Beyond 138 - part 1

It is not clear if it was love or pride that led us to cross-country ski 500 kilometers in one of the most isolated and hostile territories in Quebec.

In the summer of 2017 in Natashquan, Nicolas brags to a pretty girl he just met: Éloïse. They are having a drink in a café facing the sea in Natashquan. On the wall next to them hangs a map of the North Shore. To impress her, Nicolas indicates a point located at the extreme north-east of the map, exclaiming: "one day I will go to Blanc-Sablon by cross-country skiing". Unimpressed, Eloise asks him how he would do it. Proud of himself, with his chest puffed out, Nicolas explains that for two to three months in the winter, the lakes and rivers of the Lower North Shore freeze to form a snow road used by the residents of the region. This road is called the white road. It is this road that he would like to take.  Without hesitating for a second, without ever having done cross-country skiing, Eloise says to Nicolas, with a strange glint in her eyes: "I'm coming with you."

Five months later, on a March morning, we were both standing on our skis, in front of a snowy plain crushed by an icy wind. We stood there as if on the edge of a precipice, a sign above our heads indicating the beginning of the white road. We were getting ready that morning to begin an expedition of several days in austere and icy landscape, playground of wolves and sometimes polar bears coming down from Labrador.

Before we even started, we were already exhausted from the long preparations, the last nights of excitement and the training. In less than three months, Eloise had to learn the techniques of off-piste skiing, loaded, as if that wasn't enough, with a particularly heavy sled. Although she was used to long cycling and hiking expeditions, the challenge remained for her. For his part, Nicolas felt it was his duty to make sure that Eloise would be able to complete the expedition, despite the bitter cold.

As we left the village of Kegaska, going deep into the white road, several snowmobiles were already passing us and waving. On the back of one of them, an old Innu woman had even made a sign of the cross in the air, as if to bless us, to support us and undoubtedly, to give us courage, with the assurance of one who knows what awaits us.

Soon, the momentum of the start was slowed down by the quality of the snow under our skis. The snow had the appearance of coarse salt, brought to this state by the strong winds of the last few days and an unseasonable heat. Our heavy sleds, instead of gliding over the snow, were sinking, making our progress difficult. This snow and soon, the wind constantly in our face, was getting the better of us, leaving us no respite. While calculating the route, we realized that we were advancing much less quickly than expected. Crossing a lake could take two to three hours, going through the portages; one hour. We were going to have to revise our entire plan for the rest of the trip, extending our journey by several days.

After the first eight-hour day, we had set up our tent in silence, completely exhausted. The sun was already slowly descending behind the mountains and with it, the temperature. Once we were warm, after having made a fire, after having changed into our high density suits, after having melted the snow to fill our water bottles, we only began our preparations for dinner. For Nicolas, this is the most important moment of the day, what keeps him motivated in the most difficult moments, what keeps him going despite the blisters and the cold: the promise of a hot meal. That evening, bad news awaited him: our burner was no longer working. For almost an hour, we tried to find a solution before finally admitting our failure and cooking on the fire. Too hungry, we had eaten pasta half rehydrated in a warm sauce. Nothing to raise Nicolas' spirits.

Soon, from one evening to the next, we had developed an almost military routine to be as efficient and quick as possible. We had ordered the broken part of our burner and had it delivered to a village on our route, but the isolation of the Lower North Shore communities would force us to wait nearly three weeks before receiving the part. We would be dependent on a fire to cook and melt snow, an additional workload to our already long and exhausting days.

We still managed to enjoy the evenings under the stars, well dressed, lying in the snow watching the sky with a hot chocolate. We often fell asleep before 9pm and woke up at dawn, our faces cold, but protected by a balaclava. Eloise would do everything she could to make this last moment of warmth last, by having breakfast, lying down in her sleeping bag, before getting dressed in a hurry, in the icy cold of the morning.

The days were getting harder and harder. The wind had risen for good and did not seem to want to change direction. It even seemed to be getting more and more violent. So much that one afternoon, the snow had started to fall, making visibility particularly difficult. Worried, we stopped for the night, securing our sleds for a possible blizzard. After only a few minutes, well sheltered in the safety huts built along the road, someone knocked on the door. A burly man, dusted with snow, had come in to warm up by the fire we had just left. He would not be the only snowmobiler who stopped that evening to take a break from the storm. He was the one who told us that a blizzard was coming, that it might last a few days and that we'd better stay here. He was right, when we woke up in the morning, our sleeping bags were buried under the snow that had been coming in all night through a gap in the poorly insulated door and that door was now completely frozen, due to the heat inside and the cold outside. We were trapped.