For the arrival of the first cruise ship this summer
, Sept-Iles has been innovative! Passengers really appreciated the stopover !!
Here is a letter send to the Town's People of Sept-Iles by some happy travellers:
''We are seven passengers who visited Sept-Iles in May 2009 on
Holland America cruise line's ship, the Maasdam.
We seven are a mixed bag - three from Australia, two from South
Carolina, and two from north Florida. Since your city had never been a
port of call for a cruise ship, we were not expecting a lot. Boy were
we ever wrong! We never dreamed that after fifteen days and 10 ports of
call, your fair city would end up being in
our top three ports and
the one that gave us the most heart warming welcome. The town folks
were so excited to see us that they were lined up as far as you could
see. They wanted to take our pictures, as though we were someone
special. Whoever decided to make the day of our arrival a holiday and
let all the kids out of school make the right decision. It was a joy to
see all those kids out playing in the playground area, and all the
adults pulling the kids in those covered wagons and everyone marvelling
at seeing the ship in the harbour and all these foreign people roaming
the streets.
We have enclosed pictures of a family that befriended us seven
strangers as we walked down the street. This Mom, her eleven year old
son and his 8 years old sister were your city's finest Good Will
Ambassadors. This family walked with us from where we came ashore up to
the playground area.
They just made our day.
They were so excited about the arrival of the ship and the visitors to
their city. We talked with the kids about where we were all from,
(Australia and Florida "where Mickey Mouse lives"). What a joy to have
had the opportunity to have met such wholesome genuine people. The boy
told us about the helicopter rides, and we had to have a beaver tail.
We had given the boy some coins from America and Australia and he was
so thankful. Later that day this same boy was looking for the
Australian with the gold spot on his tooth and one with a yellow shirt.
He never found them but found someone else on the ship that was
returning on board and handed them a gift to give to the Australian. We
want him to know that the gift made it to the Australian. If you are
able to identify this family we, all of us, would like their names and
mailing addresses so that we can thank them personally. We have
provided our names, addresses and email addresses, if they would rather
contact us first. These three individuals will always be in our hearts
and minds for the wonderful lasting impression the made on us.
The port authority made our port of call in your city a easy stop.
The port as well as the city was clean, well maintained and safe. The
transition from ship to shore was a breeze and the area was well
secured. Even though there were not a tremendous number of things to do
in your city, the people made up for it.
We are the appointed spokespeople for our group and in all of our years
of traveling, we never wrote a letter to any city's officials regarding
a visit there, but your city was special. Please extend
a special thank you to Mrs Theriault since she responded to our needle-in-the-haystack email.''
Signed by
R. and C. Smith, J. and S. Nash, J. and A. Gilbert, D. Hall