This summer, The duty crosses the waters of the St. Lawrence River, this giant “almost ocean, almost Atlantic” that Charlebois sings, and its surroundings in order to feed a series. Today, an inspiring and committed postcard, which comes to us from Bas-Saint-Laurent.
I remember that in the third year of elementary school, my teacher asked us to draw a picture. We had to do the exercise of imagining ourselves adults, practicing what is called a profession. My drawing represented me, megaphone in hand, sailing on my tiny zodiac. I stand alone on the high seas with my eyebrows furrowed, cursing a monstrous whaler. Between our two boats is a humpback whale, mortally wounded by a harpoon. I remember pressing very hard on my red marker to make the pool of blood.
I have always perceived whales as mystical entities. Seeing them in pictures gives me great serenity. As a teenager, I forgot my cult for Megaptera novaeangliae. I felt alone, disillusioned. Nature suffered more than I had imagined. I preferred to forget rather than suffer the shame of my inaction. I thought I couldn’t save anyone, that the task was too big. So I went through adult life without thinking about my injured whale. I still regret it.
It will be necessary to wait 20 years so that the song of the whale of my childhood returns to lull me. In my belly swollen with water swims a little being. The heiress of our planet. My life is slowly taking root in Bas-Saint-Laurent. I walk daily along the soft, clay banks of the river. I reconnect with the purity of nature. The fresh sea air and the kelp will get the better of my amnesia.
More and more, I hear in the local newspapers about the death of belugas, especially their calves, in the Cacouna nursery. I peel all the information available on the causes of these early deaths. I remember my megaphone and my furrowed eyebrows.
I’m doing some research. I’m wondering. I am also taking courses at the university on ecotoxicology, because I want to deepen the subject, I want to know. Ignorance no longer has any place when it comes to the environment. Within the river ecosystem, there are no longer harpoons that kill our whales, but heavy metals, PCBs, hydrocarbons and other industrial products bioaccumulated in large marine mammals. It is our industrial waste that kills them. Our river is sick, the cradle of calves is poisoned. Go tell that to a mother.
I put my hand on my stomach. I feel the gentle little waves my child is making there, I feel the need to make even bigger ones. I want people to know. I want to press very hard on my computer keyboard, to make an infernal morse code while writing these words, to give voice to the estuary, the gulf and the river, which is like an open book in front of my window. We are all connected, the plankton, the reed, the tall fir trees, the beluga and the teal. It is time to take back our place in nature, to make it sacred, to give it back its letters of nobility and, why not, to make nature an entity of rights. The big industries of this world are good, they…
I am in charge of eco-education projects at Le Semoir. I teach young Quebecers how lucky they are. I designed a workshop on the river, this jewel to be protected. I teach him the links between our actions and the health of belugas and humpback whales. I believe that ignorance is the worst weapon against beauty. A sense of urgency inhabits me. I want to break ignorance. I want to train the guardians of the river.
At the same time, I am embarking on a documentary with friends. We created Shores. Gaze on the river. I lived in Montreal when I was young, and it took a very long time for me to know the river, for me to understand that I lived on an island. We must reclaim a collective consciousness, the notion that the river is somehow part of our DNA, of our history. Since the documentary on the river, available in schools, I feel less alone, less helpless. You should see the sparkles in the children’s eyes. So much fire… I keep hope. After all, they are all our heirs.
Sowing ideas, hope and ecosystem knowledge in schools is my mission. Encouraging the future generation to protect the river is my vocation. It’s my way of honoring the promise I made to my whale. My own way of singing for these cetaceans, so that my great friends can finally be heard, so that they can continue to be pillars of this fragile ecosystem. My way of humbly reminding ourselves that our place is with them, not above them. My own way of making the cry from the heart of our majestic river heard — our cradle and that of those who will follow us.