The firewood for next year is finished. The school also apparently; there are more children than usual at home during the day. It smells like summer. It’s full of promise.
The vegetable garden looks great. The corn seedlings took a foot in a few days (it is often in the absence that we take the measure of certain things). Which reminded me that at the end of July, beginning of August, the raccoons will come back. They are not crazy; they wait for the exact day of ripening to lay down the plants and eat the ear. In fact, they only take one bite per cob, preferring to cut down others and take only one more bite, without having to make too much effort.
The absence was four days on the North Shore this week. A fishing story with a friend. We drove from Montreal. Fishing is an excuse to spend time together and reset the counters, along the St. Lawrence. What a river, all the same, we say to ourselves every time. Impressed. Almost at the end, we cross here and there hydroelectric power stations, and hundreds of kilometers of high voltage lines. This is the country of energy. Many of these lines come from above the Manicouagan. Others from Churchill Falls.
One morning too windy to go on the river, we went to visit the port of Sept-Îles. A privileged visit, organized by a friend who lives there.
Just about everything made of metal around us is made of iron. With this ore, which is counted in millions of tons annually, which transits through the port of Sept-Îles to be processed elsewhere, in Asia, the United States or Europe.
As with hydroelectric projects, Quebec’s territory is full of riches. The Labrador Trough (Fermont, Wabush, Labrador City…) alone is a deposit that could be exploited without counting for an eternity. A bit like oil from the Arabian Peninsula. These examples are only a part; all of Northern Quebec is rich, from west to east. We are fighting to exploit the subsoil there.
Ditto for Strange Lake in Nunavik (just northeast of Schefferville). A huge deposit of rare earths; these precious and essential metals for the magnets of electric motors and other low-carbon energies that city dwellers dream of, to delay the long-announced end of the world a little.
A few thoughts emerge: do we have the right to dream of a nationalization of these resources of the future beyond a claim and exploitation rights transferred to the outside? And above all to transform the raw materials here? Make it a point of pride or a kind of identity project? And integrate the Innu, Naskapi, Cree and Inuit through it? And do it quickly before others, faster and richer, sell off this idea of territory that we are trying to defend and invent. Exactly as the First Nations have been doing for several decades in their countries. Take example on this defense of territory. Before the raccoons come scraper things.
From the air, fires are still burning upstream of the Moisie. The helicopters sprinkle the railway (from Fermont) by prevention without stopping. We must not interrupt the industry. For the forest, fire, once the destruction has taken place, is the greatest generator of fauna and flora. Cycles that escape us. But that of profits, we say to ourselves that elected officials and companies must certainly find their way around. And if at home, we took care of our territory. I take the time to say it, and to repeat it, because already, an American investment fund with its billions (Cerberus) has understood the importance of Strange Lake.
Am sickened that climate change explains the present and the future. Whether it sucks or we die, whether it falls eight feet of snow on Montreal on June 25 or whether we go surfing on Décarie on Christmas Day. We want to hear about concrete measures. Even if they take the road of infinite growth such as the exploitation of resources that are a little less harmful. We won’t stop the fall, but we could slow it down. But above all, do not get robbed, and do it at home. The Prime Minister with this vision would be history for a century. On good terms (hey hey…).
Wish you happy holidays all over here. See you on the other side of summer.