After leaving the port of Montreal, we docked, two days later at Havre-Saint-Pierre. This post displays several pictures of Havre-Saint-Pierre from the Seabourn Ovation cruise ship docked in the St. Lawrence River.
Havre-Saint-Pierre is a small town with a population around 3,400. From a 2011 census, 25 people speak English, 15 speak English and French, and the rest speak only French. It is about 1000 kilometres (620 miles) east of Montreal. Recent development in the town is the predominant multi-storied white buildings which are a hospital and residential apartments (retirement homes). The hospital is the major employer.
The waterfront development is primarily for tourist. The yellow building, “Place des Artisans”, sells local handicrafts. The red building is the bar and souvenir shop. The building with the blue front is called “Chez Julie” a Boutique du Terroir. (If you know what that is, please leave me a comment at the bottom of this post.) The largest space, covered by the blue roof, is the fish market. Fishing is one of the main businesses because of the variety of fish in this stretch of the St. Lawrence River.
This is an important port for another reason. A mine of iron ore called ilmenite is located 40 kilometres north. It is an oxide of titanium and iron. Aside from the iron and titanium metal, titanium oxide is used as a whiter in paints, inks, plastics, paper, toothpaste, and food. The pile of grey material behind the boats, is the ore that has been brought from the mine to be carried by ships to the refinery. The mine is operated by Rio Tinto. Other mines operate nearby and exploration for other metals continues.
From the tourist information building below, we booked a tour to a neighbouring island called the Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve to see the special character of the land around the island. We picked up our listening devices from big building in the picture below and boarded one of the larger boats in the marina to get to the island.
A very interesting waterfront, Doug. Looks like Chez Julie is a produce shop and restaurant. It’s temporarily closed. I would like to have lunch or a cup of coffee and a dainty there.