Last Articles
March 10, 2010Carnaval de Québec’s 38th International Snow Sculpture Event in Québec City
The provincial level of the 38th International Snow Sculpture Event in Québec City took place from January 29th to 31st. Representing Montreal this year was a team of female sculptures: Maude Ledoux, Mélissa Campeau et Ève Champagne.
Our team of happy sculptors with their tuques on snug, gloves well-adjusted, and tightly buttoned coats took out their machetes, saws and shovels and determined to brave the cold for three days to bring forth. Loon Breaking Free!
The Loon-y team. Note the Altitude Sports logos!
Read more about the 38th International Snow Sculpture Event in Québec City
March 08, 2010Part IV-A: Adventure with the Cree of Chisasibi
I must admit, I didn’t know what to expect when I stepped out of the Canoe in Chisasibi. I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice and clean town that looked relatively affluent. With over 2000 Cree, Chisasibi is much larger than Radisson, and Hydro Québec workers from Radisson drive the 120km dirt road here to buy supplies at the town hardware store. This village was like nothing like the native reservation I’ve seen near Montreal, here, there were only nice houses (not prefabricated, like in Radisson) and clean streets.
But it soon became clear that this is no ordinary village. Life here, as I discovered is completely different from even the urbanized towns closer to Montreal.
My first surprise was to learn that 98% of the people here speak Cree as a first language. Some only speak a little bit of English (the main second language). Everything here is spelled out in Cree, from street signs to store names, and this is clearly not for the rare tourists who occasionally make it this far North.
March 05, 2010Veggie Burgers
I am crazy about beans. To me, they represent comfort food and did you know this fun fact? When beans are accompanied with rice they make a complete protein! If you make chili at camp one night for dinner, you can use the leftovers to make a bean burrito for lunch. Another option is mixing in a few small ingredients to make veggie burgers.
Don’t get too excited, I know most of the veggie burgers you may have tried could taste like cardboard or a stale Frisbee. However, if you make them yourself, you know exactly what’s in it and they will taste delicious without requiring much time to prepare or cook.
Try telling me that does not look delicious! Photo by Seelensturm @ Flickr
Yes, beans do have some unfortunate side effects like causing the person sleeping next to you to leave the tent for some fresh air. However, if you wash your canned beans well, and soak your dried beans overnight before cooking them, you will remove the phytic acid that causes gas.
A really healthy and easy recipe follows if you want to make them from scratch. Read more about Veggie Burgers
February 28, 2010Great Adventures For Your Kids
What a feeling!
So many of us enjoy a “great adventure”, but we also have children who want to “adventure” with us. How in the heck do you climb Mount Everest or hike the jungles of India with a 5, 3, and 2-year old? Well, I haven’t done any of THOSE things with my kids, but we do have great adventures.
Hi, I go by “The General” and my 3 kids and I LOVE hiking and adventuring outdoors. Sometimes having your adventures with your kids isn’t as intense, but the wonderment on their faces is enough to make it fun.
Plus, if you keep adventuring with them they’ll grow up to be “big adventurers” one day. These are chronicles of places we’ve been, adventures we’ve had, things we do, and how we make it fun.
Since this is our first time together I’ll give you just a couple pointers on how to include your kids and what they can do that is fun. After today we’ll get into more specific things that will be cool for you AND your kids.
Let’s get trekking… Read more about Great Adventures For Your Kids
February 09, 2010The End of the Road – Part III-B – The River by Jean-Yves Domenjoz
Mercifully, my tent, food and change of clothes stayed dry in my sturdy seal-line pro. And my feet, though submerged, stayed dry in my trusty old gore-tex boots… For about 5 minutes.
Stepping out of the canoe to empty it, at the very start of our canoe trip, in 10 degree weather, is the precise time that the seal around the sole of my old boots decided to finally crack. On both boots. Instantly wet. The gore-tex, of course, stayed intact and impermeable, but ice-cold water now rushed in all around the former seal, marking the end of dry feet for the rest of the trip. I resolved never to leave again without shoe sealant.
Taiga: Even on the river shore, where the forest is thicker, the trees are not large and sparse enough that you can carry a canoe right through them. The underbrush is completely absent, save for lichen and moss, making improvised portaging a breeze.
We met a cold rain and a brutal headwind (the river runs West) at around two and both stayed with us for the rest of the trip. The temperature dropped and never rose above 12 again. Overall, the conditions were pretty miserable but I hadn’t set out for Virginia Beach (which would be closer), I had set out for the North and this is what I had come to see. In this weather and with the cold, that becomes wet nothing ever dries, so extra care was taken to keep everything protected from rain and river. I tucked my raincoat into my wetsuit gloves, which I favoured over poggies since water can penetrate poggies and run down your arms. By never delaying to put on my rain jacket, my upper body stayed dry and comfortable throughout the trip. But having never really believed in rain pants, I had taken only quick-drying polyester pants for my legs. I now believe in rain pants. My “quick-drying” pants can dry really fast, but like my boots they never had the chance to do so in the constant rain, and I my legs were mercilessly battered by the icy rain every day for the rest of the trip. read more The End of the Road
February 01, 2010The End of the Road – Part III-A – The River by Jean-Yves Domenjoz
La Grande river lives up to its name. It is a gigantic, fast flowing river, half a km across river that feels no smaller than the St-Laurent. But for all that, it is not too technically demanding. Before setting off, I made sure to call Hydro Quebec to find out how I can legally get to the river. Upriver from LG2 is nothing but an endless artificial freshwater sea called the Robert Bourasssa reservoir (see picture of Dam, above). I figured I would canoe the river part from LG2 to the James Bay, somehow portaging around LG1 along the way. I learned from Hydro’s helpdesk that I could access a boat launch behind the security portal if a native Cree dropped us off, since the Cree have access rights. So I hired a man from Chisasibi to drive us in and to drive the car back to Chisasibi. As a bonus, this would eliminate the need to call in a bush plane to fly back to the car at the end of the trip since a new dirt road connects Chisasibi, on the bay, to Radisson on the James Bay road.
read more The End of the Road
January 22, 2010The End of the Road – Part II – The Road by Jean-Yves Domenjoz
Part 1: The Road
I took the 15 North out of Montreal, past the ski hills to where it becomes the 117 and continued northward towards Parc La Vérendrye. The last town before the 200km of untouched nature in the parc is Grand-Remous, a living ghost town since the recentclosure of the local saw mill. So far, I was still on familiar grounds, having been as high North as Senneterre for canoeing trips in the past but that changed after the parc.
I got to Val d’Or near sunset, and noticed that I had been driving straight West, not North, for the past little while, so I bought a map to see what’s going on. You’d figure I would have bought one before leaving, but hey, I already knew how to find the 15.
As it turns out, the 117 heads West from Val d’Or towards Ontario. If I wanted to go North, I had to take another, smaller country road (by now, the 117 was no more than a two-way street itself) called the 111N. That led me to Amos, where I once again had to pick another road to avoid going west. It was 200km of night driving before I reached Matagami, which used to be the end of the world before the James Bay road was built. The cold dark road seemed eerily deserted and I was glad I had a jerrican, just in case. In the sunlight of the return trip, I would find out that this segment of the road actually presents the last northern agricultural communities, tiny and sparsely distributed but beautiful, where the northernmost farms reach the limits of arable land.
Rush Hour on the James Bay Road: Note the fire damage to the forest
January 14, 2010Cooking with Myrite from tastylife.org: Mug O’ Soup
When you are out in the wilderness, it’s important to be prepared. You don’t want to end up eating Ramen noodles or Cup o’ Soups when you can easily warm up with your own delicious variety at camp. By equipping yourself with canned or dry beans, and vegetables that are easy to bring to camp such as carrots, onions, and sweet potatoes-- you won’t have to worry about spoilage.
My personal take on cooking, (which you will soon catch on to) is that it shouldn’t be something to fear and you don’t always have to rely on recipes if you understand a few basics. Most importantly, my advice is to trust yourself and constantly taste the pot and adjust the flavours according to your unique taste buds.
Yes, soup for you. Image by stu spicack @ flickr
I like to throw beans/legumes or grains to make a thicker soup and get in some extra protein and nutritional value. You don’t have to worry about the right proportions of bean or grain to water in this case because it is in a soup and the consistency doesn’t matter. If you need more liquid, add more. If you want a creamier consistency, use a handheld immersion blender to puree your soup. If you are at camp, you can add a can of coconut milk for extra creaminess. Read more about this tasty soup recipe
January 13, 2010The End of the Road – Part I – Intro
It is with pleasure that I present you a blog mini-series by Jean-Yves Domenjoz. A four part series detailing his adventures travelling through Northern Québec, we'll publish one part per week.
Enjoy!
Juan Altitude
Ever look at a map of Quebec and wondered about all those little towns, way up North, shown only as tiny dots? Who lives there? What’s it like? And what’s in those wide swaths of empty map space in between?
Ever wondered how far North you can drive, and what the world looks like at the end of the road?
For a while now, I had been wondering exactly these things, obsessively staring at the northern corners of the province on Google Earth. So when I found myself with a bit of free time last August, I booked some last-minute vacation and impulsively set out to find the northern end of the Quebec road network.
I decided I would simply take the 15 North until the road stops. Once I had set my mind to it, it took less than two hours to get ready. I packed my tent, some warm clothes, a jerrican full of extra gas, food, stove, GPS, and, for good measure, my canoe. Wherever the road took me, I hoped there would be some good wilderness camping to be had. Read more The End of the Road
December 04, 2009Cooking with Myrite from tastylife.org: Power Balls (a granola bar in a ball!)
You’re out in nature, in touch with your animal instinct, and you just finished your hike. Upon reaching into your pocket to satisfy your hungry belly, you take out the granola bar you packed. As you chew, you proceed to read the ingredients on the wrapper and to your surprise, realize you have just eaten what sounds more like a chemistry lab experiment.
Nutriciously delicious?
Read more about the Power Balls, granola bars in a sphere format
