Rémi, the Crazy Frenchman!

 The other title for this post I was thinking of was “We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto”. Both are true and accurate.

Leaving Pasha we headed east on Trans Canada 11 toward Geraldton, then through Longlac and points  eastward. Once we left Longlac we were on roads that were new to us and Barb got to color in some roads on her atlas. 

This here is Guy-Paul Treefall. The 20 foot Ontario equivalent of Paul Bunyan. The only difference is that Paul does not give you the finger.  

This is not the crazy Frenchman

Our goal was to just drive 4 hours each day then either explore the area or just relax. A concept a lot of RV’ers do but we have never been good at. We usually drive 6, 8, 10 hours to get to our next destination. We may just do it more often as it our first stop really paid off!

Barb had pre-scouted and picked a boat landing that she had found on the Opasatika River (Freecampsites.net). We got there, parked and set up. 

Right along the river

The first thing we noticed that it was hot, 87° hot. The second thing we noticed was the bugs; both black flies and mosquitoes. We have not experienced bugs this bad in years! Someone made a comment on one of our recent blogs that said something like “Your friends like Barb better, the dogs like Barb better, and even the fish like Barb better!” While all of that is sadly true, there is another thing that likes Barb better than me that I am not upset about. That is the blackflies. They just attack her and leave me totally alone….. and I am okay with that! She got bit up like crazy!

Since it was so hot we took the dogs down to the water for a swim.  Dakota was in heaven! I was throwing a toy out in the middle of the river and she swam out and got it time after time.

Pretty soon a truck and boat pull up and start backing down the ramp where we are standing so we moved out of the way. They back up and this man, a girl and two large dogs jump out of the truck. The man was maybe in his 60’s, and the girl was much younger. They start unhooking their boat when the  man starts talking to us in a loud charismatic voice saying “Hello!”. We walked over and talked while the dogs played. He asks where we were from and we tell him “South Dakota!” he says, “You’re a long way from home!” He goes on “I am Rémi and I am a Frenchman!”

We start talking, about fishing, the weather, the river, the bugs….. You could definitely tell he was French but I was catching most of what he was saying. Then they headed out fishing....30 minutes later a storm passes through with high winds and a torrential downpour. Here is where I should probably mention Rémi was wearing jeans and no shirt and the girl (his daughter) was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. We knew they had to be getting soaked out there and watched the boat landing knowing they would be back soon. Sure enough here they come like two drowned rats laughing and smiling as they landed their boat. We were looking out the window at them as it was still raining and Rémi starts yelling “Come! Come!” looking in the direction of our camper. I was not sure if he was yelling at us or one of the dogs that was sniffing around the camper. Pretty soon Rémi comes over and knocks on our door. “Come, I have fish for you!”

So Barb and I went out and sure enough they had 9 nice walleyes and he says “You take 2 for lunch”. Who am I to refuse an offer like that?!? We talked some more and he said “You friend me on Facebook and we go fishing next time!” You don’t have to ask me twice! So Rémi, if you are reading this now, thanks again for the fish!

Do they look a little wet?!?!

I got a little history on Rémi while we were talking. He was born and raised right there in Opasatika (population 226). His father was a truck driver and so is Rémi. As a matter of fact, here is a picture of his truck right here!

He has 2 kids; a son who is 24 years old and his daughter in the picture is 20. He was quite the character, I wish we had more time to sit and chat with him. I think his kids would even agree with the moniker of Crazy Frenchman!

The next morning we packed up and headed east towards Quebec. Now, we have been in Canada dozens of times; Ontario, British Columbia, The Yukon, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. But crossing into Quebec was like crossing into another country. Everything was in French. All the road signs, all the billboards, all the store and shop signs. We were not in Kansas anymore Toto!

We stopped for the day at another free site that Barb had found. Halte De Rapide-danceus Campground with 16 sites on the lake outside of Rouyn-Noranda. There were a lot of signs at the entrance that we had no idea what they said but we did see one that said “$25/jour” I was not sure if “Jour” night or day but I was pretty sure that it was $25 to stay there. The problem was, there was no one around, no paperwork to fill out and we had no idea what the signs said. So we went in, found a spot and parked. We had the place to ourselves, not another soul in sight. 

If we thought the last spot we stopped had a lot of millions of bugs, this place had a gazillion! We took the dogs for a walk and they got attacked. Poor Dakota had a dozen on her nose alone. 

Poor Dakota, those are all mosquitoes!

We decided that we were not going to stay there so we went back to have lunch before we left. About the time we were ready to leave a car pulls up and a woman gets out. I went out to greet her and said “Hi”. She said “Bonjour”. I started talking, she started talking, and it became immediately clear that neither of us had a clue what the other was saying. So we just stared at each other for what seemed like an uncomfortably long time. I was trying to tell her we were leaving. I have no idea what she was trying to say. Finally she made a hand gesture that looked something like a bird flying away and said “Un parte” (or something like that), I said “yes” and she turned and went back to her car. As she was walking away I thought I heard her say “Dumás”. Like I said, I don’t understand French but Dumás must mean something like “handsome” in French. At least that is what I am going with.

So, the camper filled with mosquitoes, we headed to town. Luckily Barb still has The Executioner we bought in ’16 for our Alaska adventure. It is awesome! There is nothing like the sound of that ‘snap’ and the smell of burning mosquito! 

On our way to town, Barb downloaded a French/English translator app. I started throwing words at her to see how to say them in French. Cheeseburger translated…. is Cheeseburger. Sotir is exit and luckily Diesel is Diesel which by the way is $2.38/liter (8.99ca/gallon) ($7.28us/gallon). Yikes! Which is why we are staying at Walmart tonight!

The next morning we hit the road and continued east but first a stop at Tim Horton’s. Her mission; 1 chocolate peanut, 1 chocolate coconut and some donut holes for herself. When she went to order she got the same stare that I got from the lady at the campground. So she just started pointing. She came back with a chocolate glazed, a chocolinni and donut holes. The chocolinni was a croissant looking thing but very dense. Barb and I each took one bite and we were done. The rest were delicious though!

Our 4 hour journey took us to Grand-Remous where we stayed at a little parking lot next to the Savoyard Covered Bridge.

This bridge is 102’ long and was built in 1931 and is still in use today. A very pretty little spot for small rigs with only a few bugs. A few people attempted to talk to us, one knew a little English the others just tried and walked away.

The last leg of our journey to Montreal took us a little over 3 hours were we will be for the next couple of days. How’s my elbow you ask? The same. Someone thought maybe it was a form of gout, and it may very well be. Everything I’ve read about gout is that it is extremely painful. My elbow does not hurt at all.

Overall the trip is going good. The roads are a lot like Alaska with frost heaves, lots of potholes, cracking and filler. I wish diesel was a little cheaper and we wish we knew a little more French. But hey, if you are headed up this way and are going through Opasatika, look for Rémi, the crazy Frenchman, he may teach you a few words. And maybe even take you fishing!