Sometimes a National Park is created to protect one obvious natural wonder, that’s Saguenay Fjord.  A National Park created to protect something so beautiful, we together as a society will make sure it lasts for future generations without privatization or gatekeepers. The area is stunning. We now have entered the Boreal Forest. This type of forest does not exist where I live, and come to think of it, I’ve never experienced a forest quite like this. The conifers completely dominate the hardwoods up here, the rivers are absolutely wild and unnavigable, and Moose crossing signs are the size of a billboard for a reason. Amy and I can’t pinpoint anything like it, the way these specific mountains hit the sea covered in spruce is very unique. The glaciers painted a masterpiece here.

Luckily I planned for three days here, two days on this side of the fjord and one on the other side. I felt driving around it would be a fun day in itself. We lost one full day here due to the bus problems but we will make up for it today. A fjord is a valley that was carved out by glaciers similar to areas we’ve visited in America, the difference is that a fjord got so deep that they filled in with the ocean water. The glaciers created fun nooks and bays that give fjords their natural beauty and mysterious enchantment. Saguenay Fjord, pronounced locally as, Sag-nee (I was way off), is the southernmost fjord in the entire Northern Hemisphere! We will get deeper in to the fjord tomorrow but factually we reached the Atlantic Ocean today, although we will only go east for the next month we have already hit it due to the way the the islands formed. We will be boarding our first ferry in a few days and will be near the ocean for the majority of our trip forward. 

After breakfast we packed up and went out on our most ambitious hike yet, a 7 mile trek from our campsite to the bay. We followed a small creek which lead up to a massive roaring river which took us to centrally to the base of some mountains which we were so very pleasantly surprised to find a small visitor center with an ice cream freezer. Here, where ocean meets river, was an awesome tideplain that made for great views of the mountains and fjord. Since we are still celebrating Everests birthday, we ate desert before our lunch then walked back along the same trail. When I offered a short cut, I was overruled unanimously by those wanting the prettier route regardless. Their mutiny brought a tear to my eye. 

A ranger told us about a microbrewery down the road so we headed out for a break from the rain. We tried some hyper local foodstuffs, the unemployment pudding and some salmon “smoked in the local way.” Both were fantastic. We packed up everything expecting rain throughout the night, this will enable us to get out early to travel two hours around the entire fjord to the opposite side where it appears to get more wild.