10 years ago, we spent a night in Asbestos, Quebec, en route from Boston to Quebec City during a holiday weekend. I faithfully blogged about the entire weekend, as back then, I faithfully blogged about everything and anything.
Recently I was reminded of our night in Asbestos — and my subsequent blog post — when nearly all of the news outlets I follow began running stories about the town’s vote to change their name to Val-des-Sources.
Reading my blog posts from 10 years ago can be a little cringey. I detect shades of glib snideness in how I describe the world. This was my attempt at injecting brashness and wit into my writing, but now I feel like it can come off as mocking.
I think this is slightly evident in what I wrote about Asbestos 10 years ago — see text pasted below. Why did I take such cynical delight in the town’s plight? What did I know of the town’s “waning fortunes”, and who am I to be so judgey? But I’m glad I have this memory written down, as I can more vividly recall the visit and conjure images of the town. And the fact that the town did eventually change their name sort of validates my cynicism.
July 2010 – from this post:
We were in search of a hotel that would keep us en route to QC yet afford a little more amusement than the typical highway lodging, so I scanned the map looking for bold-faced towns with likely services. One town caught my eye.
“Let’s go to the lovely town of Asbestos!” I chuckled, half-joking. But then we began to follow signs for a hotel from the main road, and it became obvious that we would end up smack in the town center of Asbestos, Quebec. I was beside myself. Every sign that we passed (the Asbestos Golf Club, the Asbestos Baptist Church) left me in sardonic glee.
Asbestos was outwardly a nice town, with well-cared for homes and no obvious social ills spilling out into the streets. But beneath its lower-middle class crust, there were tell-tale signs of a city’s waning fortunes: Employment centers, bands of roaming youth, hotels and restaurants that hadn’t been redecorated since the early 1970s, and oh yeah — that monster asbestos mine within sight of the downtown.
After dinner in the golf club’s dining room (Mr. P’s fish was served with sides of rice, pasta, and potatoes) we walked through the town center, where we became intrepid spectators to an adult softball game between two teams of roughneck laborers. When that was over, we attempted to go to a karaoke nightclub but balked at the $10 cover charge, so we returned to our hotel room. Laugh as we did at the unfortunate hubris of a town named Asbestos, I will say that I had one of my best nights of sleep ever in a hotel… or maybe I was semi-conscious from the native air particles…
Cringey Old Photo
