March 09, 2017
Bonjour tout le monde!
Yesterday was definitely a day full of new experiences for the entire group. We are checking in from Quebec City, however yesterday we visited Trois Rivieres after exploring Le Musée du Beaux-Arts du Montreal. While our time was limited in the museum, Bras Forts (the nickname of our tour guide — meaning “strong arms”) took us through a few exhibits that showed the progression of art in Montreal. From the Inuit Art at the beginning of our short tour to the contemporary art at the end, we took in a lot of unique and thought-provoking art. Something we found interesting about Inuit art was that they typically created sculptures to express themselves, and many of these sculptures were made of bones. One of our favorite art installations happened to be done by someone with the same name as Sarah. As pictured, the installation was based on a b . The sculpture had a series of different shaped lights that were all very bizarre but beautiful at the same time. The lights all lit up at a different time and in different sequences, resembling abstract fireworks.
Soon after, we took a two hour bus ride to 
(“three rivers”), a little town that is only surrounded by two rivers. Our first activity in Trois Rivieres was ice climbing on frozen geysers. It’s safe to say our arms are still shaking a little bit, however that’s only because our muscles seemed to have tripled in size. Our guide, Benoit made ice climbing look like walking upstairs. However, that was not the case parce que some of us were not so great at climbing stairs to begin with. After we were done climbing, Maikans served us a delicious dinner of traditional Québécois cuisine. While we enjoyed a warm dinner, we had no way to prepare for what was to come.
After dinner, we hopped in cabs and headed to 
La Vielle Prison — a prison that remained active from 1822 until the early 1980s. This activity is one we will never forget, both because of our experience as “prisoners” and because of our Tour Guide — Thomas. An important discovery we made early on was that this prison was the harshest prison in North America while it was operating. Looking at pictures of the outside nobody could have imagined the atrocities that went on inside. Our night in the prison began when the “Warden” came outside and gave us instructions complètement en français. Sarah J. and Tyler B. were immediately designated as the translators for the night for all of the students. We were brought inside and sent upstairs to drop our stuff off and ordered to remain silent until further instruction. Then, the Warden led us downstairs and into the holding cell (aka the Bullpen). After he took our mugshots we were taken on a tour with Thomas. The experience made us value the freedom we are fortunate enough to have everyday, and it showed us that even in modern times the criminal justice systems in North America do not uphold basic human rights. In these circumstances, those who went to jail for a small offense transformed from small time criminals to big time criminals — which seems counterproductive in many ways. Overall, our day was jam packed with so many unforgettable and important experiences.
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