Sugarloaf Mountain

Sugarloaf Mountain anchors a landscape of woods, lakes, and working company roads in Loïc’s childhood. Its slopes and nearby outpost bring together two sides of that world: the natural abundance that invites close attention, and the practical routines of logging and guarding that give the countryside its daily structure.

Setting and Working Landscape

In autumn, Loïc accompanied his adoptive father, Guillaume D’Anjou, on game-warden rounds by jeep around the lakes and deep into the woods. Their route regularly passed through the Pain-de-Sucre outpost, where the company maintained camps and garages. The barrier there controlled a steady passage of trucks carrying cut timber. From his gatehouse, Charles Lemay recorded the loads and checked travel passes, hunting and fishing permits, and reports of game taken or fish caught. A large wheel inside the gatehouse operated the barrier, giving the station a distinctly maritime aspect amid the forest roads.

The Gatehouse and Its Naturalist

The outpost was also a center of observation. Charles Lemay collected butterflies in a glass display case beside his library, and Loïc studied their vivid wings and learned that their colors came from tiny overlapping scales that crumbled when touched. Lemay’s interests reached beyond insects: he had assembled a substantial herbarium, knew the medicinal properties of plants, and had corresponded with Brother Marie-Victorin to identify rare species gathered on Sugarloaf Mountain’s slopes. When a government entomologist came for his annual visit, Lemay spent days discussing insects with him and took him into the forest to examine moths, caterpillars, and other species.

Loïc’s Childhood Experience of the Mountain

The landscape offered Loïc an education through movement and close attention. As a young child, he ran through fields and woods with his brothers and cousins, absorbing the passing trees, houses, sky, and church steeple; at times, a fall left him still beneath the open sky, listening to insects and birds. His visits to Lemay’s gatehouse extended that wonder into focused study. On one occasion, Lemay prescribed stream foam as a remedy for Loïc’s freckles, then caught a large black snake in the grass and sent it into the fast current beneath the Sugarloaf Mountain bridge. The mountain’s significance in these memories lies not in a single dramatic event but in the sustained meeting of childhood perception, local knowledge, and the living environment.