Dancing with Saint Catherine - Rimouski, Québec

 

Boys and Girls, Ladies and Gentlemen, Gather Round! It's Catherine's special day!

Which means the violinists are ready, the accordion is set, and the drums, just waiting to go! The traditional dances of Québec are sweeping everyone into a night of laughs, clapping and skipping.

Skipping and clapping is best when shared - here in action, a duet of tap dancers !

In Rimouski, Québec, on the banks of the Saint-Laurent, while it's below 0°c outside, the temperature rises every year in the concert hall for the "Sainte Catherine". Here, young locals take part in a fired up celebration of their folk music.

Originally, in slightly (much) more conformist times, this dance had an added purpose: to get the unmarried women over 25 or so, out on the folk dance floor, so they could meet a handsome mate. Preferably one that can cook up a nice Poutine. These lucky ladies even got single-d out by wearing special hats, and you can here more about this subject (amongst other things) in the company of locals Aubert and Marie, in the dancy Rimouski Podcast ! (Also available on itunes and any good podcast app)

Marie (right) and Aubert (left with the hat) give these ukulele road trips their fair share of interesting facts in the podcast ! Here pictured with a couple of coloc' and busy with a (board game) road trip of their own.

Saint Catherine was actually a Christian Saint who refused to be wed and died a martyr in Egypt in 305 A.D., when she was about 25. Hence why she's now the patron saint of all the single ladies (all the single ladies).

"What? No thanks, I've got a feather, I'm fine thanks, no man for me".

You can enjoy the singing of a few unmarried women in the following video, singing first of all about the hard labour of the harvest, and then, about an unruly man, making the one on the right to complain she's quite "bad-lucky", which is 'canadian-frenglish' for unfortunate.

So, in order of appearance we have: a choir of old unmarried ladies, following that, a couple of explanations of specific steps and grabs, after which, it's all very much up and dancing.

As you can see, everyone is invited to get involved with the hopping and swirling about, the man in the béret having made a good job of beefing up the atmosphere on the dance floor.

"èveribodïe danse naouh" tum, tum, tum-tum tum, tum

So, a band boasting quite a few violins, a big Irish drum, tipppidy-tappy tap-dancers, a guy on a guitar, the choir of young women dressed up as old hags, accordions... a festival a colour, music and jokes. To my very un-Quebecois eyes, this feels less like a night out, and more like a joyous miracle. People can here actually go out, have fun, dance, hold hands, run around together, -and this is the important bit- withtout having to be completely drunk to be able to cope with the awful pop music from the charts. On this dance floor, only moving melodies straight from the musicians' movements, to your ears.

And everyone's invited! Great dancers, terrible dancers, once-a-year dancers, backpacking bards melting in huge hiking shoes and seven layers of jumpers dancers... all will irresistibly join in.

Thanks for reading ! And viewing! And clapping along.

You can tap-dance your way to supporting this musical backpacking project over on the Patreon page.

The nice people at Cloud Music Ukuleles are helping us (Ben+big ukulele+small ukulele) to be #GoingNorth ! You can check out their ukes and such on their page.

Too freezing to play Ukulele? - Rimouski, Québec

 

Sometimes, no matter how musical you feel, and how much you're used to walking/singing around with your uke in hand, the cold wins; "it's far too freezing to play ukulele".

That's definitely the case in Rimouski, by the icy banks of the gusty St Laurent River in Québec. Not only is it far colder than what you imagine the coldest place on the planet feels like, but snow storms might just suprise you at any moment.

However, for the diehard bard, there's a workaround. "Just put your gloves on, that will do quite nicely".

It's impossible to train your fingers to resist the harsh cold winds of North-Western Gaspesia "... they'll turn blue and surely fall off before the second refrain". 

Much more realistic is to train yourself to play with skiing gloves.

"Just major chords here in Rimouski", because due to the super-complicated technique - sticking out one single finger on the left hand and just moving up and down the ukulele - you can only play major chords. Except for an A (minor) "But it's okay it's not that tricky anyway".

When it's below 0 degrees Kelvin, as it is, most Winters on the beaches here, you don't sit around inside complaining anyway. You (snow-)suit up, get out there, and leave the whining and the minor chords to people in warmer climates.

Everything with gloves and a ukulele, just sounds rainbow-y and so very merry. I don't think there's much more I can do, I could change the key, (insert change of Key here), but I'll just go with the woop-di-doos (actually, cancel it) - woop-di-doo, woop-di-doo, woop-di-doo...

The other side of the camera on the banks of le Saint Laurent. A wild ukulele huddles in the grass nearby.

The wider point being, I guess, that "boredom is a luxury, like memes that say 'oh FML!' and a suite of minor chords, but in the North", well, as some locals mentioned to me, you just get on with it, really. And if in other countries, you'd stay home because of a temperature half this cold outside, here, you deal with it and go out anyway, otherwise you'll never step outdoors ever again.

If you want to learn more about the town of Rimouski from the locals, head over to the Rimouski Ukulele Road Trips podcast! [coming soon-ish]. It's got two locals, exactly as many jokes, and songs too.

Une soupe au "Bercail" ! That's at the cool co-op near the Cathedral, in case you're just on your way through the cold winds to the center of town too.

No need to be too fanatical and brave, and after a sing-along on the freezing beaches, a warm onion soup is a most comforting treat.

Speaking of warm comfort, you can support the trip over on the Patreon, which is a bit like showing appreciation with thumbs up, except on Patreon, it's not only nice, it's useful.

The #GoingNorth adventure is made possible with a helping string from the folks at Cloud Music ukuleles whose ukes withstand pretty low temperatures quite well as it turns out.

'L'instant' - Gaspé, Québec

 

We humans are a funny bunch. For many reasons, but one in particular was distracting me as I was making my way from Percé to Gaspé, on the Eastern shores of the Gaspésie Peninsula.

A mode of transport to go with the grey #GoingNorth Road Trip

You may have noticed this yourself, we think ahead a lot, and we think backwards quite a bit too. Worrying about the future, or dwelling on what was. And, the 'moment', 'l'instant', eludes us. Thinking is great, but when it is taking your mind off the grey and majestic landscapes of Gaspésie, it's a pain in the ... brain.

Some light snow to add to the beauty of the very Eastern shore of Gaspesia

Set the scene. Everything is grey and beautiful (very much like this particular Ukulele Road Trip. It's grey too anyway). A couple drives through this inspiring picture, more concerned about the holiday photo-album than the feeling of freedom the landscape quietly offers.

On tourne un peu en rond, tout se mélange et confond, peut-être qu'en fait au fond, on ne sait pas ce qui compte. On poursuit l'aujourd'hui, tout le long de la Gaspésie, et s'il s'était enfui, cet aujourd'hui ?

Going round in circles slighlty, everything does become a blur, maybe in truth, we know not what does matter. We search for today, all along Gaspesia, what if it had run away, this elusive today ?

Allez, viens avec moi, ne cherchons pas de quoi remplir en rentrant, des albums dans les tiroirs, mourants! Allez, viens avec moi, savourons ensemble et chacun dans la brume du Saint Laurent, l'instant.

Hark, come with me, let us not search what to bring back, and have it wither and die in a draw back home. Hark, come with me, let us delight together, and each one of us, in the mist of the Saint Laurent, in the moment.

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À GASPÉ

In the video, behind the man with the little guitar and just before the beautiful rounded low mountains in the background, lies the town of Gaspé. Or Gespeg if you're an indigenous Mi'kmaq. Which, let's face it, you probably aren't. 

The town of Gaspé is the setting for the fanciest museum you'll find in these parts: the 'Musée de la Gaspésie'.

In English, this roughly translates as "Museum of Gaspesia" (although subtleties of language make a literal translation tricky)

I arrived by chance during the seasonal in-door hand-made market. You couldn't wish for a better view whilst shopping for mugs and handmade stained glass. I'm travelling on a budget so I had a traditional Gaspesian... er, coffee.

Things you may learn in this museum include what a traditional native tipi looks like. It looks a bit like the ones set up as decorative memorials on the banks of the modern city.

But you may also learn about the locals and their struggles, that had been having a relaxing time walking around freely for 9000 years, until the Europeans turned up.

LES MI'KMAQ ET LES ACADIENS

The coast of Gaspesia where I am now, is a very important historical place for the country as a whole. It is where the Europeans first set foot, and first started to build settlements. The story of it all isn't exactly natives vs. Europeans, though. It's a bit more interesting than that.

Une publication partagée par Ukulele Road Trips 🎸✈ (@ben_ukuleleroadtrips) le 21 Janv. 2017 à 3h11 PST

There were two main groups of native Americans in the region, the Mi'kmaq, which we've mentioned before, and the Acadiens; who sound a bit like badies in a Doctor Who episode. The Mi'kmaq are more the hunting type, connected with the land and nomadic in their lifestyle. The Acadiens on the other hand were leaning more towards farming and livestock. Whenever a war broke out in the XVIIIth Century between the British and the French (who live right next to each other in Europe by the way, but would rather fight not too close to home), the Mi'kmaq sided with their friends the French, whereas  the Acadiens tended to side with the British.

The Mi'Kmaq didn't much like the British and always struggled to accept their occupation, when the peninsula was under their control. So much so that when the friendly French captured British soldiers, the French had to give them special surveillance, even sometimes keep them on their ships, so that the Mi'Kmaq would not go ahead and "sacrifice" them. Too much zeal is sometimes not the way.

Unfortunately, in 1760, the French lost, left for good, and more and more of the Mi'kmaq lands were given to the Acadiens. The Acadiens kept complaining the Mi'Kmaq were not good at planning enough, depending on "nature" and "wild fruits" and "hunting" and other crazy things no one who enjoys a good Starbucks would ever give a second thought for. Things were said. Feelings were hurt. This created a lot of tension, and a loss of Mi'Kmaq hunting and fishing territories. Luckily, the British had a great answer to these issues after a while: they simply took away the rights, and most of the lands, of both the Acadiens, and of the Mi'kmaq. Problem solved. A bit like harsh parenting, but, one that destroys identity and violates indigenous rights.

Do I have a song about this? No. But if I don't mention it here, I'm not sure I ever will.

And thanks for the magazine on Mi'Kmaq history, girl who works at the museum and with whom I had a chat about Gaspesia during my coffee !

Thanks for reading ! And viewing! And having made it all the way down here!

If you think this odd website of this Backpacking French Ukulele guy is a good thing to have in the world, you can support the project via this Patreon page. If you don't think it's a good thing, obviously, don't do it.

The nice people at Cloud Music Ukuleles  are making these "Moments" and "les instants" of the #GoingNorth adventure possible. Have a moment on their website for some ukulele-(window)-shopping.