Lison is used to washing dishes while looking out the window. Sometimes she sees a tractor. Often, it’s just time that passes on her path. So you can understand her surprise when she saw a young woman appear on the back of a horse (followed closely by another horse dragging luggage), last May.
Lison would soon learn that this woman was Stef Gebbie, a 31-year-old Australian who had set out to cross Canada from east to west a month earlier. For now, she was just an apparition in a quiet corner of Saint-Épiphane… And she would soon become an emergency.
Returning from a walk in the forest a few hours later, Lison Béland and her partner Martin Pelletier are alerted by a neighbor. A horse has run away, it must be found! The couple sets out to look for it without knowing that it was a moped that caused Fredo to escape.
Stef and her two horses had recently been exploring the MRC of Rivière-du-Loup and had to take a busy road for 2 km before reaching, as they prefer, a quiet path. On a bend, a man driving a moped shouted encouragement at them while raising an arm in the air. Fredo, frightened, jumped to the side, hit the vehicle and ran away.
(The driver suffered no injuries, but the same cannot be said of his moped.)
When they finally find Fredo, the poor thing is covered in blood. Lison and Martin immediately offer to take in Stef’s horses. A year and a half ago, they bought the old farm at the end of the row and its stalls are unoccupied. They then call the vet who is used to treating their kids. Fredo, injured in the chest, needs about twenty stitches and at least two weeks of complete rest.
Stef seems calm despite the upheaval, but there is no way Lison is going to let her go. She offers her a place to sleep in a small trailer parked on the grounds. The traveler offers to compensate her, to which Lison retorts: “We’re not a business ! We’re just glad you’re safe.”
The next morning, Stef admits to being in shock. Lison tells her that the trailer is hers, then explains the idea that Martin and she have been toying with since they bought their farm: one day, they would share this place. They would leave the door open in the hope that people would come and experience something on their land.
“You’re arriving a little too early,” Lison concedes, “but you’ll be housed and fed! You take care of yourself and your horse first, but for the rest, I have gardens, raspberry bushes and apple trees to prune. If you want, you can give me a hand.”
PHOTO LISON BÉLAND, PROVIDED BY ROSE-AIMÉE AUTOMNE T. MORIN
Stef Gebbie and his horses have found refuge in Lison and Martin’s old farm.
For the next three weeks, Stef helps Lison and Martin. A friend even comes to join her. Overnight, the farm is inhabited. And not just by two young Australians, but by the neighbors who are bonding. People come to see how Fredo is, a woman brings him hay, neighbors ask for Stef and her friend Ella’s work…
“It increased all our community ties,” Lison recalls. “The list of things we have to do is very long and we dive head first… There, we had someone to take care of, but also someone who gave us a lot. It broke our bulldozer rhythm.”
Stef and her friend left 25 days after the accident. Fredo found a new house, so she wouldn’t have to deal with mopeds anymore.
Since then, Lison thinks of them every time she harvests vegetables.
I would never have had this garden without the girls! We feel blessed. A friend told me to stop calling it “the old farm at the end of the row” and instead call it “the old farm of beautiful coincidences”.
Lison Béland
When Stef Gebbie told me this story, in late August, she was in Lachute, preparing to head to Ontario. She too often thought of Lison and Martin, but adventure beckoned. Today, she travels with Jack (a gentle, introverted cowboy horse) and Wilson (a grumpy old man).
Stef had never set foot in the country before starting the crossing, in Nova Scotia. She admitted to me that she was surprised by the heat and humidity that she and her horses were subjected to. The temperature allows them to cover between 25 and 40 km per day, but sometimes requires full days of rest.
This trip is teaching me to take one day at a time. We have to let go of our expectations, but I know how resilient horses are.
Stef Gebbie
Stef has been around horses since childhood. She believes they have the extraordinary power to bring people together and build trust… And she knows what she’s talking about, since she regularly knocks on strangers’ doors to ask their permission to pitch her tent on their land for the night. (Everyone says yes.)
What happened in Saint-Épiphane has been happening again – albeit less dramatically – all over the territory since last April. And this is just the beginning. Stef, Jack and Wilson should continue their journey until mid-October. The adventurer hopes to go to Sault-Sainte-Marie, return home to work until next spring, then return to complete her crossing of more than 6,000 km.
If she achieves her goal, it will be her second time crossing a continent on horseback. In 2019, she rode across Australia from east to west. When I asked her why she was doing all this, she replied: “You have to do something with your life! Why not cross a continent?”
And I understood why Lison fell under the spell.
Follow Stef Gebbie’s adventure