On the train to Chicoutimi, Que.
Thurs., Oct. 14, 1926
On our way to Quebec City we stopped at Shawinigan in bitter cold to look through the plant of the Aluminum Company of America. Bill had secured permission first by a wire to Pittsburgh headquarters. He found the location stunning and the plant most impressive.
Armed with letters of introduction from Frank and Bill’s Montreal friend, Johnson, we arrived in Quebec on Saturday evening and parked in the tourist camp. Looking around the town on Sunday, we discovered that a big convention of bankers was in progress at the Hotel Frontenac. Because of the confusion, hubbub and postponement of business caused by the convention, accomplishing Bill’s business here has been greatly delayed.
On Monday, Bill had expected to see a man who would give him letters of introduction to officials at the aluminum development on the Saguenay River. He learned the man would not be in his office, but might be found in such and such a room in the Hotel Frontenac. Most of Bill’s day was wasted phoning the room and having the man paged, while I wandered about the city.
The next day wasn’t much better. Although the man was at his office, he was so much the worse for wear that Bill could get nothing out of him--he was, he said, “in a hurry to lunch with Lady so-and-so.” But he did promise Bill to have the letters the next day, which meant putting off our leaving for still another day. On Wednesday the gentleman was in better shape and gave Bill several helpful letters. He apologized for his former condition, saying that “a banker’s convention didn’t happen every day.”
Quebec is a most charming city, and our lengthened stay was certainly no punishment. The Frontenac is situated on a high bluff overlooking Murray Bay, formed by the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Charles Rivers. Mountains with little villages snuggled at their feet rise sharply from the Bay. On the same bluff as the hotel and not very far is the Citadel, an old fort built by the English in 1759, after Wolfe had taken the city from Montcalm. Quebec was a walled town before that, however, and the walls and gates are still standing. The old walled part is built on a side hill, with narrow, twisting alleys, running hither and yon, making the area picturesque and intriguing.
Although sleeping in our car in the tourist camp, we soon felt very much at home at the elegant Frontenac, making it our headquarters, and parking the Dodge in front near the statue of Champlain.
We wonder when and if the convention ever convened, for most of the time it seemed to be a grand Hurrah-boys-let’s-have-another-drink, interspersed with a few visits of local points of interest, a dinner at the Governor General’s mansion and numerous trips to the golf course. Henry Holt, a perennial beau of many Brooklyn girls of my acquaintance, was present for some undetermined reason. “Henery,” as Bill calls him, was rigged out in the very latest cut British clothes, spats and cane. Although he had just made a flying trip up the Saguenay to the aluminum development, he was too busy having luncheon and going riding with Sir William Price, a director of the Aluminum Company of America, to give us information about his findings. It was constantly Sir William this and Sir William that. We ran into several other Brooklyn friends, also.
One evening at a restaurant Bill and I had an amusing close-up of some of the convention crowd, as we watched a few bankers banqueting. One Jewish banker, who drank only one small bottle of beer, was host. His non-Jewish wife, fat, southern and talkative, was champagne drinkative. A man from Nevada with feet three sizes bigger than Bill’s twelves had the coarsest, grossest manners; and an elegant, prim little woman from Philadelphia, patronizing only ice water, was terribly shocked by the whole proceedings. A funny mixture, but lots of fun to watch.
At last we are on our way, by train. The boat up the Saguenay to Lake St. John runs only on Tuesdays and Fridays, also it’s more expensive, and takes a day longer. There is no auto road, so we have left our car and duds in charge of the caretaker of the tourist camp. The train runs through the wildest, woolliest country, all forests, rocks, lakes, rivers and mountains. I never saw so many heavenly lakes. The gorgeous autumn foliage lent its glamor to the scenery.