Winter Wonderland
We are leaving today for a great series of winter adventures. Ahead of us are 16 articles to be written, 2000 kilometres on a train, 900 kilometres on various roads, 300 kilometres on a plane and 400 kilometres on a snowmobile. It's gonna take all we've got for us to get out of this one alive!
I get to the train station first. So far, so good. The station is huge and rather deserted. Here and there, some passengers are looking for the trains that will bring them to Quebec City or Toronto. Denis and Yanick arrive shortly after, accompanied by Catherine Bureau, an independant journalist coming along for the ride. Oftentimes, she will be all that keeps four goofy men - who've reverted to childish behaviour during their ten-day trek through the woods - from getting totally ridiculous.
Benoît Laporte arrives last, his organizational zeal having forced him to take care of a few final details before leaving. Benoît is like our troupe master; he knows when and how we'll get whereever we're going. He sees my head peeking from behind the piles of audiovisual equipment I'm guarding. "Where are the others?", he asks. "We only have six minutes before our train leaves!" I point to the café where his team is enjoying one more cup of coffee, trying to clear the early-morning cobwebs from their sleepy minds.
The train leaves the station and heads for Victoria Bridge. Ahead lie the great open spaces that can only be discovered through this particular mode of transportation. The edge of the world is within our grasp: the vast valleys of the Gaspésie, sleeping in the shadows of the massive Chic-Choc Mountains, the perfect landscape for any skiing enthusiast; the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, a doorway to the frozen north and its snowmobile adventures; Upper Mauricie, its rivers and icy lakes, with its innumerable snowmobile paths that lead to so many game preserves; and last but not least, Abitibi, home to the last remaining gold mines and prospectors.
The train goes on, impertubable, easily gobbling up the miles that separates us from Quebec City. The team members are drowsy from their pre-dawn awakening, but we're much too excited by what's to come to be able to get any kind of rest.
Denis, Yanick and Benoît observe the two newcomers who didn't take part in the summer and fall series of expeditions. Catherine receives more attention than I do, but I don't mind. Indeed, the reverse would have surprised me.
We are leaving for a ten-day trek through unexplored territory. We feel like ancient Portuguese navigators, sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on their way to discovering strange and exotic lands. All right, that's a bit of an overstatement, but still, you get the idea.
And I can safely say, having travelled extensively throughout Latin America, that you have to do more than travel to the ends of the Earth to understand the vast extent of our planet and feel appropriately insignificant. You have to walk where the horizon begins, leave the labyrinthian streets behind and follow the unbeaten path, climb that faraway mountain, ride down this rowdy river. But most of all, you have to meet the people who live there and who are an integral part of the scenery. It's like finding yourself as you're getting lost. Anyone who has travelled knows well the ingredients to this mysterious recipe.
