Jet-ski expedition
The Saint-Maurice River is as dark as Coca-Cola. A fact which makes it seem deeper, surrounds it in a halo of mystery. «It's the heart of darkness», I think to myself, as I watch the scenery go by, with the shores full of country folks, far in the distance, who are busy gathering lumber into strange-looking mounds. I feel like I'm somewhere else, like in Africa, in a scene out of a Joseph Conrad novel, or in the Vietnam of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. I'm in Quebec of course, but it's easy to pretend.
We've just embarked on our first expedition. Over 100 kilometers on jet skis, riding the Saint-Maurice between the village of Grandes-Piles and Domaine McCormick. Benoit Laporte and I drive the jet skis as the rest of the film crew rides ahead of us in an ultrafast speedboat.
To go up the Saint-Maurice is also to back in time. Once the first cartwheels and races are done, we are sobered by the journey which awaits us. A hundred kilometers on cold waters seems like a long time when you start to feel your skin tingle and the shudders set in for good. But a hundred kilometers is nothing compared to the incredible adventures of the lumberjacks who, not so long ago, would «drive» down the river on rafts, surrounded by thousands of giant floating logs.
The «drive» is no longer allowed on the Saint-Maurice, since it was found that this practice had some serious environmental repercussions. All along the river banks, you can see lumber piled up in strange pyramids. A vast operation is under way to fish these logs out of the riverbed, where they had been laying for what seems like forever. Douzains of men and women work during the summer to erase the mistakes of the past and to make the river healthy again.
«It's safer to ride on the Saint-Maurice now that there's no more lumber, explains speedboat driver Alain Doucet, who also lent us the jet skis for the expedition. Before, the logs used to lie just under the water line. Because of their weight and size, they could easily rip up the fiberglass underside of our boats. It was dangerous!»
For the past three years, Alain Doucet and his company, Motoneiges Paul Doucet, have been organizing jet ski excursions on the Saint-Maurice. «It's a unique site, he says. These parts are still extremely wild. The advantage of the Saint-Maurice is that it's surrounded by forests; this makes for excellent navigational conditions, since riders are protected from the wind.»
Even before starting this expedition, I wasn't too keen on jet skis. At first glance, they're not the most ecological of machines. Alain Doucet, however, sees things differently: «Jet skis have a draft of one foot or so, he explains. When we get too close to the shore, we don't damage the river any more than any other type of non-motorised boat. What's more, since jet skis operate like a turbine principle, they have the advantage of oxygenating the waters. There's always the noise, of course. But the newer models have a built-in system which reduces noise levels by 30 % to 70 %.»
I'd love to believe that. Especially when the scenery is rushing by, when the feeling of perfectly mastering the elements and the machine comes over you, and you become drunk with speed. I comfort myself with the thought that Kurtz, the Joseph Conrad character, and the people in Apocalypse Now wouldn't have hesitated, even for a minute, to get on the jet skis.
