Sentier Mitiwee
This ~2 km trail (roundtrip: ~ 4 km) can be found off Route 234 between Price and Grand-Métis, just south of Rout 132. There’s free parking at each end of the trail, and picnic tables and benches along the way where you can stop and enjoy the view, or watch and listen to the birdlife – over 55 species have been identified. A viewing tower (mirador) about a third of a kilometer from the path’s north end provides a beautiful view as does another panoramic vista. Some trail photos, as well as the area’s logging, milling and power generation history, can be found on Price’s municipal website.
Explanatory panels along the trail introduce visitors to the history of Price and of Grand-Métis, discuss archaeological discoveries of the presence of considerably pre-settler indigenous people, and lay out the Mitis River’s broader watershed.
Did you know… ? Metis is a relatively recent spelling of Mitis. Some say Mitis is a distortion of the word mitiwee or métioui, used by the Micmacs and Malécite indigenous peoples to designate a meeting place – there is evidence of an indigenous presence dating back 6,000 years at the mouth of the Mitis River where it enters the Saint Lawrence. Some think the word comes from the Mi’kmaq term Miti Sipo, meaning “poplar river”; another that it comes from the Mi’kmaq word mistik or birch, and still another, that it means “aspen” or “birch”, trees bordering the Mitis River. Whatever its true origins, the Mitis River, and later the Kempt Road that ran along it, were part of a route from Baie-des-Chaleurs to the Saint Lawrence River.
Did you know… ? As early as 1824, indigenous guides led George Jehoshaphat Mountain overland from Baie-des-Chaleurs to Metis. He served as secretary to his father, Jacob Mountain, Canada’s first Anglican Bishop, as his father travelled throughout his Lower Canada diocese. After taking Anglican orders, George Mountain was named first archdeacon of Quebec and, like his father, journeyed widely. In considerable detail, he documented people’s living conditions, and the state of religion and education in every settlement. In a diary entry of his early first excursion to the Gaspé coast, he was very complimentary about the ‘Indians’ who had guided him from Baie-des-Chaleurs to Metis.
While in Metis, Mountain married Angelica and John MacNider, with 40 people present, and performed 10 baptisms. Mountain later became Canada’s first locally born Anglican Bishop.
Sources:
http://www.municipaliteprice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=345&Itemid=297
http://www.hebdosregionaux.ca/bas-st-laurent/2013/06/17/le-sentier-mitiwee-est-officiellement-inaugure
http://www.municipaliteprice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=345&Itemid=297
https://www.petitfute.co.uk/v47395-grand-metis/
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=4616
http://gogaspe.com/host/annett/volume1/22%20Gaspe%20Visits%20of%20Archdeacon%20Mountain.pdf
Alexander Reford
