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Chapter Five – The Retreat
Meditation centres are not a new thing. In the East, Buddhists have been building Pagodas for millennia for the sole purpose of allowing people to worship and contemplate. Pagodas are tajine-shaped buildings specifically designed to reflect the path to enlightenment laid out by the Buddha, with a tall central spire decorated in segments that represent…
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Chapter Four – Nightmare On Wolfe Island
It took a while to find a ride from Portneuf, but someone eventually stopped and took me about forty minutes down the highway. The second lift came from a husband and wife pair delivering furniture to their daughter. They took me as far as Montreal and dropped me off on the hard shoulder next to…
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Chapter Three – Bonne Appetite
Harper dropped me at a gas station a short drive from the farm, wished me good luck and drove off. The gas station was just beside the on-ramp to the Ten, a road running East to West that headed in the general direction of my next stop; a homestead in Portneuf. Before I left the…
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Chapter Two – Autumn Zucchinis
The Quebec region of Canada, over towards the East side, is French speaking – speaking English there is considered a bit of an affront. Their choice of language is rooted in colonisation of Canada by the French in the fifteen hundreds which resulted in French becoming the dominant language. War with the British in the…
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Chapter One – Local Customs
London to Montreal was roughly a six and half hour flight, but we never took off. The airline, Air Transat, made a last minute change and took everyone off the plane shortly before departure to put us on a flight to Toronto. In Toronto we were expected to catch a connection to Montreal. From there…