Something about Three Rivers

"I've booked three nights in Trois-Rivières."  After days of dragging my feet over settling on the next step of my travel plans, I was ready to divulge them to my fellow German traveller in my hostel in Quebec City.

She wrinkled her nose in disdain.  "I think maybe that is too long." She said in reply.  "There is nothing to do there; you will be so boring [sic]."

Most people would be put off by an endorsement like that.  Me?  I immediately felt exhilarated at the challenge!  I think it is part of my mental programming.  If someone tells me how I should think about something or what I should do my first instinct is to do the exact opposite.  So, nothing to do in Trois-Rivières?  Excellent!  I will make my own things to do.  Nothing to see?  There are always things to see!  They just might require a little more delving and searching.  I might never see this person again, but privately I resolved to have a wonderful time in Trois-Rivières just to prove her wrong.  What a rebel I am.

"Why do you want to go to Trois-Rivières?" Another traveller asked, baffled by my choice in tourist destinations.

"Well, I remember hearing its name when I was in social studies in school, but I don't remember why it was important."  Okay, my reasoning needed a bit of work, I admit, but it was true nonetheless.  I wanted to go to Trois-Rivières because something in my very dimwitted memory reminded me that it was a very important place for Canadian history.  I couldn't remember any of the details except the name, so I wanted to use my trip to remind me in a tangible way why the city was important, despite how trivial the other travellers around me seemed to considered it.

The first day in Trois-Rivières I decided to do a tour of the downtown sites.  I was done in a couple of hours. There was a boardwalk by the Saint Lawrence river that was quite beautiful, a few sculptures scattered around a park, a bunch of information panels written only in French (though later on I found I could scan a code with my cell-phone to get the English version of a lot of them), a free-to-use piano in a public city square and a giant light-brite in the local library (!!!!!).  A large portion of the city had been destroyed in a massive fire near the beginning of the 20th century so there were very few old ornate buildings left in place.  With so little tangible history present it was hard to believe that this was the 2nd oldest settlement in Canada, right behind Quebec City, and the site of a very important battle during the American Revolution that was key in preventing Canada from being absorbed as another state in the new United States of America.   Rather than finding a proud bustling metropolis befitting of such an important status, what I found was an endearing sleepy little city who embraced its history like a true Canadian: modestly.

And yet, despite the lack of tourist-centric organized activities that I probably wouldn't have paid for anyways because I'm so cheap, I found myself deeply captivated by the place.  Borrowing a bike from the hostel was free so I spent hours exploring the city.  I found out that the reason that it is called Trois-Rivières, Three Rivers in English, is because the river that feeds into the Saint Lawrence splits into three right before reaching it due to islands that interrupt the flow.  Those same islands gave me photo opportunities like this one that I took with my iPhone:

I also had the opportunity to go to a very key pilgrimage site for the Roman Catholic church, Notre-Dame-du-Cap, with a local francophone.  We attended a French mass where I didn't understand a single word, except "etre le premier".  Wracking my memory on what place in the Bible has the phrase "to be first", I correctly identified the passage of scripture that the homilist was using for his address. I managed to impress myself with that feat, I admit.  The grounds of the basilica were so beautiful that two days later I would revisit them to spend more time there.

There were a bunch of other things I did in the city while I was there, but what stands out in my memory is just how relaxing I found my time in the small city.  Without so many touristy things demanding my attention I was able to slow down and soak in the experience of this place called Trois-Rivières.  The food was super cheap too, so I bought groceries and ate like a queen during my entire visit there.  Despite the negative endorsement from my fellow travellers, I had found what I  already expected to be true: that the excitement and interest of a place is what you bring to it, not what it can bring to you.