Havre Saint Pierre, Mingan Islands

I have just written a cruise review and port reviews about a recent cruise, but I could not post my review for Havre Saint Pierre, in the Province of Quebec, as it was not on the list of ports which can be reviewed, so I am posting it here in the hope that anyone searching for Havre Saint Pierre may find it useful.

We were greeted by a couple of whales as we were docking here and they were to be seen a lot during the day. This was an excellent port which is the point from which it is possible to visit islands of The Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve.

We went on the ship's trip to Niapiskau Island (Daughter of the Sea). The journey out to the island was in brilliant weather and we had a good view of the other islands and lots of birds. The island we visited had a lot of what they called monoliths, which are what we in the UK would call stacks. These were pillars of rock standing upright as the rock around had been eroded. We were guided around a trail which was rich with plants and trees as well as the rock formations, which were well worth seeing. Unfortunately it started raining, so it was decided by most of the group that they should return to the boat. From our point of view this was a shame as it meant the trip was curtailed.

If there had been a shelter of some kind on the island it would have been possible to wait a little while until the rain had eased and then continued with the walk. Very few people were wearing effective waterproofs, yet the tour description had suggested that, so alternatively, if people on this trip could be supplied with the cheap, waterproof capes that could also be a solution for the potential problem if it rains. On our return to the boat it went back to the ship early, even though the rain had almost stopped by then.

Back at the cruise terminal there was an interesting display of the national park, a bar/cafe and various really good local musicians were playing there during the day. After lunch on the ship we went for a walk around the town. It was a small but pleasant town with just a couple of shops. The people were lovely and gave us a really good send off with an accordionist playing, cars honking and flashing lights and people waving.

So Havre Saint Pierre is on the Magdalen Islands (in French: Iles de Madeleines.)

That is a great report!

So Havre Saint Pierre is on the Magdalen Islands (in French: Iles de Madeleines.)

 

That is a great report!

No, not the Magdalen Islands. It is on the mainland on the north coast of the Gulf of St Lawrence, in the Province of Quebec, almost north of Gaspe. It is searchable on google Earth.

The Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve is the group of islands off the coast of the north shore there. I put Mingan Isles in the title of this thread, because people often get Havre Saint Pierre confused with St Pierre, (France), which is of course south of Newfoundland. Our cruise details said the population of Havre St Pierre are decended from a group of fishing families who went there from the Magdelan islands in 1872. The town was not know as Havres St Pierre until 1927 though.

There is very little in the port and some cruise passengers, who did not book a trip, thought it was a bad port, but they had clearly missed the whole point of going there, which is for access to the islands of the national park, which are difficult to get to by road.

Apart from the islands, the only other trip offered was along the coast to an Innu village. I have seen trips from other cruises to a whale research base/visitor centre, (a bit further along the coast), but that may only be open in high season. A lot of places were not fully open when we were there in early June, but it was great not being with crowds of visitors. I think you would need to use a ship's trip from there as I suspect there would not be any other availability of boats etc. especially if you want an English speaking guide or boat operator.

I posted my quite thorough cruise and ports review last night, so hopefully it will appear in a week or so. Our ship was Black Watch, operated by Fred Olsen cruise lines. People were so helpful to me that I particularly wanted to pass on what information I can after our cruise - the ports were great.

Sadlly we did not do well in Cape Breton, as our tour to Louisbourg was very badly run. We should have had 1.5 hours of free time, but the tour guide refused to let us go off on our own. There were only some things open in Louisbourg and not a lot of costumed actors, but there were plenty for the small number of tourists present but we were denied access to them. It was not a badly chosen tour from our point of view, just very badly run. I suppose being early season could have more problems as things are not so well practised.

Thanks for all your help before our cruise Maryann

Cheers,

Barbara

My mistake!

That is not good at all about Louisbourg. Government cutbacks have really damaged such sites as they cannot be fully open before July. It sounds like your guide was partly to blame. You definitely should have been able to go about on your own.

There were no problems at all with Louisbourg or the staff there. As I said there was plenty in Louisbourg to fill a two hour visit easily and plenty of costumed actors for the number of visitors in the site. It was entirely the guide who was the problem. He was employed by Ambassatours Gray Line and I have mentioned that on my review so as not to point a finger at anything else.

The coach was half an hour late so our 2 hour total visit became 1.5 hours to begin with. It was scheduled to be a half an hour tour of the buildings and the 1.5 hours on our own. He kept us well away from any open buildings, listing a load of dates and seiges prior to Louisbourg as it was portrayed. That continued for almost an hour and then he took us into a house with displays and a video well worth seeing, but he rushed the group off less than 5 mins later. We got left behind as we had gone upstairs, but luckily we found someone gardening who was able to tell us where they had gone.

The rest of the group were taken into the chapel of the chateau and droned at by him for most of the rest of the time, so they saw hardly anything. Everyone was annoyed and there were a lot of complaints to the ship, but even they do not care. Some other tours were badly organised so we blame the ship as well, but Ambassatours were particularly bad. We did not even get an apology, so I assume they could well continue to run tours to Louisbourg like that for the rest of the season. The tour was not expensive, so it is not a financial matter, but our time in port was totally wasted.

The Louisbourg actors were extremely good and me and my husband managed to speak to some of them and see the inside of the chateau because we just went away when we realised the others were just being made to sit in the chapel.

The people who went on the Bell museum trip got rushed out of the museum and left on their own with nothing to do for a long time, but they felt much better about their trip than our group did. I can see why you recommend car hire, it is the only realistic option in Sydney as we see it and Louisbourg would be a good place to visit independently.

Thanks for this extra information which I will put in my notes for Sydney.

Yes there is only one tour operator with good reviews in the Sydney area (Don Blackwood) and he is expensive and gets booked early.

We did the the Louisbourg tour as a ship's tour, but that is the local company the cruise company used to supply the tour. I put the full story here as I know you answer a lot of questions re Cape Breton. They may get themselves together as the season progresses. Our cruise line does very few visits - perhaps they will be more careful with cruise lines that do a lot of visits.