Wednesday September 9, 1998 - Ontario

Toronto - sunny and warm.

I had a small breakfast and said good bye to Sam, I was on the road by 8.30am. It was a nice drive from La Malbaie to Quebec City along the north shore of the St. Laurence River, through hilly farmland and forest and many small towns. I crossed the river at Quebec City and got onto the TransCanada highway toward Montreal.

Shortly after crossing the river I was adjusting the CD player (and not looking at the road) and I veered off the highway at speed. I zoomed across the grassy verge at 100 kph, knocking down a small reflector post and narrowly missing two larger signposts. By the time I got my foot off the gas pedal I had slid into a swamp by the side of the highway. The truck was at an almost 45 degree angle in the swamp, the 2 wheels on the driver side still on the grass but the other two wheels well into the swamp. I climbed out thoroughly shaken up. There was smoke or steam billowing out from under the truck.

Amazingly, the car immediately behind me on the highway followed me off the road. I guess they thought something was terribly wrong and wanted to help. So by the time I managed to get out of the truck (pushing the door open was hard because it was almost above me) that car was parked beside me and the three men in it were already out and asking me questions in French. Did I fall asleep? What happened? Did I have a rope or chain? I told them that I did have some rope but it wasn't very strong. I tried to dig it out but it was on the passenger side of the cab and I couldn't get at it. The men started talking about what they could do, that they really needed a chain to get my truck out of the swamp.

Just then a cube van also pulled off the highway, it drove a little ahead of us before stopping. We all stared at it: there was a chain wrapped around its rear bumper. The van driver got out and the three men ran to meet him. There was some discussion about whether to try to pull my truck out forwards or backwards and then they wrapped the chain around my truck's front bumper and the car pulled my truck out of the swamp surprisingly easily. They got me to start the truck and drive it forward a few feet to see if it was driveable. On seeing that it was they all left. From start to finish that episode took maybe 20 minutes! But I was still pretty shaken up by it all so spent another 10 minutes or so cleaning mud off the windows and straightening things out inside the truck. It was a good thing I had screwed down my sleeping platform when I was in Whitehorse, the back of the truck was relatively undisturbed by the trip into the swamp.

After that I pulled off the road when I wnated to fiddle with the CD player. The rest of the drive to Toronto was uneventful and as boring as only the highway from Quebec City to Toronto can be. On the outskirts of Toronto I phoned Isaac and Gretel for directions to their place and arrived there around 9.30pm. I told them about the swamp episode and showed them the mud along the passenger side of the truck, which I had not yet cleaned up. Isaac thought it looked kind of artistic, you could see the marks of the bulrushes sweeping along the truck side.

I said I'd really like a beer so Isaac got a sixpack of Corona from their downstairs neighbours. They live in an attic apartment in a three storey house in the Annex part of Toronto. They showed me their theatre in the stairwell between their apartment and the one below. They come into their apartment via an outside fire escape stairwell so the inside stairwell is blocked off at the bottom. It has a landing half way down which is their theatre stage, and the steps from their apartment down to the landing is audience seating area. They have lights on the railing above that shine down onto the stage, and at intermission their kitchen is the theatre bar. Their theatre can hold a grand total of six audience members. We also discussed their plans for the Film Festival opening the next day, which they are participating in. I slept on a futon on the floor of the living room.

Tuesday September 8, 1998 - Quebec

La Malbaie - rainy.

Since the time changed at the New Brunswick-Quebec border I had set the clock back an hour in the cab of the truck, but I forgot to change the clock in the back where I slept. So when I woke up and saw that it was already 6.30am I thought I was going to miss the ferry. But once I got into the cab of the truck I realized my mistake and saw that I was actually early, arriving at the ferry dock at 6.00am. I made breakfast there and boarded the ferry just before 8.00am.

You get a ticket in the line-up parking area and then pay for it on the ship. On the ferry ride I got caught up on my journal. After debarking I drove to La Malbaie and asked for the Katimavik house at the local tourist info house. The coast here reminds me a bit of the Labrador coast, but there mare more trees, farms and towns. It is very pretty.

At the Katimavik house I talked to Christian, the project leader. He told me that Sam was working in Clermont and I could probably see him at lunch time at the City Garage. We talked about Katimavik a bit and how they get the most applicants from Ontario and Quebec and need to advertise more in the other provinces. He said that Jacques Hebert has retired from the Senate recently and is now touring all of the Katimavik sites. They got their budget increased this year and may have 750 participants instead of 600.

I drove to Clermont and chopped up some of my vegetables at a picnic spot by the river and then showed up at the City Garage for noon to meet Sam. He is really enjoying it. Later I went to see their work site where they are clearing trees and brush along a trail by the river.

Sam asked me to stay the night which I agreed to but that definitely throws off my schedule. Also it is further to Toronto than I thought. Oh well.

Around 5.00pm I returned to the Katimavik house in La Malbaie. After some milling around I had supper with the group: fajitas and coleslaw. A bit skimpy due to miscalculation. I brought in all of my CDs from the truck for Sam to go through and pick stuff he wants to tape and I got on the internet on their computer to pick up email. After supper I brought Yohan into the house.

They had a weekly meeting scheduled which I sat in for part of. Five of the participants are francophone and six are anglophone. No one is bilingual so Christian must do a lot of translating. They first debated a statement proposed by Christian that healthy human beings have choices and must therefor take responsibility for their lives. Very interesting debate. The conclusion seemed to be agreement with the statement, but the debate was limited to 30 minutes so who knows what the outcome might have been if they had gone on longer. Then they discussed food, money, work and the schedule of events.

It was a very long meeting and afterward they thanked me for visiting. Part of the group then went out to the local Sub shop, and another part started work on making a clubhouse in the basement. Sam taped the CDs he wanted. I was pretty tired and went to bed in the truck around 11.00pm.