show meant that we were able to get very good seats in the Ocean Bar and stayed for all three sets. They are off tomorrow night so tonight was our last chance to hear them before the cruise ends.
A bartender tipped them off about the birthday and they sang Happy Birthday and the crowd joined in. There was also a couple in there who were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.
The band played Moon River which was the song that they danced to at their wedding reception. Even though we all liked the slow songs to dance to, we all let them be the only couple on the dance floor for their song. I didn’t see too many dry eyes in the audience when the groom kissed his bride as the song ended.
The evening ended with the “Chocolate Surprise.” Waiters fan out all over the public areas on the ship offering chocolate samples. I’m not one to usually turn down chocolate but even I couldn’t eat all that was being offered. But I tried.
We got back to the room to find that, instead of the usual towel animal, the room stewards had built a birthday cake and left a nice note.
We also found our disembarkation tags, our commemorative tile, and a letter about the Air Canada strike. I’m glad we are flying Delta.
Tomorrow: Quebec City, Quebec
Travel Trivia
The city of Baie-Comeau was founded in 1936 when a paper mill was built by Colonel Robert R. McCormick, who published the Chicago Tribune newspaper.
Located on the St. Lawrence River, the city’s name, Baie-Comeau, honors Napoléon-Alexandre Comeau. However, the name actually came from his father, Antoine-Alexandre Comeau. Antoine worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company and had a camp there. Travelers would call it “the bay of the Comeau camp.”
Five rivers flow through Baie-Comeau: the Manicouagan River, the Amédée River, the Petit-Bras River, the Chasse River, and the English River. These rivers are fed by about thirty lakes.
Baie-Comeau has several French-language public elementary schools. It also has two French-language public high schools. There is one English-language public school that teaches both elementary and high school students.