Forillon National Park
Driving from Gaspé, on the south bank, visitors will come across a string of charming villages. The north road, on the other hand, winds around a magnificent peninsula, home to the Forillon National Park. In wintertime, visitors can only enter this narrow band of earth jutting out into the St. Lawrence on skis, sleighs or snowshoes.
We drove our snowmobiles close to the entrance. Because there isn't enough room for all of our roaring machines, somebody hitched up a sleigh to the most powerful snowmobile and we hopped aboard. I climbed in with freelance journalist Catherine Bureau and expedition chief Benoît Laporte. The sleigh swayed from side to side, so I felt about as safe as if I had been riding in an apple cart. Catherine laughed through gritted teeth.
Later, I was lucky enough to switch places with Yanick, who had been on the snowmobile, so that he could film from the sleigh. I say, "lucky" because not five minutes later, the sleigh finally surrendered to the bumpy trail and turned on its side. Result: Yanick, who was filming, cut his chin after a close encounter with the 30-pound Betacam; photographer Denis Bouchard's head started to spin so much he didn't feel his old self again for another 48 hours; Catherine and Benoît were a bit shaken up but nonetheless okay. Now that's what I call adventure!
All was quickly forgotten, though, once we reached the end of the peninsula, near the old lighthouse, where the cliffs dive frighteningly towards the gulf. The rock faces allow you a peek at the different layers that piled up here over millions of years. It's not difficult to imagine a time faraway when this peninsula was one of the first things explorers saw from their battered ships.
We came to film cross-country skier Jacques Chartier."Almost Cartier," he pointed out. "I come here often" he said. "It's an exceptional site for anyone who wants to observe nature. I often come across moose and sometimes even a bear."
But the park mostly represents peace and the quiet passage of time. The tide has been sculpting the cliffs forever, and when we stood by them, we realized that our brief passage will only leave tracks that will disappear with the next storm.
Jacques's cross-country skis went forward at a regular pace: left, right, left, right. The hypnotizing movements of the skier married perfectly with the hilly Gaspé trail. As I sat by the river, fascinated by the floating chunks of ice, Jacques walked up and sat beside me. "Beautiful, isn't it? I thought it was so extraordinary, I've moved here permanently. Today, the wind is blowing from the east, that's why there's lots of ice on the bay. Usually, it blows from the west and there isn't an ounce of ice to be seen."
"But sometimes," he went on, with an indescribable light in his eyes, "sometimes, when the wind blows from the east for many days, at the end of January or in February, great ice floes drift around the bay. You can't even imagine how amazing it is to go skiing on the ice floe and to feel the movement of the waters beneath your feet."
The sea, the earth, the mountains: the Gaspé region has started to win me over. All the scenery I've laid eyes on invited me again and again to explore. At the far end of Pointe Forillon, I felt like the look-out on the small ship, who sees life appearing on the horizon, feeling it take over my body, suddenly losing all sense of gravity. The view from this natural throne was divinely beautiful.
