frozen in the winter. Unfortunately the 1878-1879 winter was unusually mild and the St. Lawrence did not freeze over as planned. This seemed to hinder plans for construction of the new church. Fr. Desilets instructed his congregation to pray the rosary in order to obtain ice to cross the river, he also promised Mary that if she interceded he would dedicate the Old Church (then dedicated to Mary Magdalene) to her instead. In March 1879 pieces of ice floated downstream from Lake St-Pierre, forming a "bridge" across the St. Lawrence River, and this miracle was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Mother. This bridge was called the Rosary Bridge due to its connection with the prayer of the same name. For several days the parishioners poured water on the ice pieces in order to thicken the ice and form a path, which they then used to transport the stones across the river. Fr. Desilets upheld his promise and renamed the old church. On June 22, 1888, the old stone church was formally dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and Dorval's statue ceremoniously relocated from the alcove to above the altar. That evening, while praying in the small church, Father Desilets, Franciscan friar Father Frédéric Janssoone O.F.M, and a parishioner, Pierre Lacroix, all seemed to see the statue open its eyes. This impression continued for five or ten minutes while the two priests moved about the church to view the statue from different perspective to test whether this was an optical illusion. When word circulated of this unusual occurrence, the incidents of pilgrimages increased. Beginning in 1892, there were reports of cures. Pilgrimages In 1904, Pope Pius X authorized a canonical coronation for the statue, which was carried out by Bishop François-Xavier Cloutier. The "shamrock-girdled crown" was provided by the Irish community of Montreal. The image received a second coronation in August 1954 by Cardinal Valerio Valeri, representing Pope Pius XII. Pope John Paul II stopped there in 1984, during a visit to Quebec. This inaugurated a tradition of annual pilgrimages for young people, known as Cap-Jeunesse. There are many pilgrimages to the shrine, including hundreds by bus from Canada and the United States. At the end of July, members of the Quebec Italian community, stop at the basilica en route to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré for the feast of St Anne on July 26. The Marie Reine de