Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-07-02
Saguenay Cruises
Bring Customs Of
1905 Into View
Spinning Wheels and
Home Looms Busy in
'BIueberry Pie Lond

bee, July 1.-The clock does not
strike in the Land of the Burberry
Pie. Quebec's northern fringe of civ
ilization. Insead Time sits on a
honey doorsill with the genial ma
tives and spins legends that first
had their birth in Canada four CEN
turtles back.
Founded 101 years ago by French
Canadian pioneers, the Saguenay
settlements-Pointe Bleue, st. Fee
licien, Peribonca, Tadoussac and q
score of others-still pattern their
customs after those of another age
and live at tempo untouched by
the whiplash of the modern day.
Square dancing, outdoor baking,
hand weaving of family clothing,
quaint idioms-all of these today
are as they were 100 years ago, when
a band of 81 pioneers moved into
the country of the Montagnais In
dams, set up their sawmills and
built their log cabins.
18th Century Scenes.
In almost totally isolated COM
munities of the Saguenay - shut
from the outside except for visits
during the summer months of boats
of Canada Steamship Lines - the
sense of timelessness is especially
noticeable. In st. Basile, for in
stance, on the incredible blue Sag
uenay River, the habitants of the
four family hamlet hidden in a
tight, rocky cover, live a daily
scheme that might have been lifted
bodily out of the early 18O0s.
Not many mountainous miles
away is the forgotten town of Des-
cente des Femmes. Buried in a
f1oWer-strewn valley, the village of
nine families conducts its life with
little concern for the outside. A
perfect world in miniature, the COM
munity has its small red church, a
thriving cheese dairy and a one
room schoolhouse. There are no
doctors or lawyers, but the tiny town
manages to survive without them.
In this picturesque settlement, as
in all the others that bring sound
and color to the pine-clad noun
tains, music is an essential part of
social life Not the music of radios,
but that brought forth from old vio-
Inns, ancient pianos and other in
struments.
On Saturday nights the villagers
gather and merge their musical tai
ents. Bathed in the light of kero-
sene lamps, they group in parlors or
common meeting place and dance
and sing to tunes that have long
been dead in the memory of the
city-bred
The picking and the cooking of
blueberries is another common in
terest binding the communities of
the Saguenay together. Here in
August vacationers see entire COM
munities deserving shops and homes
to pick the popular fruit
1t is then that the mountain coun-
try becomes the Land of the Blue
berry Pie. Then kitchens are busy
with canning and baking and the
Saguenay people turn out their ma
tional dish-one which they claim
cannot be equalled in any other part
of the world
Looms Bring Forth Tartans.
Aspects which amaze the vaca-
toner to the Saguenay countryside
are the domestic scenes built around
the old-fashioned spinning of wool
and the weaving of Scottish tartans
on roughly hewn home looms
Using orange tinted spinning
wheels that were shipped into the
country when clearings were just
being hacked out of the forest lands,
housewives in LAnse St. Jean.
Grand Bale and Bale Ste. Catherine
can be seen any summer day spin
ming yarns for socks. sweaters and
mittens for their families.
| During the winter months, in
spotless cottages, the same house
wives spend their days at their
looms weaving red and blue checked
plaids for dresses, shirts and bed
spreads.
Times recess in the Saguenay is
also noticeable in the Montagnais
Indian reservation at Point Bleue
on Lake st. John. Members of a
tribe that controlled the country
when Jacques Cartier first explored
it in 1885, they still live with the
simplicity of ancient times.