Quebec est la plus belle province du Canada

Aug. 6
Today we again spent the morning at Jardin des Glaciers touring some amazing sea shell deposits. What makes them so unique is that all over the world the deepest deposits that have built up over time are about a meter in depth at the most, but here unlike any where else that we know of they are up to fifteen meters deep. Also in some of the deposits the shells, thirty two different varieties in all, are perfectly preserved from the time they died almost ten thousand years ago. It all happened when the glaciers that covered most of North America began to melt with a sudden warming of the climate at that time. These glaciers were seven kilometers thick and put tremendous downward pressure on the rock below them. As the glaciers melted and became lighter the earth’s surface rose and
they formed five huge inland sea’s in what is now know as Quebec. At the same time, because of the rapid melting, these glaciers ground crevices in the rock and the tremendous rushing of the water created huge deep canyons and fissures. Some of these crevices where filled with all these shells at an extraordinary rate as the water rushed by. Also because of the quick up turn in temperatures these deposits were made over a period of only five hundred years instead of five thousand. Therefore the deepposits. Since then the water levels have dropped 170 meters below where they were at that time leaving a tremendous topography of incredibly high hills and steep valleys as you drive through them along the shore. Very beautiful indeed. All of this we learned from a wonderful guide called Andre who practiced her best English on us and made us feel very at home with her. She is a good example of the great hospitality we’ve encountered all along the North shore here the last week or so.