Since 1987, Quebec speleologists have organized expeditions to explore the incredible cave networks of the Sierra Negra, in Mexico. The Mexpé project team is currently working on a new expedition which could take place in winter 2024. Now is the time to immerse yourself in an adventure novel, Sierra Negrainspired directly by the very first expeditions.
The author, Jean-Benoît Nadeau, was a young journalist when he participated in the 1987-1988 expedition, then in that of 1991. He returned with a major report, but also with an idea for a novel.
“I wrote for 12 years before leaving it and forgetting it for 16 years,” he says in an interview. I hesitated between the journalistic story and the novel. In 12 years, I have not been able to resolve this question. »
Mr. Nadeau has since written more than 2,000 reports and columns and has authored around twenty essays, alone or in collaboration. “Two things stood out to me in 2019 for the novel. First, my daughters asked me when I was going to write a real book… I explained to them what I had already done. They then said to me: “Why don’t you finish it?” »
The other thing was the discovery of a significant extension of the Saint-Léonard cave, which brought him back into the world of caving.
“What’s interesting about caving is that it’s the last major truly exploratory geographic discipline on earth,” he says. Unlike the underwater depths, you cannot send a drone or a remote-controlled submarine. The environment is too complex. There is nothing that can walk, crawl, descend on a rope, and climb at the same time. »
In short, it is an interesting environment from a sporting and scientific point of view which lends itself very well to adventure.
In the novel, the expedition gets off on the wrong foot due to underlying conflicts within the team: we hide things from each other, we flirt with each other’s partners…
“The real expedition was not dysfunctional,” assures Jean-Benoît Nadeau. It was even very functional despite the difficulties we had. And there were no love triangles. »
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The novel Sierra Negra describes the sometimes difficult interactions with the local population.
A different world
But, as in the novel, there were difficulties with certain elements of the local population, mainly of Nahuatl origin.
François Gélinas, an experienced caver who participated in two expeditions to Mexico, including the one in 1991, says that the participants didn’t really realize everything that was going on in the background.
“We were a gang of little Quebecers who arrived in a different world, without having any idea of intercultural interaction,” he recalls. One family welcomed us, but the other families were against our presence. People had a little difficulty imagining that we were there for the pleasure of exploration. They often attributed colonial and mercantile intentions to us. »
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
François Gélinas participated in the Mexpé 2007 expedition.
Jean-Benoît Nadeau asked François Gélinas and another speleologist present during the first expeditions, Michel Labrie, to read his manuscript to detect possible technical errors in speleology.
“I did everything possible to keep it simple,” says the author. But at some point, a character had to do something that actually wasn’t right. We made some small technical corrections. »
François Gélinas really enjoyed reading it.
What is fascinating is that everything that is outside the romantic spirit or the somewhat fantastical spirit of his story, everything else, all the decor set, corresponds to a reality, it resembles that, the Sierra Negra. There are tensions between family groups, there are weapons coming out, there is money circulating.
François Gélinas, speleologist
As during the real expedition, the characters in the novel discover fabulous chasms. The members of the 1987-1988 expedition notably descended to the bottom of a 329 meter full-empty shaft, an American record at the time.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
During the Mexpé 2007 expedition, Jacques Orsola, nicknamed Larouille, climbs up the rope towards the exit of the well.
Jean-Benoît Nadeau emphasizes that even if it is a caving novel, not everything happens underground. “It’s like a good war film, there aren’t battles all the time. »
Obviously, there are more adventures in the novel than in real life (even if several adventures are inspired by events that occurred during real expeditions), more violence too. There is one other element that stands out.
“They are never sick whereas the rest of us, we were in Mexico, we were sick all the time,” says Jean-Benoît Nadeau. But there, for the twists and turns of the story, people had to be healthy! »
Sierra Negra
Château d’ ink editions
448 pages
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