st. pierre

Date traveled: August 20-22, 2018

St. Pierre is a French territory about a 90 minute ferry ride from Fortune, Newfoundland. It has about 6,000 people in close proximity at the base of a series of short mountains. By the number of cars constantly on the road, it’s like all 6,000 are driving around the island aimlessly at once, going nowhere in particular.

There are no stop signs, and it’s anyone’s guess how the traffic coordinates itself.

When we walked in from the ferry, children were playing a sport I’d never seen before. I talked to a friend whose sister recently went a little before us, and she commented on it too, so I guess it’s a thing there. It kind of looked like ‘ball on the wall’ with paddles, and some kids were playing against the other side of this large structure.

About half of the places in St. Pierre were closed. A lot of the houses abandoned; a bunch look like they were half-constructed then left. The bed and breakfast we were supposed to stay at seemed confused when we arrived, even though she held a piece of paper with my name and reservation on it as she answered the door. She told us in French she was having water problems, so she called someone who stopped operating a bed and breakfast a year ago to take us in.

So we stayed with a nice old French woman and her mother who force-fed us croissants, bread, and baguettes for breakfast because we didn’t eat meat and made us nervously close to missing our early morning ferry out because we didn’t want to be rude. I mean, she got up at 5am just to do that for us, and the croissants were quite good.

Even though it’s so close to Newfoundland, a lot of people don’t speak any English, and comically a lot of the tourists from Newfoundland/Nova Scotia don’t speak any French. So at one point I had to bring out my modicum of French to translate for a guy with an east coast accent and Cape Breton t-shirt, explaining the messages on the famous local half-electronic dart board.

The thing to do in St. Pierre is play darts at the one bar (where there is always a line up for the one dart board) and make dinner reservations – you’re not eating anywhere without reservations. Also drink Heineken. There were a lot of people carrying small cases of Heineken around.

In wandering the small urban area, feeling like I’m on another planet, I was tempted to scream “where are you all driving to?” and “where do you work?” but I managed to hold back. It seemed like the entire place was forgotten by France a long time ago, and the people there forgot they were forgotten.

There were no marked hiking trails that we could see, but we managed to find a couple that we probably wouldn’t have realized were trails at first had our friend Google not shown a path. That part of the trip I found kind of cool, if not eerie. Before I started hiking, I imagined ‘real hiking’ as no one around, unrecognizable landscape, with a little bit of danger mixed in.

I don’t think there are any natural predators on the island, though there were a lot of stray cats, so that danger mostly came from feeling like an alien, or being surrounded by an alien environment.

The hike was really different. You had to push thru thick bush with your elbows, dodge water run-off, and climb up boulders all in a short space. I impressed myself with my ability to follow the path since there were never signs and hardly any tread on it. The trees we walked alongside were short, so the most striking visual was rocks carved out the side of the little mountains and eventually a reveal of a lake we stopped at.

In all honesty, there wasn’t much to do. For a good chunk of the trip we were so hungry because nothing was open and people scoffed at us when we tried to walk in without reservations. Luckily the second night, our nice bed and breakfast host called the one restaurant that had one veggie option on the menu (cheese pizza), and I had a super dry white wine that I really liked that I’ll probably never be able to find again.

It felt like a place that was bustling at one time but its economy torpedoed. Hiking was interesting because it’s so different from what I’m used to, and the ghost-like ambiance from everyone driving around and unfinished houses makes it the perfect uncast horror movie.

I can’t say I’d recommend it as a destination, unless eerie islands without anything particular to do is your thing, or you have a fascination with cannons pointing towards what I think is Canada.

One of my favourite things about travelling, though (my favourite thing?) is having experiences. Experiences mean memories, implicit or explicit, and that’s kind of akin to living more fully or being more alive. Experiences don’t necessarily mean enjoyment, but a fond or curious memory can definitely be enjoyable for years later.

The day and a half we spent in St. Pierre was certainly an experience, though one I’m unlikely to ever repeat.