Back to the Wild | Jennifer Noxon
In September 2024, we hitched up our mighty tent trailer, purchased in the depths of COVID, and headed up the north shore of Quebec in search of whales and feelings of wilderness, or perhaps wildness is a better word.
We’d both been up to the Tadoussac area before, and loved it, but it had been fifteen years ago, and the memories were getting a little vague. I had fond memories of ‘La Fleuve’ St. Laurent and felt it was time to steep in its greatness and history once again. We headed to a campground north of Tadoussac that is part of a marine reserve, which means it is protected from motorboats coming close to the water’s edge. No music was allowed, not even guitars around a campfire. A challenge for us. We soon found out that there was a raison d’être for this: on a quiet day, when the whales were passing, one could hear the whales blowing through their blow holes. With a campsite steps from the St. Lawrence, we could hear them from the coziness of our bed!
The first morning, we woke to no wind and minke whales passing two and fro as if on their morning commute to some feeding ground. We heard them before we saw them! Pods of stand up paddleboarders and kayakers waited and watched in silence as these behemoths swam so elegantly through the water.
The whales definitely had our attention and were the stars of the show, however, the numerous rocks on which campers and day trippers were able to walk and sit were stunning in their own way. It seemed we were all there to commune with the great river and its inhabitants. It was easy to walk on these massive rocks (oddly shaped like the backs of whales) or set up chairs for a picnic and just stare out at the water. People were quiet and respectful of others. Small puddles of rain or sea water caught in the rocks created interesting visual reflections of the sky. Being there for four days provided a welcomed pause at the end of a busy summer. I was reminded of just how small we humans are, nestled in the presence of a powerful body of water, the wildness of whales, the wind, the rain, and the blazing sun. Jennifer Noxon