Autumn Train
With its mouth wide openChugachuga, chugachuga, chugachuga... So goes the train as it rushes through the crisp autumn air. The Montreal-Senneterre train has just left the station, on this October morning, dragging a long parade of wagons behind. Traffic jams? We don't care about those. Red lights? Same thing. It's raining buckets? No matter. This 200-ton iron horse is following the steel rails. And now it's getting ready to plunge into the forest.
In itself, taking the train is a kind of rural fairy tale. Leaving your car, your worries, your routine and your problems behind, you take pleasure in being driven through the colourful countryside by a private "driver", which is even more true when all you know about your destination is that it's impossible to reach by car. In this case, it is the Windigo game preserve, about five hours away from Montreal. You don't imagine, when you board a train, that getting to your destination could be so much fun.
When the train moves past the glorious autumn forest you see a great number of things that you would otherwise miss. The train rushes through the deep forest, but it also goes by rows of houses. Sometimes you really feel like you're walking into these people's lives through their back door. You discover sugar shacks that you had no idea existed, all hidden away between the trees, like members of a secret club.
Autumn leaves whirl wildly in the wake of the speeding caboose, their bright colours reflected in the shiny aluminum wagon. Everywhere we look, we are treated to the fabulous spectacle of so many trees decked out in their most beautiful outfits: aspens blushing from the embarrassment of gradually shedding their "clothes", and birches shaking as their limbs become bare.
As we head north to Upper Saint-Maurice, we notice that the luminous foliage is giving way to the grayer sight of bare branches, looking like an old man's sun-kissed thin hair hanging from the trees. We come across straight-cut boulders strewn around by the Great Architect of Time before settling by the quiet and strong Saint Maurice River, which used to carry enormous logs all the way to the St Lawrence.
Instead of the crowded streets of Montreal, we now ride along the rowdy streams and rivers of the countryside. The waterways are filled with playful leaves, the fields are draining themselves one last time before the snow takes over as we are treated to spectacular sights down the forgotten, isolated valleys. When sitting in the train, the large windows reveal panoramas that look like slow-motion movies. Cosy in their chairs, in quiet admiration, the passengers take in these constantly changing, slow-moving scenes.
After riding the rails for a few hours, we feel that La Tuque can't be far ahead, even before we catch a glimps of the town. As in Grand-Mère, the odours emanating from the paper mills replace the fresh smell of autumn leaves and damp moss, in this, the birthplace of the late Félix Leclerc, one of Quebec's foremost authors and musicians.
"La Tuque" calls the engineer, "A nice place to die! But I have to get myself a mother-in law first!" he jokingly adds.
On the way, one of the passengers had borrowed the train's cellular phone. "Two quarter chickens, please. I'll be there in half an hour!" Once in La Tuque, our man picks up his order at the restaurant, located right in front of the station, not that there isn't any food on this train. I guess chicken just wasn't on the menu that day.
Our gastronomic friend had all the space he could dream of to gnaw on his poultry bones, and to stretch his own: many of the seats swivel, which allows the staff to install large tables between two rows of seats. Once you've eaten your fill, a digestive walk through the wagons might be advisable if you don't want to feel stiff and heavy with sleep. But not now; instead, everyone is rushing to the windows. We're coming up to Réservoir blanc, a huge artificial lake across which, to everyone's surprise, the train will be almost touching, just inches off the water. Is this an amphibious train? Not at all.
Built on thin piles of broken rocks, the rails run through the centre of the lake for six kilometers. Once we've crossed the first part of this fanatstic rock bridge, the train stops: We've arrived at our destination, Windigo, where we'll be living through some even wilder adventures. More on our trip next week...
