The winds, the rain, the snow and even the birds, these peoples of the azure, tint our dispositions of mind and dictate our daily lives. In the course of her recent wanderings, our collaborator Monique Durand opens up a few sections of skies, from here and elsewhere, where the wind of the days and the lightning of the birds pass. Second of eight articles.
Seen from the sky, the Lower North Shore is a large body of water, sand and spruce trees, a scree of rocks and islands that have fallen into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Destination: Head-to-the-Whale. First stop, a Beechcraft 1900D between Sept-Îles and Chevery. Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes. No boarding pass, no assigned seat. “It’s the Lower North Shore!” slips me a passenger, her eyes laughing. I’m sitting on the sea side. But the camera is so narrow that I can also see on the land side. The lakes have not yet stalled. The rivers are streaked with waterfalls whose broths of gold and copper can be seen from above. Second stage, a helicopter from Chevery to Tête-à-la-Baleine, a big green dragonfly where we are strapped in like astronauts. Duration: 12 minutes.
Tête-à-la-Baleine, Friday, May 5. On the spot, in less than two, there is Marco who puts his vehicle at my disposal. Martin who lends me a kettle. Michaël who is going to bring me a can opener. There is the top of the church steeple which leans like the tower of Pisa following a big storm. And the four-wheelers kicking up the dust. There is the staircase of the grocery store which is jamb. And Olive, the cashier, who loves her job in this shop, the only one, where fruits and vegetables have traveled a lot… like Félix Leclerc’s shoes.
There is still a brand new school which clashes a little in the decor. And Sam, who introduces me to his greenhouse, from which the tender leaves of tomato, cucumber and pepper plants point in neat rows. “We are trying to move towards a kind of self-sufficiency. And then, there are all these people who greet the foreigner that I am in the heart of the village. The heart of the village? A credit union, a grocery store, a school, a church. Tête-à-la-Baleine, the only French-speaking community on the Lower North Shore, is home to around 100 residents. According to historian Paul Charest, the village was populated by French Canadians who came from Berthier in the middle of the 19th century.e century.
Micheline Lapointe feverishly follows the course of the ice continent in real time. The map indicates in red what is 100% covered. This mass, pushed by the Atlantic winds and coming from Labrador, obstructs the Strait of Belle Isle, between Newfoundland and the Quebec and Labrador coast. THE Bella Desgagnes, who commutes between isolated villages on the Lower North Shore to Sept-Îles and Rimouski, is stuck in Blanc-Sablon. Micheline has to board to join her daughter in Chevery, the neighboring village to the west.
Tête-à-la-Baleine, Saturday, May 6. We are in the land of the Marcoux and the Mongers. But his name is Michaël Lambert, originally from Orford, in the Eastern Townships, who arrived here by the chance of life and a contract at the community radio station. Settled in this village for almost four years with his partner, Ivonne Fuentes, originally from Mexico, visual artist, she also arrived in Quebec by chance. Both in their thirties, happy as Pope and Popess. They found in this region THEIR geography, that of the exterior, in correspondence with that of the interior. “I believe in infusing geography into our souls,” writes Frenchman Sylvain Tesson.
I have my quarters at the Auberge de l’Archipel, of which Martin Marcoux is the owner, in addition to being the chef. He prepares me a succulent lobster club “caught here and potted last year”. “Normally, he continues, I would have offered you fresh lobster from this year. But the ice prevents fishermen from setting sail. The boats are moored to the quay, restrained like caged animals, prancing about like thoroughbreds. We wait for the starting signal. We wait. The life of the village hangs on this shattering whiteness which advances like lava. Here, the weather dictates everything, with its skies, its winds, its waters. We submit to it without grumbling. It’s like that. At the grocery store, it’s all about red on the menu.
Michaël and Ivonne came to join me at the inn. They take off their shoes, go barefoot. I smile at this snub to conventions. Ivonne offers me a piece of white quartz she found on the beach. This will be my whale lucky charm. “Here, it’s freedom, claims Michaël, no police, no thieves, no constraints, except that of respect for the people of our village. “It’s a question of personal responsibility, of self-discipline,” adds Ivonne. They are both very involved in their community. Michaël is a development officer at the MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent. Ivonne works at the school as a recreation technician.
When you talk to them about isolation, rudimentary life, boredom and wilting vegetables at the grocery store, they shrug their shoulders. “I was told that the school had hired a teacher, relates Michaël, who, seeing the place, didn’t even get off the plane! » Proven fact or legend? We laugh. All the same, I ask Ivonne the question, doesn’t she sometimes miss Mexico? “I’m looking forward, not backward,” she replies, in her best French, with a little English and Spanish. “But there’s one thing I can’t see on the screens: Mexican food. So she has a whiff of nostalgia, it reminds her of the country where she was born, the taste of corn tortillas and guacamole.
Micheline, she is still waiting, on the alert. Red smudges the map. The ice continent is now embedded along the coasts near La Tabatière, still progressing westward. THE Bella Desgagnes has just left Blanc-Sablon, almost 30 hours late. Micheline calls her daughter in Chevery. Not sure which foot to dance on. Will leave? Won’t leave? By the boat that does not arrive? Or, failing that, by helicopter?
Tête-à-la-Baleine, Sunday, May 7. Gilles Monger tells me a little about the history of his village. Including its famous annual “transhumance”, a word popularized by the great writer and filmmaker Pierre Perrault.
In the summer, almost all the villagers migrated with arms and baggage to offshore islands to be closer to schools of fish. Then, in the fall, returned to the mainland, where they had their winter residence. This back and forth went on for decades. “Their transhumance gravitates between the extremes of sea and fire, islands and dry land, between the time of water and that of ice, between the time of cod and that of wood”, writes Perreault in All islands. “In truth they are nomads of everything that stirs in the sea, grows on the islands. »
The news runs: it seems that the ice has arrived here, at Tête-à-la-Baleine, and is now covering Quai Bay, the usual place where the bella, 7 kilometers from the village. I take my leave of Gilles. I’m going to see.
Baie du Quai, in the declining day. Each fragment of ice blazes with its fire in the crushed horizon. Straight as an arrow, a cormorant cuts through the wind. Just now, the helicopter flew above our heads. Micheline is well and truly gone. THE bella went straight on, unable to make a stopover at Tête-à-la-Baleine, completely clogged by blocks of frozen water.
In the distance, tangles of islands and islets, there are between 500 and 600, and archipelagos that neighbor and intertwine. Here, everyone has their own island. That of Sam Bellefleur is called Petit Mécatina, where he goes camping. “This wild island soothes me. In these times when we talk about the degradation of everything on the planet, there is still an untouched land. The best known perhaps: the island of Providence, surmounted by a chapel where people still go to get married in the summer, promising to love each other for eternity. The eternity that stretches out just ahead.
Next Saturday: Exile of sea and wind