Brave Brilliant Beautiful Badass

My guild had the most inspirational speaker for March, someone who hit all the right notes for me. Here is Berene Campbell's description of who she is and what she does: I'm Berene, a modern quilt designer, speaker and community project instigator. My sewing patterns feature inspiring messages of positivity and hope, with the goal of making the world a kinder and more peaceful place. I am a big fan of “collective energy” and use community projects to corral fellow creatives to work together for change. These projects include awareness projects, collaborative community installations, fundraisers for social justice causes, and the Handmade Collective Awards - a bursary fund set up for the maker community to fund awards for BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ students. It felt so good to hear someone talking about lifting up women at a time when they are being torn down in my country. She also talked about how doing your part to do the right thing makes a difference, because even though we are all small, we add layers upon layers of support, building up upon each other to reach the goal of hope, love, peace, and treating all people equally and humanely, even the mediocre white men who want to step on us to get ahead.

Melba, Québec City, Québec

This was the best meal we had in Québec City. I did not know it at the time we went but it is a second restaurant of chef Guillaume St-Pierre (Battuto), who's apparently well known when it comes to fine dining, partnering with Alexandra Roy and Charles Provencher Proulx (Auberge Saint-Antoine, La Bonne Étoile) are in charge of the sweet and savoury menu, accompanied by two other equally dynamic cooks. The work of these talented individuals attests to their good taste in gastronomy, as Melba’s plates are all, at each stage of the meal, of an exquisite delicacy, remarkably elegant presentation, and backed up with memorable flavors. It is located in the slightly funky Saint-Sauveur district and the interior design is lovely and thoughtful.

This is on point with fresh interpretations of French cuisine with Quebecquois ingredients from nearby farms. The minute we walked in we were greeted and seated. After getting a drink the menu was explained in detail and we were advised how to order. Every dish was better than the first we even added to our order after seeing another patrons dish! The service is impeccable and the staff was so friendly. Highly recommend this spot.

Cheese Made In Québec

Québec has hundreds of artisan cheese makers who produce small quantities of cheese using raw or pasteurized cow, sheep, or goat milk (or some combination) from local or regional farms. An artisanal cheese is made by hand, sometimes without modern technology in the traditional way but often combining modern equipment but with attention to the terroir, and with an emphasis on traditional cheese-making methods. The result is a diverse range of cheeses with complex flavors, textures, unique appearances, and aromas that set them apart from mass-produced cheeses. Cheese making has a long history in Québec. It was already well established in the time of New France. With the Conquest of 1760, cheese production became focussed on Cheddar, which gave rise to certain well-known products, such as Perron Cheddar in 1885. Cheese making has come a long way since then! Here are some examples of Quebec artisan cheeses: Grey Owl: A soft cheese with a bloomy rind and a slightly sweet taste La Sauvagine: A soft cheese with a washed rind and a creamy texture Alfred Le Fermier: A raw cow's milk cheese from Compton, Quebec with a supple texture and a smooth, washed rind. It has notes of blueberries, malt, bread, and hazelnuts, and won Gold and Bronze at the World Cheese Awards in 2017 You can learn more about Quebec's artisan producers and their cheeses at Fromages du Québec, which has an impressively organized and informative website. And if you get a chance to travel to Québec, bring back some cheese!

Château Frontenac, Québec City, Québec

My mom and dad honeymooned in Québec City in 1957 and we returned 67 years later so that my mother could re-experience it after burying my father on what had been their wedding day. They married on a Saturday and made their way to the Château Frontenac on a Sunday and so did we. The hotel opened its doors in 1893 and is situated in Old Québec, within the historic district's Upper Town, on the southern side of Place d'Armes. The Château Frontenac was designed by Bruce Price, and was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company as one of their grand railway hotels. The Châteauesque architectural style used throughout the hotel would later serve as a template for other Canadian grand railway hotels erected in the late-19th to early-20th century. The central fortress-like tower design is derived from medieval châteaux found throughout France's Loire Valley. These elements include the hotel's asymmetrical profile, with steeply pitched roofs, massive circular and polygonal towers and turrets, ornate gables and dormers, and tall chimneys. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981. The Château Frontenac is on a hill and it borders the Saint Lawrence River. We opted not to dine in the upscale restaurant, but rather in the bistro, and the views of both the river and the walkway alongside it were beautiful. It was not the first large building on the site. The first one was built during the 1780s, and was known as the Château Haldimand, named after the Governor of Quebec who ordered its construction. It was demolished in 1892 to make way for the present hotel. My parents paid $15 a night for their accomodations in 1957 and we paid $14/hour for parking today. My mother didn't remember much about her time here, but then notes that maybe that is because it was her honeymoon.

Le Hobbit, Québec City, Québec

We came to Québec City after my father's burial and while it is not my usual style, we had done very little to prepare for this leg of the trip--a shame, because the whole idea was to have a little levity after such a somber event. Food and travel have been unifying themes for our family over the years, but I just never got around to getting too deep in the weeds of dinner planning. The thing that we did not really know is that it is hard to get around certain parts of the city, and not having traveled with my mom in about a decade, just how hard it is to get around when you are 90, so how close you can drive and park to a place is a real issue. We opted out of our first choice option because it didn't fit the bill on the later criteria and landed on this. The restaurant is located on Rue St. Jean, one of the oldest and most populat street in Québec City. It is located on the outside of the fortifications so there is less traffic and easier to park--except on the weekends, when the street becomes pedestrian only--luckily there is a public lot just a block away. The restaurant is tucked into a converted house that was built in 1846 and the restaurant is opened since 1970. The link to Tolkien's book is hard to miss, but it really is a traditional French bistro, with an interesting seasonal small plates menu. We chose to share, and while there were hits and misses amongst them, some dishes were very innovative, and we very much enjoyed our meal.

Rembrandt Etchings, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Québec City

It was a rare treat that we saw-- the Rembrandt Etchings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen were on view when we were in Québec City this past summer. Rembrandt was profoundly innovative and revolutionized the art of engraving. He adopted a resolutely experimental approach and developed the process to the utmost. Like Dürer, Goya, or Picasso, Rembrandt is regarded as one of the greatest engravers of all time. He produced some of the most celebrated works in the history of the medium and his impact on the discipline is still relevant today.

Rembrandt produced 300 engravings between 1625 and 1665 and 80 of them were on view. Most of the works are etchings, a complex technique in which the image is etched on a copper plate using an acid. For Rembrandt, etching was a full-fledged art form equal to painting that he researched passionately throughout his career. Moreover, almost all of his prints are original works independent of his paintings. The exhibition encompassed all the topics that Rembrandt broached. His self-portraits reconstitute the artist’s biography while his religious prints propose a unique, spectacular interpretation of the Bible. His landscapes reveal an artist of exquisite sensitivity. His portraits and genre scenes display the full diversity of Dutch society at the time. The exhibition also allowed visitors to see Rembrandt in his historic period and environment as a resident of Amsterdam, a thriving, cosmopolitan city and brilliant hub of intellectual and artistic life, and an inhabitant of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, one of the great European powers of the 17th century. It also reveals the vagaries of the artist’s personal life, including the painful loss of loved ones and the serious financial difficulties that darkened his final years.

Rivière-du-Loup, Québec, Canada

The day after we all gathered in Northern Maine to say goodbye to my father, we headed to Québec. My reasoning was several fold. First, this is likely to be the last trip my mother makes to a far flung destination, and I didn't want it to be just about burying her spouse--it is true that it was really nice to be back home, to see local relatives of my dad's, and to see her old haunts. However, we buried my dad on what would have been their 67th wedding anniversary, and so to ameliorate the sadness, we took another trip down memory lane--we headed to where they honeymooned. We stopped here en route to Québec City--it had been a quiet journey and we stopped for some sustenance. The Rivière du Loup is a river in eastern Quebec, which empties on the south shore of Saint Lawrence River at the city of Rivière-du-Loup (hence the name--since I live in a town that it named for the state I live in, I cannot disparage this practice--it simplifies things that do not need to be complicated). The name means Wolf's River in French. This name may have come from a native tribe known as "Les Loups" ("The Wolves") or from the many seals, known in French as loup-marin (sea wolves), once found at the river's mouth. Rivière-du-Loup was established in 1673 as the seigneurie of Sieur Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye. The community was incorporated as the village of Fraserville, in honour of early Scottish settler Alexander Fraser, in 1850, and became a city in 1910. The city reverted to its original name, Rivière-du-Loup, in 1919. Between 1850 and 1919, the city saw large increases in its anglophone population. Most of them left the region by the 1950s. Only 1% of the population still speaks English as its first language, which for me is one of the great pleasures of being in Québec. This is a beautiful town, with gorgeous views, and a great start to our Québec trip.

Story Poles

Story poles, such as the ones located at VanDusen Garden, were carved to preserve knowledge, history and stories of the people. Story poles do carry a lot of spiritual values but they are not the same as religious values, therefore, calling them totem poles is inaccurate. First Nation people did not worship or pray to the poles. The pole on the left tells The Mosquito Story, an origin story of where the mosquitos came from. This pole tells the origin story of mosquitos, which came from the ashes of the funeral pyre of Baboudina (top), chief of the blood-suck Mosquito People. Below him is the young woman (middle) who killed the Chief and save her husband (bottom) and baby. The pole on the right, Al of the Gispudwad, is the origin story of the black bear crest. A long time ago a man was transformed into a bear and lived among the bears for a while. When he returned to his people, a kind elderly healer helped him become human again. The black bears remained friends with the man and would help him if he was in trouble. To honor the black bear he had his descendants use the bear as their crest.

VanDusen Botanical Gardens, Vancouver, British Columbia

Essondale (now the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam) is the site of the earliest botanical garden in Canada, started by “Botany John” Davidson, the provincial botanist. He moved the botanical garden to the new UBC campus in 1916, where it remains to this day. This gorgeous botanical garden had a humble beginning, and let that be a lesson to us all--things can be transformed, you just have to have a vision, and a lot of luck, money, and zoning. This started as part of the railroad, then in 1912 it became a golf course. I do not know if it is true, but there are some large swaths of grass remaing, and maybe they linger from that time.

Roy Forster was the garden’s curator from 1977-1996; he oversaw the planting of 12,000 trees, flowers and shrubs representing 3,072 species. During excavation, workers discovered sea shells — evidence that the land had been under the ocean about 12,000 years ago. In 1999, Forster received the Order of Canada in recognition of his work in designing the VanDusen gardens

Blue Water Cafe, Vancouver, British Columbia

I had a wonderful trip to Vancouver that included a meal at this fabulous seafood restaurant (there are several things on the menu that are either plant based, or contain land animals, but the only reason to go here to have them is if everyone in your party wants out of this world seafood and you are the accomodating sort). They hace a renowned sushi menu, which I would have delved into if I had been dining with my spouse, but we stuck to the other parts of the menu, and were not disappointed. Pictured is their appetizer sampler, which is repleat with delectable choices, and then we had the catch of the day and scallops, both of which were cooked perfectly and accompanied by delicious sauces and falvorful vegetables. This is a must go to restaurant in a happening area downtown. Added bonus was that we could walk to it from where we were staying.