Circumstances beyond my control, at the time, called that I take the scenic route home while investigating the “sighting” in Great Whale. More on that later.
We stopped at Checkpoint Charlie just north of Matagami. We had to. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t. They’d probably send the SQ arm of their forces after us. And blow us to kingdom come. So we weren’t about to take the chance.
We drive into occupied Cree territory. Much has changed since everyone’s last ride through here. Of course you rarely meet someone on this road. You have the road to yourself. It’s great. Rarely patrolled. But that’s changing.
The route was scenic the last time I drove this way. We drove through kilometres of land where trees had been cut. Just off the highway. They don’t even bother to hide what they’re doing like they do further south in the touristy areas. That’s cause they want do it fast. Before we find out what’s really going on.
They know deep down what they’ve been doing is wrong but they’ve come to the point of not caring much about us. (They see money in them thar hillls!) I know. I’ve worked alongside these people. They’ll steal your ideas, just so they can bask in what little glory there is in them. They piss me off.
Sorry about that outburst. (But you know, if you want to hear the full story on their thievery, watch out for my book tentatively titled, I Wanna Tell Ya due out at the turn of the millenium. In it will be revealed who Chef Jean Cuisine really is.)
We passed other destroyed areas along the way. But these ones were courtesy of Mother Nature herself. This summer’s forest fires scorched pine trees turning them a deep rust color. The ground beneath them was black and new grass exploded with green all over.
That’s the difference when man and nature destroy the earth. Nature’s destruction can actually be very beautiful and has a useful purpose while the companies’ work leaves an ugly taste in the mouth and its main purpose is money.
Which brings us to the purpose of our trip to Whapmagoostui. To see for ourselves the creation of a new bay. It looks a bit messy now, but I’m sure it’ll be beautiful when nature’s finished its work. No one’s sure what it is that made the crater there. Was it man or nature? Or aliens? Many are positive it was a meteor. Some were seen panicking saying it’s the Mir Space Station’s debris. The official word, of course, is that it’s nothing but a landslide, or a sinkhole. If it is a landslide, as some people are saying, what size was the mountain the landslide came from? Of course there’s the theories that it was in actual fact an alien craft that crash landed. Fifty years after the Roswell incident, coincidentally. Around the time of the meteor crash, some hunters reported seeing a black submarine-like object swimming around out on the bay. And reports of other “sightings” went up slightly after the Great Whale incident. (While we’re on the subject, people, keep your cameras handy for your next sighting.) Many people wondered what would have happened had the fireball landed on the LG-2 dams. Hydro Quebec, and Chisasibi for that matter, would have been washed to the sea.
In the end we never made it to the sight. The weather intervened, leaving Kuujjuarrapik shrouded in thick fog. Much like the story. But we’re working on it.
