Montmagny to St-Jean-Port-Joli   |   Campsite: 76 Av de Gaspé E, St-Jean-Port-Joli QC, Camping Au Bonnet Rouge

The day begins really well. By 5:15 I am walking through a nondescript neighborhood of houses all alike in Montmagny on my way to Highway 132. The night was mild, leading to a warm morning in which I selected shorts to begin walking into the day. Early on the day sunny, bright enough for sunglasses. All of these factors have helped establish a good, confident pace. As I am leaving Montmagny on this beautiful Friday morning I stop briefly to smell some flowers exploding in fresh colour from a tree. I hear a voice say “It is a good way to wake up, smelling flowers.” I look around and a woman sitting on a second-floor balcony across the street smiles down at me. “Bonne journée!” I walk through the morning with a brief stop in the village of Cap-Saint-Ignace for fruit. The woman working at the cash register will only answer me in monosyllables but greets residents with smiles and lively conversation. Like everywhere, I’ve experienced incredible warmth, compassion, and kindness, but also ignorance and distrust throughout this challenge. By the end of the day, I won’t remember this woman. I will remember, however, all of the people who have entered into kind and interesting conversations with me along the way. In fact, I remember these lovely interactions from the first day of the walk! It isn’t until sometime around 9:00 that the wind begins to blow, gusting ever more violently. It was a few kilometres south of the town of L’Islet. I stop here to eat, finding a relatively protected place from the non-stop wind. But it doesn’t really help. Comically, I can’t put anything down on a flat surface as the wind will simply blow it away. Pockets become stuffed, hands become full, and rocks are used to weigh down pot lids, zip-locked bags of food, empty water bottles, and removed clothing. Even the food on my spoon will get blown away if I am not angled in a position so as to block the wind during my spoon’s journey from the cup of noodles to my face. This westbound headwind coming off the St. Lawrence River continues to blow directly against me for the entire day’s walk—all 41 km to 2:30, when out of frustration for the day I find myself actually checking into a commercial campground located within the town of St. Jean-Port-Joli. I just want to be out of the wind and to have my tent set up before any rain begins to fall. By 3:00 I am lying on the ThermaRest, journalling, and eating. Once my temper tantrum subsides and I am laughing at myself while moving around the tent like a walrus, I put some time into mapping the upcoming few days of walking to Rivière-du-Loup. As this town is located directly on the shore, along with  Highway 132 which will take me up the river, I decide to embrace the wind, accepting the fact that it will serve as a new physical challenge to be learned from. As this walk was conceived around the idea of perceiving everyone met along the journey as a teacher, the experiences gleaned directly from nature will also contribute to this three-month curriculum of exploration. For the time being, secure in my tent with rainfly secured, I rest, write, and read my way into the late afternoon and eventually sleep.

Today’s distance walked: 41.68 km    |    Total distance walked: 1,069.08 km

Reflection on Week 4

• Québec City looming!

• Continuing to find great camp spots for free with incredible views of the countryside.

• Loving the physical act of walking, the intellectual act of reflection, and the creative act of making throughout this challenge.

• 85% of the walk is experienced in nature, returning every week or so to the realm of the urban domain for rest, cleaning, repairs, and food resupply.

• The people I have met and the conversations shared with them all have been such a wonderful, unexpected aspect of this walk.

• The rhythm of through-hiking is now feeling natural, as is sleeping in the tent and carrying everything I need on my back.

• My French has provided me the ability to communicate with the people of Québec—something I was worried about being adequately able before the walk began.