Living on a preserve

"Excuse me, could I use your telephone?"
"No"
"Come on, just one short call. I'll even reverse the charges!"
"It's not that I don't want you to use the phone, but we don't have one. "

What a strange idea: living in the middle of nowhere, the village of McTavis in this case, where nothing is created, nothing is lost, nothing ever happens. Nonetheless, Norbert, a semi-retired train engineer, chose to lead the rest of his quiet existence in this neck of the woods, with Reservoir Blanc standing in for the sea, his stacks of logs serving as a backyard and a garden taking the place of a flower bed.

Last year, Norbert and his wife spent their first winter here, in Upper Mauricie. For years the house had only been used as a summer cottage. "I'm truly happy in McTavis. I feel really content," says Norbert. "I have no electric bills to pay, thanks to my generator, and I'm not afraid of any ice storm. As far as the telephone is concerned, it's too expensive if you're not connected to the existing phone network. It's much nicer to live without a constantly ringing telephone, anyway."

Not too far away, at Windigo, the phone rings often, in summer as well as winter. "Most of our clients know that we sometimes get booked-up, so they prefer to make reservations," explains Lise, the preserve's impressive cook and bookkeeper. As weel, in winter time, when hordes of French tourists come a-knocking, the preserve employees have to be forewarned. "You can see them coming for miles. They each have their own snowmobile and they travel in groups of 20 people. Every time, there's at least one of them who crashes his snowmobile. Sometimes there's even a pile-up!" says Michel.

Contrary to what most people believe, life is not monotonous here, be it winter or summer, when groups of hungry loggers show up for their evening meal. In any season, the arrival of so many guests puts the family's logistics to the test.

So, Father takes on the role of tour guide, as Mother rules the kitchen and Junior hunts, plucks, fishes and runs left and right, on the lookout for any jobs that need to be done. Despite an occasional role reversal, the amount of work to be accomplished remains the same. "Running a preserve is full-time work," says Michel. "Personally, I spent 18 to 20 hours a day with hunters and fishermen. I wouldn't change it for the world, though, or for any city job either. I feel I'm privileged to be able to live here. Everywhere you look, there's freedom!"

Wife Lise couldn't imagine a better place to spend her days either. But, like her husband, she has no choice except to work hard. "I'm the one who does the kitchen planning, keeps the books, hires cleaning ladies. Every now and again, I treat myself by guiding groups of fishermen." Lise has even taught her friend Pauline how to fish. Pauline lives in the Eastern Townships, but often goes to Windigo for a dose of wilderness.

The most difficult thing for Lise is long-term planning: She has to make sure that all those robust men who come down here to visit don't leave on an empty stomach. "When you live in the city, it's easy to go the convenience store to pick up what you need. But here, we're lost in the woods and only make it to the grocery store every two weeks. The only thing that we're sure of in all this is that hunters and fishermen usually have huge appetites."

It's not rare to see Lises laving over the stove before dawn. You can't let hunters, who leave early in the morning, go out the door without a good breakfast. During bear-hunting season, it's all reversed. Hunters start going out around 4 pm and, consequently, don't come back until late at night, sometimes past 11 pm. And none of the hunters ever has to go to bed hungry, judging by the gargantuan feasts that Lise sets out around midnight.

Despite being open most of the year, Windigo does allow quiet moments for those who call it home. From late fall to the holidays, when you have to get ready for the long winter, as well as in mid-March, when the Europeans have gone back home, life at the preserve calms down. The owners then take time to look back on the past year and mostly attend exhibits and tourist shows, where they spread the word about their wonderful corner of the world, making sure that new visitors find their way to Windigo the following year. When you're hiden deep in the forest, new guests equal survival.