We spent a day walking on the ice of the frozen Manicouagan Reservoir, discovering all the variations of this stunning winter landscape. Every day the team has to adapt to changing and unexpected weather conditions, but no change in the program could dampen the good spirits of the group, who are becoming more and more comfortable in the great outdoors.
Walking on water
Manicouagan, a day on the water, or rather on the ice. All kinds of ice. There’s the translucent ice where you can see air bubbles trapped, the white and rough ice, the cracked and broken ice, the tectonic plates of ice that end up overlapping as they push against each other, the mountains of ice that resemble frozen ocean waves crashing down, the ice that trickles and oozes and floods our winter boots, and then there’s the azure ice, that resembles the water in a tropical lagoon.
We’ve only explored a tiny part of this vast frozen territory today, just enough to feel small and lost in the immensity of an almost ice floe. “There’s so much here and yet there’s nothing,” Vincent marvels, admiring the landscape. It was a day when the sun played hide-and-seek between long bands of clouds as white as the landscape. Luckily, our doctor Lysianne pulled out her tube of sunscreen faster than her shadow to protect us from the reflected rays. It was a day with a southerly wind, a relatively ‘warm’ wind at our backs on the way there, whistling in our ears and carrying some light objects along with it.
A reservoir of good humour
We’ve been dreading the rain ever since we left Montréal, and it still hasn’t come. It seems that every day, every hour, saved from the raindrops is a victory in itself. Road closures, the threat of rain and a season with little snow (although it didn’t look like it…) forced the team to go to plan B and then to plan C. Plan A would have seen us spend five days on the frozen Manicouagan Reservoir, bivouacking from island to island with our Shaputuan. Instead, the conditions forced us to set up a base camp near the reservoir and spread out around it. Eventually we had to abandon our hok skis for lack of fresh snow.
But nothing seems to dampen the group’s good humour and motivation. Every conversation, even the most serious topics such as hair loss during chemotherapy or the separation of a couple during treatment, is approached with a good dose of humour. So, giving up skis for snowshoes and crampons was not an issue for anyone. So we made our way across the frozen expanse in good spirits, talking and singing. After lunch, sheltered from the wind, Mario gave an orienteering 101 course, map and compass in hand. Everyone was able to discover the azimuths and imagine finding their way in a land where there were no landmarks.
Nature becomes part of us
Our ease of living in the open air increases as our body odours take on… let’s say forest characteristics. Our hygiene is rudimentary. A hanging tarpaulin gives us some privacy to change our underwear and wash ourselves quickly with cloths. A stick marks the entrance to the path leading to the toilets, a simple hut without a door in the middle of the trees. If the stick is on the ground, it’s occupied!
Last night was much less chilly, although the wind was strong enough to lift the tarp. Mario and Ben were quick to react, even in the middle of the night, and fortunately shoveled a pile of snow over it to stop it blowing away. In the early hours of the morning, in keeping with the informal tradition of expeditions, we were woken by the sound of a gentle ukulele tune.
Everyone is becoming more and more efficient at getting dressed in the morning and before going to bed, and at organizing all their cold-weather gear without losing or scattering anything. Everyone has developed their own techniques for sleeping comfortably: a winter coat tucked into the bottom of a sleeping bag, a flask as a hot-water bottle. The longer we live outdoors, the more nature becomes part of us. A tree trunk becomes our sofa, a ray of sunshine a visit to the spa, a starry sky for Netflix, and a group of friends replaces Facebook.
Valérian Mazataud, volunteer photographer and blogger for the On the Tip of the Toes Foundation
Translated by Lorraine Gagnon
In pictures
