La Coeur de Québec
For two years I have become a winter recreation girl. I bought a fat bike in Yukon and spent winter morning light riding along the Yukon River trails, discovering incredible light and tranquility. Night riding in the winter is a whole other adventure… so fun!
So last winter I met Claudia Lord from Lévis, Québec who was visiting the Yukon on an exchange of child care and a place to live for free weekends and evenings to explore the Yukon. We rode several times per week, in the dark, daylight, in snowstorms and very cold temperatures. It might sound crazy to some but it’s so beautiful and so fun!
Anyway, Claudia and I stayed connected and as a part of this journey, we planned to hang out in Quebec, no snow this time, and explore the trails and the city en velo. Claudia is also taking a sabbatical from her work, something she had planned for many years, and had time to be a tourist in her backyard with me.
We rode trails, visited an incredible art exposition #mosaiculture (sculptures and stories made from flowers and plants), and rode our bikes in downtown Québec, finding an authentic Italian pizza restaurant and un festival de bière, outside along le fleuve Saint-Laurent with live music and all the locals singing along with the band, familiar songs that ignited everyone. It was so beautiful to witness, and to try to sing along - like an outdoor boîte de chanson.
Before parting Québec for Gaspésie, we had many options of how to spend our time, to visit Charlevoix or witness a major downhill mountain bike race at Mont Sainte-Anne. Instead, we chose time with her family at St.Jean-Port-Joli, specially, Lac Therrien.
The best moment, an embrace from her grandmother, a sweet elder sitting on the deck supervising the lake and all the children playing by the shoreline. She held my face and then hugged me, remarking how happy she was to meet me and sharing that as a young woman of 18, she spent a year in Connecticut to learn english. The entire family embraced me, sharing stories and music and food, and recounting stories of travel in Canada, of pleasure for anglophones that speak French, and how cool it was that there were so many resources outside of Québec to keep the language and passion for l’espoir de français alive.
Excited as I was to start my journey the next day and enter the famous Gaspésie, I wasn’t ready to leave - I seldom am with such heart-stirring connections. This experience revealed to me a deep, unconditional love of family and friends and for sure, I came away with a ton of new vocabulary, of local French idiomatic expressions that ignited laughter, coming from an anglophone. I think they were also proud that this English Francophile was so committed to learn more about their beautiful language, the people of Québec, and all les petites villages de cette belle province.
Québec, je t’adore. Thank you so much Claudia for sharing your family and this place with me.
