The scene always reminds me of the movie "The Longest Day" when the paratroopers are baling out of their aircraft and dropping into France to face who knows what surprises and dangers. However in this case the Trent geography students disembark in pairs from the coach on to the King's Road alongside the St. Lawrence River just east of Quebec City. What surprises will they find? And what danger, if any, will they encounter?

The students are assigned approximately one kilometre to each pair and their task is to map the buildings and styles of construction for the King's Road. This, one of the oldest thoroughfares of European origin in North America, let alone Quebec, preserves a fascinating array of early Canadian houses and other landscape elements. I have taken a number of student groups there as part of my annual course on the Historical Geography of Early Canada, and I am always finding new sights. I am particularly pleased to hear, or read, the comments of students who can scarcely believe that they are in Canada when confronted with the really quite "European" character of the old farming landscape.

The visual surprises include French style farmhouses, long Quebec barns, numerous arched stone root-cellars, exterior communal ovens, wayside shrines, and even miniature "daughter" chapels on the parish boundary of one village. Quite apart from these scenic delights are the idiosyncrasies of the King's Road itself which seems to meander along the top of the cliff near Quebec. It then descends to pass along the very bank of the St. Lawrence itself for several km. The road seems to squeeze between ancient dwellings whose front porches are at the roadside in many places. The road clearly "grew" wider over the centuries as traffic changed from pedestrian to modern vehicles. The "classic" sight in this regard is a typical Quebec farm-house with a sign hanging from its projecting eave announcing "Danger! Building" as a warning to the frequent bus drivers. The main road has been mercifully diverted even close to the river for some years and so the older King's Road is relatively quiet apart from the numerous tours seeking a glimpse of ancient Quebec.

The students in their pairs make their way along the allocated stretches of the road, extending sometimes - depending on the class - size for some 25 km. They each encounter different scenes, although local people are often in conversation with of the passing several pairs. Pedestrians are relatively rare along the rural sections of the road and anglophone ones are unheard of - so many "locals" cannot resist the temptation to ask "What's going on", usually in French, and this leads occasionally to extended conversations about family history, ancestral settlement and even invitations to tea, whereupon the family photos or "tree" is produced.

After the last pair has been "dropped" the coach loops back and collects the students in the same order, having given everyone ample time to record their landscape features. The record consists of a linear map of what is, in effect, a elongated "street-village". The map is encoded in a standardised way, pacing provides an approximate measure of location for the mapped features, and the map itself is drawn on a series of blank "master" sheets. As a result the students are able to obtain a firsthand impression of the succession of events that have contributed to the 350-year old landscape of the King's Road area. The detailed evidence provides a "scientific" insight into the phenomenon, but apart from that, the sense of history is palpable in this case. The original French seigneurie was called "Beaupre" - "Fine land" - and the sunbathed riverside slopes are clearly favourable, especially when beheld, as often happens, in the fall colours of a sunny late September afternoon.

Apart from the King's Road survey, the historical geography of New France is revealed at various other points on the three day-trip. In Old Montreal for example, in the Upper and Lower "Town" of Quebec City itself, and in the seigneuries of Neuville and Bourg-Louis just upstream from the latter where we arrange to meet Laval University professors and graduate students for a perambulating seminar in the landscapes of 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century "New France".

The King's Road project has provided hundreds of Trent geography students with a glimpse of the early landscape of Canada. It has been a most worthwhile annual field-trip in the Historical Geography course made possible to a great extent, I should say, by the succession of financial grants for educational exchange between Quebec and Ontario. I look forward to seeing many more students "drop" from the coach into their adventures along old Beaupre, a treasure of the Canadian landscape geography.