By now we’ve heard it so many times that it has become second nature: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” So, we dressed up and went outside. When one travels to a special place, it must be seen in many lights in order to gain even a tiny understanding of its nature.
Fog embraced the morning and moisture poured from the sky. Although in our eyes, land could only be detected on the electronic chart, there seemed to be a mysterious magnet pulling the avian world in roughly the same direction in which we traveled. Northern gannets, singly and in skeins, roughly paralleled our path. Flocks of tiny passerines appeared in the mist like floaters in our eyes. We invited them to stop and rest a while but our pleas were disregarded and their vigorous flapping carried them away to a different stop in their transit south. Safe and warm inside our floating hotel we gathered for a journey back in time with Wade Davis, to the trenches of WWI and Everest’s towering heights. Outside a shadow of land materialized.
Like fish caught in a tangled line, the archipelago of Îles de la Madeleine is ensnared in a web of sand of its own making (with a little help from the surrounding seas). Cross-bedded sandstone cliffs are still being nibbled away at the edges, their sinuous façades eroded into caves and fragmented into tiny pieces that march from one islet to the next, knotting them together conveniently for humankind. From north to south rolling hills host rich and fertile agricultural land alternating with highland forests. Paint came to the island in a kaleidoscope of colors that adorn the primarily wooden houses and add accents to the predominant greens of the vegetation. Long sandy beaches beckon both shorebirds and voyagers alike and between the showers we felt the urge to just walk on forever.
But the place is not just about the land. The people too are unique. From their Acadian ancestry they inherited not just their accents but a creativity and industriousness that still show more than 250 years later. Their words are French with just a little twist. Our explorations took us from south to north and back again, from the Fumoir d’antan to the Vieux Convent, from the Chemin des Montants and La Grave to Belle Anse and we immersed ourselves briefly in their world. Their lilting music followed us back aboard and we enjoyed it too until it was time to venture out into the open sea, bound for not too distant shores.
