Oh Canada...

When Jesse Dukes told me that he wanted to go to Quebec City for the New Year holiday, I envisioned sort of a Mardi gras style event taking place in a French style city. Call it ignorance, but I assumed that all Francophones on the North American continent celebrated by getting shit-hammered and throwing beads at each other and that this celebration would be pretty much the same on New Years as Mardi Gras (yes I realize that this seems like a pretty crazy leap but tell me that when you hear "celebration" and "French" you don't think of crazy bead throwing).

Thus we took out of here and met up with our old friend Chris who was in New York City being a ne'er do well and doing gobs of blow. Chris is a really good dude who is a great chef, triathlete, and all around top dude. After some failed attempts to find housing, we met some girls who allowed us to stay at their place. The next day Jesse and I walked from their apartment on 125th St. down to the Brooklyn Bridge and across. We walked for about six hours straight. We then met our friend Zeke who is a great guitar player and also a pretty great chef it seems.
The next day we headed for Portland Maine. Portland is one of my favorite cities because of the mix of proximity to mountains, good urban style and maritime tradition. Doesn’t hurt that the rent is cheap. It’s too bad that it’s so cold but I guess that’s what keeps the creeps at bay. Anyway a day and a night and off to Ville de Quebec.

Quebec was a pretty cool city overall. Very old. Very French. The restaurants were good. We asked the receptionist in our hotel where a good place to experience New Years would be. On our way there we decided to have dinner. Since Quebec is a French city, we went to a French restaurant. We weren’t worried about the time since it was 930. So two hours into the meal we still haven’t finished the dessert or coffee courses. As they passed out the noise makers we were out the door and looking for a bar to get defaced in. Quickly. So we hustle on over to the promising part of town but things look sort of not that hopping. Jesse described it as being about as crowded as a not too busy Wednesday night in Portland’s old port. Maybe you’ve never been there but you probably get the idea. We could not find a fucking decent looking bar anywhere. We counted down the new year en Franςais. On the sidewalk. And by “counted down en Franςais” I really mean glanced at my watch and realized it had been 2007 for about 45 seconds. We went in the only place that seemed alive. It appeared to be a private party for an accounting firm. It probably wasn’t but that’s what it looked like. We were dressed like we were about to climb mountains (which was later to come) but not in that clean Patagonia catalog way, more in the train bum with a bottle of Thunderbird in his pocket way and Jesse was carrying his radio gear (he makes documentaries for public radio). I had just shaved with a shitty throw away razor and lather from holiday Inn complimentary soap after not shaving in over a week. I was probably still bleeding out of my face. Short version: we were dressed more for Halloween in the ghetto than New Years with Francophone accountants. We managed to get a drink and walked around the place (which was a shit hole aside from the koi swimming in the floor). When we returned to where we left our things, about 8 Quebecois were standing around Jesse’s microphone (which was like 18 inches long) singing to the shitty 80’s tune they were playing in the place. He reclaimed him mic, turned it on and interviewed one of the women who insisted that Jesse was in fact not American but Canadian and from Toronto (she could tell by his accent). This was really the only interesting thing that happened that night. On the way back to the hotel we saw a guy being taken into custody by the fuzz. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand. Jesse posited that he had, in fact, managed to have our shares of the fun for the evening. Sadly we managed to have his share of the illness the next morning. Jesse and I were both nauseous as a motherfucker as we pulled out of Quebec. If someone other than me had been taking photos they could have gotten a fantastic photo of me leaning on the hood of the car trying not to empty my guts while scraping the quarter inch of solid ice that had accumulated on the car away. Fuck.

The trip was quickly spared as we went back to the comforting confines of Portland. We climbed Old Speck. It’s a reasonably tall mountain (by eastern standards) on the AT with a fire tower on top. It was snowy as a motherfucker and about eight miles round trip. The top looked like a fucking alien planet because of the strong wind encasing everything in snow. All the trees had about five inches of sideways snow hanging from them. You really should see the pictures I took. The tower was in similar condition, which made climbing it rather treacherous but the view from the top was worth it. We stood up there in the wind and cold and snow and were pleased with the world and with ourselves. Jesse ate a frozen snickers bar and we retreated under the light of a bright moon and a setting sun reflected off snow and occasional clouds. It was some of the most beautiful light I’ve seen. We snow shoed down in the dark and were happy to relax. My legs hurt like two motherfuckers. It felt real nice.

As I was getting on the plane back home I thought about the people I know that I don’t see often enough. I miss Maine sometimes and one day I reckon I’ll go back. Leading trips in those mountains were some of the best times I’ve had. As for today, I’m happy to be back at my home in Virginia where it’s unseasonably warm and the bars are filled with good people that I know.