Eating lukewarm porridge in the bright fresh air at my picnic table by Monsanto’s cabin, Mien Mo fully visible in the far distance today, on this clearest of mornings.
Isolation.
A log cabin solitary confinement which has been fully paid for, accepted, understood, taken as read, enjoyed. And now, nearly over.
Will I ever go 36 hours again without seeing another human being?
As I reluctantly leave my restful setting, a final salute to the birds and to the beavers, as the ducks noisily execute a final paddle-past around the lake – owning it, stealing it (temporarily).
Four nights in an isolated chalet, is that enough? I reckon I could go on. Although my credit card might get a little moody.
What a life, blah blah … time to get back on the grid, mon ami!
Ahead of that, I roll on down to another closed road, where I casually saunter through and bump my way along the forbidden track … for I am going up that Fireman’s Post!
I’m a trailblazer, I am.
Forced to speak French in an attempt to understand why a fire guard is so important, despite the fact that the number of fires to have taken hold here since fire was invented you could count on one hand.
Is this the right moment to admit to possession of a shitload of matches, I wonder. And to the fact that I’ve become a competent firestarter only recently.
My fire post lookout is very yellow, very retro; I half-expect an art deco Bibendum to pop up but it never happens.
From the tower, a view – plains on one side, hills and mountains and trees and gorges and canyons on the other.
I climbed a ladder to see this, and it’s bloody breezy. Plenty of oxygen up here, that’s for sure; making me think … wouldn’t it be ironic if the fireguard’s post burnt down.
I’m pretty sure the birds would raise the alarm.
Periode d’Alerte … DANGER DE FEU EXTREME … and many other period posters. It’s an octagonal office, on stilts.
I will leave serenity behind here, in the quiet of a clearing.
Down by the beach, the campsite, the empty buildings waiting for a summer to arrive. The forgotten playground, the neglected kayaks.
Life will return shortly – on the road to Rouyn, the highway to Val d’Or, motoring along the Cadillac Fault to a goldrush town.
Approaching the city limits, stunned to see so many cars all congregating in one place … all of the people leaving their day jobs down in the goldmines, descending the hill into a downtown which has real traffic jams at rush hour … something I’ve not experienced since leaving Toronto.
Val d’Or, the boom town, built in the 1930s in grid formation out from the centre, towards the big-box franchise stores and brand-name motels on the outskirts.
I pull into one of those and check in. My room is down the longest corridor, seemingly in another part of town.
To escape from there, I go via the graveyard and the video store, past Curves and the goldrush boutiques, by the Russian Orthodox church and the poorly laid-out roadworks.
By the church, by the hand of God, is a microbrasserie for prospectors, serving up brews of blasphemous flavours, directly opposite a building where folk choose to confess their liaisons, in French or possibly Ukrainian.
Where La Minette is a glass of alcoholic igneous rock.
So good I have one for dessert, immediately after my beef main which arrives in a brioche bun – because this ain’t the 1930s no more; we all drive air-conditioned RAM pick-up trucks now, we don’t herd cattle or drive sheep.
A sermon on the mount from Pastor Farik provides me with an early-evening religious experience, served up in a gilded chalice, no less.
I am getting re-awakened in a brewery tap, where the locals all turn up in flip-flops.
Suitably high, I glide on home down the highway, feeling woozy from being around so many people, before dropping myself off at the local motel for sleep.
An Outside World 