Part III: Week One

Phew! Week numero uno esta finita (I don't speak Spanish, I can barely speak French for crips' sake). I arrived in Tadoussac on Monday night after an 8 1/2 hour bus ride from Montreal. I thought it was kind of funny that the highway you take to get here is the 138. That's right, a nice direct route from Ormstown to Tadoussac.
My first vision of the town was from the ferry that connects the two sections of the highway. That's right, there is no bridge over the Saguenay river, the only way to get across is the ferry. My host, Claudine, picked me up at the bus stop in front of the town bar (Howick anyone?) and we were off to my new home for three months.
So Claudine and Stephane have four kids, all between the ages of 9-13. So were are seven in the house. Oh boy, a little crazy.

So my first week at the Saguenay St-Lawrence Marine Park begins. Arrive at the office and it's a miracle: my equipment is all ready and waiting for me in my cubicle! Hooray! All that is missing is my laptop, external hard drive and extra battery. I did the rounds of the office and met everybody and talked in French the entire day. My god, it was a crazy experience- I didn't know I could butcher such a beautiful language so badly.

My job this summer is to make three movies (at least). There are four pre-determined themes to choose from, plus whatever other films I want to (or have time to) make. The themes are: jobs at Parks Canada, the visitors of the park, the beauty of the park and a freebie, whatever I want to do. I immediately dismissed the visitors of the park, I think it feels too much like a streeter.

There is so much to learn about and explore at this park. Luckily the staff here is amazing and all so helpful. They've already offered to take me out kayaking, on the Parks boat, on scientific research trips and most interestingly, to pick up whale carcasses. This last offer is the most appealing, imagine the footage that comes from a dead belugas.
Originally I thought baby belugas was the way to go, but dead beluga might be the runner-up.

The week has gone really well overall, I have a shooting schedule and prepared a little press-kit about myself. I felt really weird with the latter, it was like some sort of strange personal ad but I doubt many media outlets will be interested in me.

Today was by far the best day cause I took out one of the Parks cars and toured around the park. It was a bit hard because this park is entirely water, so a car can only get you so far. Actually this is the only entirely, 100%, bonified only-water park in the country. So the car was good to get to all the lookout points over the water, plus I got to actually see the area.


So I'm thinking about starting a kind of dictionary. No, a list. A list of french words that I learn. There are some words that you don't know that you don't know until you need to know them, right? Working in a marine park brings some unusual vocabulary to the table, words I thought I knew until I'm tongue tied in front of my supervisor.
So here is today's word: phare. Phare is the french word for lighthouse. Sadly, my french word for lighthouse was, 'le maison avec la lumiere pour que les bateaux n'a pas un accident.' Truly, my mastery of the language amazes me too.

Part Deux: Zee Banff Exper-a-ence

Listen. We need to talk. Maybe you should sit down. There are some things I haven't told you yet. Some things that might change your life. Actually, they changed mine. Whatever, who cares about you anyway.

So, actually this wasn't my first day of work, exactly. See, when you start a new job you need training right? Right. Well I did my training last week. In Canada's first national park. In Banff. That's right, Banff. In Alberta. Tell your friends.

Right now you may be asking yourself: why would they send a bunch of new student employees to one of the most beautiful places in Canada, on the federal government's tab, right at the beginning of their jobs? Fair point, dear reader- give yourself a pat on the back.

Well, we went for to learn about the Parks. Let me tell you, we had about a week's worth of Parks Canada training in about one morning. It was a crazy cram-fest of information. I'm sure there were 32 saturated brains on the difference between a park and a park reserve, how to make videos that were internationally viable and most importantly: star swipes. We listened, we absorbed, we shot, we visitied, we edited and we ate. Oh lord did we eat well.

The best part about the trip was the oppertunity to meet the 31 other students from across Canada who won this job. One of the best days was actually the first few hours in the Calgary airport when we job to know each other.

Overall we represent eight provinces (sorry Newfoundland and Sasketchewan) and three territories.

Banff is truly breathtaking. It's so different from Ormstown and I love the mountains. Just the smell of the fresh, clean air is intoxicating... also the beer helped. I really wished that I had the chance and the equipment to go snowboarding. Unfortunately with the 10-14 hour workdays all I had the energy to do was go out for beers and get extremely little sleep. Time well worth it.