lac Témiscouata is a defining feature of the landscape in a hydroplane flight over Touladi. Seen from above, the lake, forest, village, and surrounding waterways form a connected geography; as the flight turns toward lac Squatec and the cemetery, that same landscape brings the village’s vulnerability and buried history into view.

Setting and Route

The plane rises above the lake and forest, then turns back toward Touladi. From there, its route passes the mountain that hides lac Témiscouata, skims over the church, and descends toward lac Squatec and the cemetery above it. The sequence places lac Témiscouata within a landscape of lakes, waterways, wooded heights, and settlement, while making the mountain itself a visual screen between the village and the larger lake.

The Village Seen from Above

From the air, Touladi appears as two rows of small houses following the bends of a lake and two rivers, drawing closer together around the church. Loïc recognizes his home at the bend in the main street, near the cemetery road: a house among elm trees and a cherry orchard. The grandfather Bolduc’s house stands at the village’s eastern end, while the house where Loïc is said to have been born lies nearly opposite it. The elevated view turns familiar places into points within a larger pattern, linking the homes to the lake and waterways that shape the village.

Fragility and Buried History

The houses look like small boxes from above, and the recent earthquake makes their apparent delicacy more than a visual impression: Loïc imagines that a stronger tremor could collapse them like houses of cards. The flight then brings the cemetery into view, where rows of headstones cover what he imagines as boxes underground. That image recalls the child found turned over in a grave during the cemetery’s relocation after the 1944 landslide, a victim of the Spanish flu who had been buried too soon. The route from lake and village to cemetery thus shifts the scene from expansive aerial vision to an intimate awareness of mortality. After the hydroplane settles gently on the lake, Loïc runs with his brother and cousins beside the ponds and through the autumn-colored woods.