Notre-Dame de Montauban is a strange, somewhat amorphous municipality in the sparsely populated La Mauricie region of Quebec. Originally two towns, Notre-Dame des Anges (Our Lady of the Angels) and Montauban des Mines (Montauban of the Mines), they have been amalgamated because they are fading away. Their reasons for being were mining and forestry. The mine is now shut down, and the forestry industry has passed its zenith.
Attracted by cheap land, and maybe the wild and isolated terrain, two Organic farms have recently appeared in the region. Motivated by a number of impulses - idealism, personal histories, etc... they have added to the idiosyncratic human landscape of the area, though their methods and belief systems are not entirely in line with the older residents'. For example, one of the farmers came to the region to grow organic produce for the locals, but the venture was a failure; it turned out that the inhabitants had little desire for such things, preferring easy to prepare, packaged food from the supermarket.
I felt like something about this place spoke to a very contemporary spirit. It was isolated, independent and surrounded by nature, yet it had been heavily exploited and depleted by industry. Despite its obscurity, it was inextricably linked to forces and trends much bigger than itself. The farmers, who came from more urban or suburban backgrounds seemed to have a different concept of nature than the others. It was them for whom, "living in harmony" with it was most pressing, while the original inhabitants, raised in the natural environment, seemed much more interested in machines, gas, manufactured things and consumer goods. Yet none of the residents were self-sufficient, despite the wildness and rugged-individualist aura that permeated the area. All were ultimately at the mercy of cities, markets, industry and capital. These were the wellsprings for the economic activity in the region.
There was a certain gothic quality to the area that wove itself out of the personal lives and stories of the people who lived there, as well as the larger histories of settlement, development, money, power and nature - something both strangely vast and yet fragile. I am still trying to make sense of it.
