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It was fill-'er-up-and-let's-go time, and Americans were gadding about as never before. They were off to Albuquerque, Minneapolis and Montauk, to Eagle River, Nantucket and Oconomowoc.
Some millions of them were headed for Canada—green, fresh, cool and twice as big as all outdoors. By road, rail and rattletrap they went. In the hot August sun their cars headed north around Lake Champlain and Memphremagog, or along the orange-colored cliffs of Lake Superior and the blue water of Puget Sound.
Ahead lay the lake-speckled pine woods of Ontario, the island-dotted Lake of the Woods, the breath-taking Canadian Rockies, Banff and Lake Louise. But for two out of every five of the tourists, the goal was French Canada, the province of Quebec (bigger than Texas, Oklahoma, California and Utah together).
There tourists were at home abroad. They tried out their high-school French on the traffic cops (who politely answered in English) and on the garage mechanic (who jabbered back happily in French). They found countryside that might be Normandy, cities that recalled Rouen.
Everything had a picture-postcard look: the walled city of Quebec, brooding on its cliff above the St. Lawrence; the Maxfield Parrish mountains of the Gaspe; storybook hamlets, and fishing fleets lying like a school of minnows in the bay. There were oxcarts and outdoor ovens, pea soup and acres of cod drying in the sun. And there was Montreal, second biggest French city in the world, with the biggest black market in Canada.
Like Manhattan, Montreal is a portal city, the doorway to French Canada. It has tourist attractions, too—the best French food and the gayest nightclubs (it also had the best bordellos).
Sacred Past. Once Montreal had been the doorway to all of North America. Out of the "sacred city," founded in 1642, went Marquette, Champlain, La Salle, Du Luth, Joliet and many another to explore the New World and baptize the heathen Indians.
Montreal is still a sacred city, with 360 churches and 126 streets named after saints. But it is also a worldly metropolis (pop. 1,138,835). This week, Montreal's seams were splitting with the greatest crop of tourists ever. Out of the 23,000,000 pouring into Canada from the U.S. this year, some 9,000,000 would pass through the gateway of Montreal into French Canada. All told, they would spend about $1,800,000,000.
In Montreal they found the prices comparatively low, the fun high. They crowded into the famed Au Lutin Qui Bouffe (The Greedy Imp) on St. Gregoire Street, where a baby porker ran around nuzzling the legs of diners, and apple pie arrived flaming in rum at the tables. They gobbled up the bread sticks, vin ordinaire (and extraordinaire) and hors d'oeuvres at the Cafe Martin, Chez Ernest and Chez Stien.
A few might even find their way to La Tour Eiffel, a blue-painted, mirrored and muraled restaurant of Montreal's sophisticates. It was officially opened only a few weeks ago by what many Montrealers consider their best attraction, and their most entertaining floor show: Mayor Camillien Houde (rhymes with comedian good).