At the DocFest

Wakefield, 33km north of Ottawa, an easy drive, worked its magic on us again, when we drove there today to take a walk round the village with Elva and Laurie. We kept to the streets this time, passing the Vorlage ski centre and the school. Chris had been in an angry mood when we reached the parking lot outside the Wakefield community centre; the cable from the one electric car charging station wouldn't reach the car, because of the snowbanks in the way (this has occurred before). He went inside the building to complain and discovered that the man in charge there was a friend of his whom he hadn't met for a while, so that defused the situation.

The river looked as wide and serene as ever, with its snowy surface, but the ice is thin this year and will soon break up. In the warmer season the Wakefield people are going to construct a new boardwalk parallel to the main street, right beside the river: an excellent idea.

Chamberlin's Lookout was closed today so we couldn't have our usual sit down there; we sat down at Le Hibou instead for hot drinks and a piece of lemon tart and carrot cake. Then while Chris talked to Rink* in the lobby of the community centre again, Laurie, Elva and I went into the auditorium there to watch the last film of this year's DocFest: Dark Horse, about a Welsh community that pulled together to breed and train an extraordinary racehorse named Dream Alliance, and it had a gripping story line. The film was a subtle commentary on British society too, poignant and cleverly put together. Everyone watching broke into applause at the end.

This entertainment seemed to resonate well with the people of Wakefield, enjoying glasses of wine or beer with Welsh Bara Brith and other goodies, afterwards, maybe because they too are (obviously!) a tight-knit community.

I wouldn't mind living there.


* Rink's wife Leanne (whom we also briefly met today) was the subject of an article published in the Ottawa Citizen in 2009, an article that makes for compulsive reading. We got to know the couple around that time and visited them in their house beside a lake near Wakefield where they still live. I have also read the heart-rending book Leanne wrote, about her and Rink's experiences with Médecins Sans Frontières: A Cruel Paradise. 

Red ribbons over the Gatineau

Maybe this post should have appeared in my river blog instead; never mind. I wanted to record an outing to Wakefield on the River Gatineau which has cheered me up a great deal after a bout of gastroenteritis about which the less said the better. Today, with my appetite coming back, I managed to enjoy a lunch with Chris, Elva and Laurie at Chamberlin's Lookout above the General Store. The service was rather slow with just one waitress there, but the clientele was in a relaxed mood so it didn't seem to matter. We like the fact that this place has many dishes on its menu that incorporate the freshly baked multigrain bread of excellent repute from the Wakefield Bakery across the road. In the summer you can sit out on the balcony of the bistro, overlooking the river, but with a temperature well into the minus figures today, despite the Christmas decorations, the sunshine and deep blue sky, that was not an option.  I took this photo from inside, looking across the river through the window. Wisps of advection fog were rising from the faster moving channel of river water that still hasn't quite frozen over, but my camera isn't good enough to have captured that effect.

Nothing wrong with repetition

We've done all of this before, but we like it: lunch for my mother and me al fresco on the balcony-deck of the General Store at Wakefield (changed since the old days) with a view up and down the Gatineau River (the café there known as Chamberlin's Lookout). They sell old fashioned children's toys upstairs—irresistible! No rain today, in spite of the less optimistic forecast yesterday. Chris, who'd been "flying approaches" before lunch, accepted a lift from Carol so that both of them could join us after lunch for an afternoon walk past the Wakefield Elementary school with its new playground, up the hill through the forest, past the cemetery in the field where Lester B. Pearson is buried and then down the hill past MacLaren's old mill beside the stream. The gift shop Jamboree is always worth visiting, as is the Wakefield bakery for its excellent multigrain loaves, and before we drive back home we sometimes remember to stock up on fresh water from the roadside spring, as we did today.