Upon arriving in Deux-Rivières, a small community located in Renfrew County, Highway 17 narrowed and seemed to plunge right into the Ottawa River. The River was pretty wide and we felt like on a small island. Except for a seasonal ferry access to Québec and an abandoned gas station/convenience store, there wasn’t much. The scenery was beautiful, though: the grey asphalt matched the dark stormy sky, but contrasted with the deep blue of the River.
A few kilometres further, we stopped in Matawa, a town whose name means “Meeting of the Waters.” It used to be an important place due to its location along the voyageur’s canoe route from Montreal to the Great Lakes. If Pembroke is the city of murals, Matawa is the city of wooden statues: we spotted at least 10 of them depicting historical figures, scattered along the main street.
We headed to a local café to sip a hot chocolate (served with small marshmallows to dip in!), waiting for the storm to pass. And off we went, back to Deep River.
I miss the little marshmallows in hot chocolate 🙂
What a coincidence (or not considering my interest in anything Canadian at the moment)! Today I read a piece by Margaret Atwood, entitled “Travels Back”, in which she describe a poetry reading tour that started with a journey on the Highway 17 and a stop in Mattawa…
Nice to have pics to illustrate my reading 🙂
What a beautiful day despite seeing the dark clouds looming 🙂
Matawa seems to be a little nice town.
I live in a city. When I travel, I often prefer small towns…
I’ll take one of those hot chocolates, please 🙂
Hmmm hot chocolate. You took some great pictures, but I don’t think I’ll be making Deux-Rivière and Matawa my next travel destinations.;) (Even though the statues are impressive)
Have you been to Perth yet? Now that is a beautiful small town! 🙂
Great Pics Zhu, as usual…
By the way, that hydrant, is only for “Hard Water“, right? (Joke for Chem Geeks)
Being a city rat…I miss those kind of “wild west” places…
Ha ha… Are you sure that guy was not having a piss underneath that bridge?!
What a candid shot! I mean the way he held his fishing rod is a bit like ….
Hot chocolate? I used to drink a lot of it when I was in Malaysia.
The only BIG brand we have over there is called Milo.
Have you heard of it? It’s not so common in Europe…
@Cynthia – I had never had it before but now I’m addicted!
@Em – Cool, good timing! I like to see pictures of places book I read take place.
@shionge – Yes, it was quite nice after all.
@khengsiong – Same here. I guess we want to see something different.
@Soleil – I would love to have a hot chocolate with you one day! We can even have Nutella with that…
@Pauline – Never been to Perth (well, I went to Perth, Australia!) but now I’m curious.
@Mr.G – I’m working on getting the joke. Literature student here 😆
@Sidney –
@London Caller – Milo is huge in France! Green label, right? I use to drink it.
Salut Zhu,
I have been playing “catch up”. I really enjoyed this trip!There is a quiet beauty in all these villages. When D & I come back to Canada,we want to rent a car and just go exploring like this.I love it 🙂
See you soon, chérie.
yummm. hot chocolate!
does deux-rivieres means two rivers? or does it mean god’s rivers (the latin deus, italian dio and the spanish dios are– in my poor little mind– so similar to the french word deux)!
i’m being silly, of course i know deux is the number two. but still… whoever made languages did their best to confuse people…
That looks like a very small town! I wonder how many people live there…