More Québec Bike Adventures. Dorion, Hudson, Oka: Experience Dépaysante from Montréal All Without Renting A Car!

Dépaysant: (adj.) I could not find a word better than this commonly-used in Quebec French adjective to describe my day. Pays: (noun) means country or territory of cultural belonging and Dépaysement (noun): as a result (de-pays: remove country) in practical usage seems to mean a feeling of removal from one’s usual cultural context.

**PREAMBLE**

Unlike a vast majority of North Americans, I live without a car here in Montreal. I live close enough to my employment so as to be able to bike to work in good weather or use the metro and my feet on those icy cold or rainy days. As a result, my existence, like that of a significant number of Montrealers, is a very urban one, centered in the Plateau Mont Royal district of Montreal. An existence that I’m generally extremely happy with, as I do love this city, especially this neighbourhood with its parks, its colourful homes and (sometimes) its street life; but sometimes I get a hankering to explore a bit farther afield, which means wherever I can get to on bicycle.

Today, finally, I had a day free of work responsibilities and I woke up knowing that I MUST DO this plan I’d concocted. Plan was to visit Hudson, which a friend said was lovely, but he said I really needed a car to get there. Anyhow, I’d devised a strategy to get there without a car for a day trip and today was a sunny, 20 degree day, perfect to enact my plan. Breakfast eaten, coffee drunk, few essentials packed, bike helmet on and 9:20am I was off…pedaling to catch the 9:57 am commuter train going westbound. 25 minutes later I arrive at Gare Windsor downtown, $6.75 paid for the commuter line and I’m off on the Montréal-Dorion commuter rail. For those of you Montreal visitors who might consider copying my adventures, I recommend arriving 20 minutes in advance so you can figure out where the ticket vending machines are in the station (not obvious) and how to operate them rather than 8 minutes in advance like myself. I ended up a bit exasperated, as I’d forgotten exactly where Gare Windsor was, went in the wrong building, couldn’t find the ticket machine, boarded the train without a ticket, was told I needed to buy one, ran out with bike, finally got ticket and made it on the train with one minute to spare. Zoiks.

**DORION**

They have bicycle holders on board for 4 bikes and passing mostly through West Island suburbs, 50 minutes later we’d left Montreal island and arrived in Dorion, first town west of Montreal in the Montérégie. Even though technically a far-flung suburb of Montreal, the pace seemed somehow different here, perhaps subtly slower as I stopped in the Café de la Gare for water and a toilet break right by the platform (good place for prospective bike riders to stop and stock up on goods). People seemed to chat more a be bit less harried, but maybe I was imagining things.

Dorion, in a way, was the big surprise as the residential area by the train station was actually quite charming, with some beautiful stone homes. Also wooden homes, (sometimes unusually lavender- and red- painted) captured my attention, and many residences seemed graced with tasteful gardens (lilacs abound)! I walked my bike through this portion at a slow amble, admiring the creative flourish until I veered toward Avenue Ste. Charles. I’m amazed no guidebook (or for that matter Montrealer) seems to mention Dorion, as views of the open water Baie de Vaudreuil with views of small islands and the rocky shores of larger Île Perrot opposite are really lovely, especially from Dorion’s grassy Parc Valois with tree-shaded benches.

**BIKE RIDE DORION-HUDSON**

I’m at first thankful as there appears to be a designated bike path running parallel to Avenue St. Charles that avoids dealing with traffic on the suburban main street. Unfortunately, this path ends and I return to Avenue St. Charles…for about 10 minutes the bike ride is a bit unpleasant as I go on the overpass over the 40 Autoroute, past strip malls, office buildings and petrol stations, at one point with a large truck in front and an SUV behind, thankful that I can pull into the shoulder after the red light.

After these 10 minutes, I leave the office buildings behind and turn on to Chemin de l’Anse, the beginning of my hour of dépaysement. The Anse de Vaudreuil, a beautiful expanse of water (start of the Outaouais/Ottawa River) with the forest of deciduous trees of the north shore opposite and the peninsula of Vaudreuil behind make for a stunning visual portrait as I cycle throughout. A windsurfer and a family on a boat seem to equally take advantage of the setting as I pass some docks. Red-winged blackbirds abound and seemed to agree about the loveliness of the Anse as indicated by their shrill call to their neighbours. Hard to believe at 9:15 I was in my apartment and here at 11:30, I’m cycling past charming large country homes with mailboxes roadside, past fields of crops, barns, silos and the occasional horse. Close to 40 minutes from Dorion train station and I’ve arrived in Hudson (which is big) and Chemin de l’Anse changes its name to Main Road. But by bike (for slow old me), it’s about 20 more minutes to the Oka-Hudson ferry and about another 20 minutes to the centre of the village.

**HUDSON**

Funny enough, while visiting the main drag of the old town of Hudson was the goal I intended for this trip, this was mildly disappointing. I was imagining something a little more small-town friendly and although village-like perhaps in appearance was much more suburban in feel. Sadly, bulldozers and tractors were also tearing up the road in Main Street for today’s journey.

That said, Hudson does preserve its old Lower Canada village heritage in the beauty of its charming homes, especially the stately ones overlooking the water, but also in the smaller ones with gardens that sit only one street away from the main drag. The homes away from the town centre are for me are the highlight and jewel of Hudson. And even Main Street in the village centre (near the train station) I felt merits a look-see with a lovely church and a pleasant brick Hôtel de Ville, not to mention it’s not a bad place to get a bite to eat!

**TRAVERSIER HUDSON-OKA**
But the pièce de resistance of the day was the traversier (ferry) Hudson-Oka. Several kms away from the village centre, the ferry runs roughly every 10 minutes from 8am-9pm. $2 each way for bicyclists/pedestrians, we’re essentially put on a barge with 8 cars arranged in 2 cars x 4 cars on the rectangle without roof (me, lone bicyclist, is squeezed to the left of the front car). The barge with all this weight I’m amazed is seemingly miraculously pulled by what looks like a motorboat attached to a forked rope attached to the two front corners of the barge. For about 10 minutes, we cross the choppy waters of the gorgeous wide expanse of the Anse, with untainted deciduous forest to the left, right, behind and hilly front, the treeline only periodically broken by the stately homes of Hudson behind but also by the majestic church of Oka ahead.

In Oka, I spend about 15-20 minutes, admiring the majestic silver-steepled, brown stone, red-doored, white-window-framed Paroisse de L’Annonciation d’Oka (the gleaming majestic church that lured me onto the traversier in the first place), built by the Sulpicians and Amerindiens in 1721 originally (although due to fire was rebuilt in 1877) and the equally majestic neighbouring Couvent des Soeurs de Notre Dame (1884), Mairie and Bibliothèque d’Oka. The town of Oka wisely has placed plaques by the dock overlooking the Anse so visitors and locals can learn more about its history.

Sitting on the dock, waiting for the ferry to return, looking at the vast expanse of forest and water surrounding, I’m simply stunned that without renting a car, I was able to arrive in such beauty, so removed-seeming from the city, with only a $13.50 round-trip train ticket and pedal-power required. What can I say? A great day, a great travel adventure, with great exercise for a great price.

**THE END**