Day VII - Opocopa you suck.

It’s 16h30 TTZ. I’m stitting on a deep layer of emerald-coloured moss, my back against a tree, black flies devouring the 5 square inches of exposed skin I have left, and I am waiting for Luke and Marcus to come back to know if they found the lifejacket that was blown away in the Opocopa wind this morning. Câlisse.

Everyone else is spooning in what might be the worst tarp job in modern history. I’ve been knee deep in cold water at the point twice already to see if Marcus and Luke were in sight. Nothing. Time passes by VERY slowly. I had time to extensively clean and bite all my nails, to kill about 387802458 black flies and to call camp. We have to call back at 18h30, said Dave.

As we were saying earlier, it’s better to call because we lost shit than because someone is injured. But the best remains not calling at all.

ON VA TU FINIR PAR LE FINIR CE FOUTU LAC-LÀ?

Hace un viento que te cagas desde que llegamos aquí. Marcus tenía razón (como siempre) de decir que cosas raras ocurren al norte del 50º paralelo… No sé todavía a que me refiero, puesto que a parte de la perdida de esta maldita chaqueta salvavidas no hubo nada que se podría describir como “raro”, pero persiste este sentimiento extraño de que estamos en otro planeta, o por lo menos otro país… pero un país desierto, donde hay que deducir por ti mismo porque por razones desconocidas se han marchado todos los habitantes, dejándote abandonado sin el manual de instrucciones para este ambiente surrealista.

Black flies are having a fucking party on my lower back right now.

I’m starting to understand “Surfacing” at a whole new level right now.

I’m still debating whether or not I should be writing a bunch of random thoughts and slices of life in this journal or if I should keep a detailed log of all the stuff we do. I guess parts of me want to remember every minute of the trip, while other parts find it more authentic to just write whatever I find relevant at the time. I guess the river will decide for me.

Day VI - Can a bug be prosecuted for a neck rape?

FUCKIN’ HEADWINDS!!!

I :( lake Opocopa…

Other facts and cool moments

- The girls and their endless water pumping session in the morning
- Sam lingering in the tent as everyone else is moving and packing

- Sarah and Luke coming up with "Part time Paraplegic", their own version of a Flight of the Conchords song
- Our mad jam session at night including about an hour of non-stop "freestyling" on the chords of "Gone" by Jack Johnson
- The Mega-panzarotti shaped like a gramma’s bonnet co-created by Nick and Luke
- Emily lily dipping and being made fun of for it
- Nat’s explanation of Judaism
- The day 3 campsite
o Gorging ourselves with cranberries
o Lying on the moss
o Finding an eagle feather (apparently you’re on the right path when you find one. We’ll keep it in the map case, hopefully the saying is true)
- The creepy noise of the waves against shore
- The girl’s terrible (and unnecessary) dishwashing job at lunch
- Cutting mangoes on the beach and still feeling very far away from the tropics
- Struggling with our adaptation to trip time zone
- Finding cool pieces of quartz in the water

Day V - “You skullfucker muffincock”

Did you ever wonder if it was possible to take 4 hours to get ready in the morning? Maudit verrat qu’ils sont lents!!! Ok, I must admit it wasn’t entirely the kids’ fault, as we took a while to get a fire started with white gas and we had forgotten to get a lunch ready, but still.

Our Canada day was started off with the firing of the spud gun, followed by delicious paddler's breakfast and by the most exhaustive river morph session I’ve ever attended due to the threat of lightning. It seems to have worked, though, since everyone did very well in the 2 sets we ran today. Scouting was difficult since the water was high and numbingly cold. Actually, it would be better described by "the water was like being slapped in the face with a shovel". There are animal tracks everywhere in the woods, printed in the 2 inches of moss that cover everything: moose, deers, unidentified animals stalking moose and deers (now that’s a little scary), bears…

The campsite is a little scary, not only because of these tracks, but also because of the shreds of torn plastic all over the place. It's the second night in a row that our campsite somewhat looks like a horror movie set, mostly because of traces of human presence.

We paddled all day through narrow, windy river. We stopped in a swampy and buggy area to gulp down the potato salad.

I like the kids.

We caught sight of a moose that hadn’t smelled us until we turned the corner. Majestic animal.

Our campsite is weird. I smiled and thought of Cam Baldassara when I saw all the mossy patches. As the Rogan Josh was cooking, a jam session was improvised.

I cough. A lot.

Our tent spot kind of sucks despite the thick layer of moss. I can’t believe I spent so much time camping without a therma-rest.

Marcus demonstrated how flies don’t need a head to live. Interesting.

Day IV - “Did you know that the Virgin Mary was Jewish?”

Quelle temperature de meeeeeeerde!

Cold (frette, even), more wind than yesterday (to the point we wondered about admit to being windbound), rainy… a full package-deal for a pneumonia, the flu, hypothermia, scurvy, or all of the above.

We woke up after a semi-voluntary sleep-in and decided to treat ourselves with a cold breakfast since building a fire wasn’t an option. It took a long time to finally get on the water. The cold impaired most of our activities; it was impossible to stop for more than 5 minutes without showing early signs of hypothermia. Marilyne’s broom dance and the Haitian foot game I learned in cégep helped a bit to compensate for my Raynaud’s syndrome. As we munched on the “Morning in Puerto Limón” granola, I wondered if there was any place in the world that was more different to Costa Rica than right here. We finally made it to our day-2 campsite. We first found an old, eerie-looking cabin filled with bats and surrounded by moose crap, but after a few minutes of bushwhacking we found the “good site” promised by the map. It stopped raining as we set up the campsite, but we still had to use white gas to start a fire.

This afternoon Marcus and I went to check out the surrounding hills and lake as the kids hung out under the safety of the blue tarp. We found wild cranberries, bear crap and animal tracks. The view was gorgeous and imposing. It’s very different from the Rupert. There the landscape was threatening and hostile, reminding us that we didn’t belong, that humans weren’t supposed to be here. Here on the Moisie you still don’t feel like you’re in a familiar place (you’re pretty much on another planet), but the landscape is majestic, unreal. You feel like you are in a postcard or in a calendar picture.

We saw a weird bird by the campsite.

We left the kids deal with dinner while we sat in our tent and made fun of my German activity book. Every now and then we’d giggle at talks about Harry Potter conspiracies or random statements about Jewish religion caught from the kids' conversations around the firepit. Dinner was bland and unsatisfying. Thanks God I wasn’t hungry in the first place. They really need to figure out spices and cooking in general or else this is going to be a long 21 days.

We thought we saw Northern Lights but the spectacular show we saw from the bus the other night never came back and we went to bed disappointed. Too bad.

La nature est une agace-pissette parfois.

Day III - Sleep deprivation and mad winds made Murielle use point form

Day 3

Important facts, details and milestones of the first day on the river

- 2h30AM sunrise...

- Waking up in the gravel pit and taking at least 45 seconds to remember where we are
- Watching Stan hop in the bus and drive towards us because there is no obstacle between us and the mega-building
- Venturing in THE building to buy croissants and having them with Grand-Maman’s jam
- Entering Labrador. Ironically they also mention Newfoundland on the sign although we are hundreds of miles away from there.
- Marcus’ impression of the friendly Wal-Mart lady’s accent and the mines of epic proportions surrounding Lab City
- The man and the lady met at the put-in and their stare of disbelief as we explained what we were about to do.
- The abandoned makeshift stretcher ditched in the woods and how uneasy I suddenly felt about it
- Peering at the mountain of froufrou and loose groceries over the explorer’s shoulders as we are having the “beginning of trip speech”
- Marcus not wearing a shirt despite the...

- Cold, damp and cloudy weather
- The endless last kilometres
- The wind and rain starting just as we pull over to our campsite
- The cristi de tarp that takes forever to set up
- The rather snug common area
- Cooking "the f**k out of the chicken" to avoid salmonella
- Sam watching us cook
- Cursing as I learn how to peel plantains
- The late night gallo pinto (1:00AM!)
- Letting kids clean up everything since they slept as we froze cooking dinner
- Walking on Ménistouc lake cause the water’s so shallow and the headwinds are so frustrating
- The first portage over the height of land on a big buggy bog and wishing that the water knew where the hell it wants to go.

Day II

Day 2

“Dépasser ! Stressé ? Raleeeentissez”

Tap tap tap. Marcus’ superhero watch was about to wake us up when my dad, my mom and Ginger "knocked" on the fly of my tent to make sure that it was normal that we were still sleeping. Parenthood. We packed up as my dad keeps Marcus and our Robot-Driver Stan busy with his rants about trucking and his visceral hatred for the Americans. I hadn't heard one of these in awhile. Nothing was ripe in the garden, but at least I had time to pillage the freezer and to get 2 jars of Grand-Maman’s jam for breakfast. I said bye to my parents. Again. I feel like I spend more time saying goodbye than actually being with them since January. We crossed Québec City and drove under the painted pillars of Dufferin Highway. Marcus remarked on an abandoned building covered in graffiti that Nathan Whitney would love. I wonder if he saw it when he came last year with Joleen.

Charlevoix unfolded before our eyes as bits of hills and craters jumped out of the mist and drizzle. When we got to Saguenay, I really felt like I wasn’t home anymore. We caught a glimpse of the Hauts-Fonds lighthouse, sitting at the mouth of the Fjord, recognizing it from our Google Earth scan of the area a few days before. Despite the unmistakable blue ferry boat that reminded us that we were in Québec, the foggy depths of the Saguenay Fjord had a touch of Scotland in them. Once on the other side of the Saguenay River, we passed a bunch of cities whose name rang a bell but whose geographic situation was very vague in my mind: Les Escoumins, Les Bergeronnes, Tadoussac, Forestville…

Our arrival in Baie-Comeau was a mix of happiness to be getting closer and of apprehension, since it is the last (relatively) big city we’ll see in a month. Again, we couldn’t find a guitar at Wal-Mart, but the tall, asparagus-looking clerk told us in his weird Côte-Nord accent that there was a pawn shop nearby that might have what we’re looking for. 20 minutes later, we pay 200$ for a very (maybe too) decent guitar and some replacement strings.

I thought that crossing the gate to the “great north road” was going to be epic and majestic… but really the sign was so small we missed it the first time. When we finally got the right turn, though, we couldn’t help but stare at the hypnotic ribbon of highway stretching for 600 km across a dense, impenetrable wall of black spruce. As we passed Manic II, I had the epiphany that I had never ventured this far north before. The partially paved road got weirder and weirder as we moved up north (see diagram).

We ended up arriving in Fermont and circle the only mega-building in town for awhile until the local SQ officers pull us over, wondering what the hell we’re up to driving around with a school bus and a canoe trailer at 1:00AM. After a few explanations, they show us a gravel pit next to a small park with a gigantic truck dedicated to miners and their contribution to the city. We set up our tent among broken beer bottles and giggle at this whole f***ing ridiculous situation while kids beatbox in the pitch black night.

“Weird shit happens north of the 50th parallel”

We’ll see.

Moisie.

Ô lecteurs abandonnés, mille pardons d'avoir laissé ce blogue aux oubliettes depuis quelques mois...

Mais me revoici, avec une nouvelle formule...

Les prochaines entrées seront dédiées à une traduction en anglais de mon carnet de voyage sur la rivière Moisie, qui coule de Labrador City jusqu'à Sept-Îles sur une distance de 426 km... si vous lisez pas l'anglais, ben coudon attendez la version en français (ou plutôt en joual, on ne virera pas fou avec les traductions non plus...) ou ben regardez les images!

This journal was mostly translated to English (quite possibly with a few spelling and grammar mistakes, sorry about that, by the way...). But sometimes, some things just can't be translated. So I left them. Same for some passages in Spanish, but that's mostly because I got lazy.

Day 1

Here we are.

As I am writing these lines, I am zipping across the gloomy silhouettes of the Charlevoix Hills in a good old cheese wagon (wherever this expression came from). We are on our way to Labrador, a terra incognita farther away from home than Europe, at least metaphorically. It’s been barely 24 hours since this trip officially started and yet a whole lot of stuff has happened already. Sorry about the shitty writing, the road is a little shaky.

So the story begins at the Museum, where I meet our explorers a little after sunrise, all awake and ready to go. We all hang out until the time of the day is decent enough for us to start piling up gear at the old basketball court. Marcus wakes up, fresh like a rose (somewhat), and we have our first real meal together as the common masses of campers pile up against the doors of the dining hall, attracted by the smell of pancakes like zombies to fresh brains. A few technicalities and a few hugs later, we are on our way to what will for sure be an epic journey.

Our driver is a friendly, plad-shirted, mustached man named Stan. The first few kilometres are spent trying to figure out all our new gadgets and toys, namingly the Spot, the GPS and Bubba’s Cobra walkie-talkies. I feel like James Bond in Q’s laboratory. The first official stop is made in Haliburton, where Marcus unsuccessfully attempts to get a pig rig at Boatwerks an where I buy a few of the things we still needed, recruiting Nick as a helper since he happened to be the first one sitting in the front and looked somewhat more awake than everyone else. We stop again at a rest area near Renfrew for a short pee break. A small child and a beautiful golden retriever with a cut tail entertain us as we wait for the washrooms. We take Jacqui with us at the Renfrew Wal-Mart for her to find a cheap guitar we could take with us on the river. The mission is left unaccomplished and we end up with only a bottle of Purell. I have a feeling that we’ll carry an empty waterproof guitar case all trip. We keep rolling along the north shore of Québec, where the cottage traffic paralyses the Montreal-Laurentides axis. Luxury SUVs loaded with expensive boats and fancy barbecue groceries line up as far as the eye can see. Long live the wilderness. I bet they wonder where the hell we are going, rolling towards Montréal with 5 prospectors and a school bus.

We stop in Repentigny for gas. Contrarily to the Cowboys Fringants’ song, Repentigny is anything but “by the sea”.

[Ostia, I just dropped my pen somewhere in the bus and I can’t find it…]

(Change in ink color)

We had no music but somehow it didn’t really matter. I read a bit of my Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt book, but after a few minutes of shaky Québec highway, I realised that chatting with Marcus and sleeping would be much less nausea-prone options to pass time. Among other topics of conversation, we had an ongoing rant about how the Ministry of Transportations of Québec has an incredible talent for ridiculous road safety slogans.

“PRUDENCE!!!”
“La route, ce n’est pas une piste de course…”
“Attention, les animaux ne sont pas seulement sur les panneaux !”

And many more.

The shore of Lac St-Pierre and the St-Lawrence seemed different than usual for some reason. We arrived in Lévis a little before 20h00. Setting up a campsite in my backyard was quite possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced on trip. It was both disturbingly familiar and a completely foreign mixture of events. Papa and Maman were babysitting Ginger, my uncle’s chocolate Labrador. She had a running rampage as the kids were setting up their tents. It's funny how it took her a while to figure out that “Gingeur (with a French accent)” and “Ginger (with the proper English pronunciation)” were both her name…

The girls thought for a few minutes that they had lost their tent poles (potentially catastrophic situation now that I think of it), but the guys ended up finding them in their own tent bag. As the girls were setting up a makeshift place to sleep in my old tree house, the boys set up their tent for them, probably half by gallantry and half to rub it in their faces that they were better.

Time came to seek dinner. By some peculiar alignment of the planets, at the sight of Marcus, my dad came to him and happily offered him the keys to his beloved and “not to be touched by anyone but himself and maybe baby Jesus on Christmas day” pick-up truck. I doubt he ever had such spontaneous trust for any stranger. Ever. So we hopped in the truck and drove into town to get the groceries we were missing. If driving in the school bus through Kennedy Highway was weird, parking my dad's truck in Galeries Chagnon and shopping for Marcus’ new pig rig at Atmosphère seemed even more out of place. Chris doesn’t work there anymore, by the way.

We "coyote passed" our way to the IGA, made fun of a girl (who I am quite sure was one of my students at the Juvénat) for having "whore pants" and bougth plantain, breakfast stuff and a ridiculous amount of poutine sauce. The clerk was quite impressed by our 12 packs of powdered sauce, but it definitely was nothing compared to the reaction of the Asthon staff when we ordered 10 regular poutines to go… Biggest order in the history of that restaurant, apparently…

Hearing Marcus mumble “au revoir!” when we left the restaurant instead of the classic “Merci, salut, là!” made me realise how inappropriate that utterance actually is in Québec. Gotta remember that for eventual FSL classes…

We came back and devoured our poutines. It’s funny how hot aluminum plate-induced burns make me happy to be home… somewhat. After trying to get the sports results (it’s gonna be a long month away from TSN for Nick and Nat I think…), we speedwalked to the Chocolats Favoris for a “molle dans le brun”. I met Dr Marcoux’s daughter, Rosalie, at the Choco Favs. She would have done an explorer, quite possibly this one, had she decided to go back to camp this summer instead of working. Dialogue:

- Salut, je vais te prendre une moyenne dans le chocolat au lait, svp.
- Hein, Murielle?! Tu travailles pas au camp cet été ?
- Ben, euh, oui, c’est ça que je fais, là…
- ?!
- !?

As I moved sideways and pointed to the explorers and Marcus sitting in the entrance, she realized what was going on. It’s a small, funny world we live in.

I brought everyone to the terrace. We hung out there and enjoyed the view for awhile, missing Robert Lepage’s “Moulin à images” by about 15 minutes. Too bad. Emily asked “Is this Montreal?”, pointing at Frontenac Castle. Some geography teacher somewhere at Havergal obviously didn’t do his or her job properly at some point.

It’s weird not being in Québec for the 400th. At least I still could re-tell the Plaines d’Abraham battle, pointing at the actual places where the events occurred. It was the first time that I had this kind of conversation with English Canadians, I believe. Somehow the use of “you” and “we” came naturally in the tale, even if in fact our respective belonging to the English or French troops of the time is very, very theoretical. I need to think more about that. Good thing that I got 22 days ahead of me.

Going back home and lying down in my Tarn III set up under the apple tree in my backyard was a situation that flirted with absurdity but had a strange, satisfying side to it.

Menuda aventura que acaba de empezar…