Free Life in the Court of Matane by Eric Dupont

Anything but Félix Leclerc or Jacques Brel. If anyone dares to play
Le tour de l’île
or
Le moribond
at my funeral, I’ll leap out of my coffin screaming. That would make everyone sad, and I’d rather everyone sang and was happy when they drop me in the hole. That’s what the chuckle is all about, but I should really stop telling you all this. For a start, I’ve violated Edict 101, and there are bound to be consequences.

CHAPTER 2
The Brown-Headed Cowbird (1979)
    S uch was life in the court of King Henry VIII. While the queen and king dreamed of the southern seas, I found refuge in books. Atlases were among my favourites, and to my eyes, their multicoloured maps were works of art. Then came books on popular science and animal biology. Their illustrations were a way for me to escape, if only for an instant, our depressing kingdom of the north.
    Of all the animal species, those that made long annual migrations piqued my interest most. The library at the elementary school in Matane was home to quite an interesting collection on the animals of Canada. Each illustrated book focused on a particular Canadian animal, which made a change from all the books that spoke of French animals we were unlikely to ever encounter in our part of the world. What good did it do me knowing all about the reproductive habits of the hedgehog if I was condemned to live on the Gaspé Peninsula? I pounced on the “Caribou,” “Moose,” and “Salmon” books and devoured them with the enthusiasm others reserve for crime thrillers. Our teacher, Madame Levasseur, had noticed the quasi-religious state of ecstasy these descriptions of animal migrations plunged me into. By the spring of 1979, I had read all the books in the collection many times over. Madame Levasseur watched me comb the library shelves, desperate for anything on Canadian wildlife. Taking pity on me, she took a large book on the animals of eastern Canada out of the part of the library reserved for the older children. “You can read it over Easter break.” The next day, I had already read a third of the book, which I kept beneath my pillow.
    I think I secretly envied how the Canada goose and caribou could relocate twice a year with disarming ease, while I was condemned to stay behind in the court. These animal books revealed sometimes troubling behaviour from certain species of bird, including the brown-headed cowbird (
Molothrus ater
), a common enough bird in the Quebec countryside that’s often mistaken for a small crow. It’s not its plumage that attracts attention, but rather its reproductive behaviour. That spring, I discovered the link that bound me to this particular species. And so Madame Levasseur’s book followed me everywhere I went over Easter break.
    Easter will always be my favourite public holiday. I come from the north, remember. When the first Sunday following the full moon after the spring equinox rolled around, we knew the worst of winter was behind us. The ice was beginning to free the St. Lawrence—beyond which we could barely distinguish the other shore—from its annual enslavement, revealing a dazzling shade of metallic blue. And when Jesus decided to come back to life later than usual, around mid-April, the plain of frozen azure tore at the retinas of wintering residents. The deathly silence of the Gaspé countryside was shattered by the song of birds we thought we would never see again, now proclaiming their melodious return to these lands of snow. Christmas is nice: no school for two weeks. Thanksgiving isn’t bad, though a little chilly. But Easter holds the promise of finding the gloves we misplaced in the January snow.
    In our lost and frozen north, only the snowy owl (
Nyctea scandiaca
) interpreted the tepid western wind as a threat to its immaculate plumage and used the diversion created by the arrival of spring to take flight to the dazzling beauty of the north. This noble