Raid the North Extreme
Les Voyageurs EADS
Susan McKenzie / 21.08.2003
Bruno Rey lies curled up on his side. A distance away, Cyril Margari and Stephane Toussaint are flat on their backs. Even in her sleep, Laurence Maurin swats flies. With a start, she wakes up and jumps to her feet.
“Allons,� she says as she walks up the beach, waking each of her team mates in succession. Let’s go.
Cyril Margari really has to go. He crouches in the bushes out of sight, talking stomach ailments with Maurin and Toussaint as Rey contains to doze. Rey has slept two and half hours on this beach, which is about an hour out of CP13, the final transition before the epic paddle and portage through Quetico Provincial Park. His team mates have all slept ninety minutes. It is the team’s first sleep since Tuesday, when they grabbed an hour.
“Yesterday we got quite low on water,� explains Bruno Rey. “Cyril drinks a lot, so this is to be expected. We reached the highway on our bike, there were two houses. The second house we asked for water, and they gave us really good spring water. It was very kind. People here have been very kind.
Local residents have been outstanding. So, too, has the local wildlife. “We have seen so much wildlife on this race,� says Maurin. “We saw a moose, a deer, many chipmunks and birds, of course, and a little baby bear. Black. C’etait superbe!�
“We approach them on mountain bikes, so we are very quiet and they do not hear us,� explains Rey. “The animals have been great.�
Out on the water, the two boats push through the water, the double-blade paddles cutting through choppy water as the team fights the headwind. Maurin sings as she paddles, a habit the others seem not to notice. “I must sing in the boat,� she says. “Otherwise, I fall asleep.�
Team EADS paddles past a tiny island, a rocky outcropping of bush to its north. To the south, just about 250 metres away from the French team, lies the United States. While teams are allowed to pull onshore anywhere on the Canadian side, they are forbidden to land on American soil. “Not a problem. We do not have green cards, anyway,� laughs Toussaint as he paddles.
EADS makes quick work of the first section of this journey, which takes the teams along the route used by the voyageurs,long before asphalt highways and railways connected east to west. Lac La Croix, part of the Lac La Croix First Nations Ojibway reserve, is a vast open body of water. On the rocky cliffs above, there are ancient native paintings of moose and handprints and even a man smoking a pipe, their bright ochre virtually unfaded with time.
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