Placing the Pandemic in Perspective: Coping with curfew in Montreal

On the morning of of Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021, Jean-Marc,* an unhoused Mohawk man, watched as the body of Raphaël André was removed from the chemical toilet in which he’d frozen to death overnight, five blocks down Milton Street from the gates of McGill University in downtown Montreal. Known as “Napa” to his friends, André, 51, was a well-liked member of the community of unhoused Indigenous people centred in the Milton-Parc neighbourhood. He had spent part of the previous afternoon making snowmen outside the nearby Open Door shelter, which had been closed overnight due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Almost two years later, Jean-Marc chokes up recalling how he tried to comfort André’s niece, who was inconsolable, telling Jean-Marc that she had nothing left to live for.

“Everybody was shocked,” he says. “He was like a brother. If somebody needed something he had, he’d give it to them. He was a guy I was always happy to see — alive. When that happened, my heart just sank. It just doesn’t make any sense that somebody has to die.”

Struggle and success in Atlantic Canada, where aquaculturists strive to overcome climate change and contamination while chasing a sustainable carbon footprint

In the days before Hurricane Fiona hit Atlantic Canada last September, oyster farmers Hana Nelson and Philip Docker carefully secured equipment, boats and patio furniture — anything that could turn into a projectile. They sank hundreds of floating plastic mesh oyster cages, each containing hundreds to thousands of baby oysters, below the reach of high winds and choppy waves. But as the storm made landfall about two hours north of Halifax on Big Island, N.S., their home felt the sheer force of Fiona as it rattled around them and their two young daughters. All they could do was wait — and hope.

The next morning, the sun rose weakly into a grey sky and winds still blew upwards of 100 km/h as they surveyed the worst of the damage.

On a beach alongside one of their oceanfront lease sites, a wooden building dubbed the “Shuck Shack” lay splintered across the sand. Surging waters had wrenched a local wharf completely off its moorings, leaving a gaping chasm. At the other end of their bay, near their larger 20-hectare site, so much sand had eroded off a local spit they suspect it will soon disappear. “There used to be a lobster processing factory on that spit,” says Nelson, gesturing towards the slice of land, once wide enough to hold a building but now mere steps from end to end, its factory long gone. “See now how tiny it is.” By this time next year, Docker speculates, rising waters will consume the rocky bar, a fallout that could fundamentally change their oysters’ ecosystem. “We’ll have seen a change in my generation to this harvest system,” he says. “All the [wild] clams and everything else that lives there, that won’t exist anymore.”

Remembering P.E.I's iconic natural wonder after being washed away by Hurricane Fiona in the fall of 2022
By Tyler Hellard

Teacup Rock dies as it lived: dramatically. The formation stood alone, a stark, top-heavy mass of jagged, rust-red rock balancing delicately on a narrow and crumbling base. It looked impossible, defying the elements, the Atlantic and the laws of physics. Everyone knew it was on borrowed time, assuming winter ice pushing in from the Gulf of St. Lawrence would eventually topple the structure. In the end, it was the 140-kilometre winds and punishing waves of Hurricane Fiona that brought “the Teacup” down and washed it away.

“Every winter I would go check on it,” says Stephanie McQuaid, a part-time photographer and content creator who shares her work on Instagram under the handle @TheRedheadRoamer. “The road isn’t always plowed, so I’d snowshoe in to see it. The Teacup was always there.”

The rock, just off P.E.I.’s Thunder Cove Beach, was more than just the focus of many of McQuaid’s photos; it was her favourite place on Earth — so much so, she has a tattoo of the shape of this section of coastline. She grew up camping nearby at Twin Shores and spending summer days on the beach with her friends. “It was a place I went to my whole life. When we camped, my mom and dad and I would walk that beach every night.”

You will visit major sites and attractions along the Nile in a comfortable fashion, tasting traditional Egyptian cuisine. Boarding the cruise boat at Luxor we travel upstream, watching local life pass by, whilst also visiting the spectacular Edfu and Kom Ombo temples along the way. Cruising past the lush green banks and the beautiful sunsets over the Nile, with incredible onboard facilities, Cruising the Nile makes for an unforgettable Egyptian odyssey.

Joseph Frey was a RCGS member of the Parks Canada-led expedition which discovered Sir John Franklin’s flagship HMS Erebus in the North West Passage, and has travelled to over 80 countries and all seven continents.

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- Highlights of Bolivia with George Kourounis
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- Costa Rica Birding with Eagle-Eye Tours