Before the Eisenhower interstates were built, motor trips to Québec City from Cohoes took more than one day. This trip recorded in the filmstrip below, sometime in 1949 or 1950, went through New Hampshire instead of along Route 9 and the Champlain Valley in New York to Montreal. (there's more footage of that segment of the journey still to be posted). Probably the family was more intent on making a religious pilgrimage to St Anne de Beaupré than visiting Montreal so the northeastern route through the White Mountains to St Anne was reasonable and more like a week long vacation.
Al Rivet probably held the Kodak camera, while his father Emile and stepmother Malvina Hamel enjoyed the cruise on the St Lawrence and the silhouette of the Hotel Frontenac, the tall dark building in the filmstrip. The scene quickly changes form Quebec City to the Shrine of St Anne de Beaupré, the Scala Santa, the convent grounds and the busy parking lot!
Years later as a child, I would accompany these adults on this pilgrimage many times and follow the tradition of ascending the stairs of Santa Scala on my knees while praying the rosary - in English.
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