Oiseau Rock

This is a bonus post. I wasn’t expecting to put anything up today, I’m not even meant to be here today. I have things to do, a coach to hop on, an airport to loaf in. My shoes and belt to take off as I go through the scanners. A flight to catch.

It’s just that one of my favourite bloggers posted a very moving story on her blog about an occasion when she became the butt of a lifetime jokes following a fool’s errand to a desolate thankless place on a family holiday when she was only a child. And I wanted to let her know that she was not alone, for I too have my own tale of childhood humiliation. It’s time to tell the tale of Oiseau Rock.

I must have been about 14 when my family went to Canada for the first time to visit my relatives out there. They lived by the banks of the Ottawa River valley, deep in lush green forests, in a one horse town with a dairy, a couple of shops and beautiful sandy beaches. Of course, like so many places of outstanding natural beauty it also had a giant nuclear power plant, which is why they hired my uncle, who was Homer Simpson before his time. Of course, none of us knew that back then, and now he’s more like Homer’s dad. We got off the plane into a climate I had never experienced – hot and humid, the sky bursting with warm rain. A two hour drive later we were in a rural paradise where nothing ever happened.

My Canadian family were all wholesome, clean-limbed, healthy and happy. They never got ill, had great teeth and absolutely no problems of any kind. They all loved waterskiing, ice hockey, working hard and playing hard. They were a total anathema to me and my pasty father. My brother, though, took to it all like a duck to water – culminating if I recall in him having a midnight beachside barbecue with my cousins and snorting coke for the first time. Not that I’d have known. I was probably tucked up in bed at the time reading an unfeasibly thick fantasy novel, one of eight I had lugged into the suitcase as an insurance policy against interacting with the great outdoors.

One day, my uncle took us to go and see Oiseau Rock. It was, he said, an outstandingly beautiful rocky outcrop with an amazing view of the Ottawa River and a secluded lake at the summit. It could only be reached by boat, and it would be a steep 20 minute climb, but it was worth it. My family were in. I, on the other hand, was not convinced. So they did what any self-respecting family would do.

They told me there was a branch of McDonalds at the summit. And I believed them.

About five minutes into our ascent my legs were killing me. It was swelteringly hot. My shins were covered in little cuts and nicks from a variety of savage forms of foliage, many of which I had only previously read about in unfeasibly thick fantasy novels.

"I want a chocolate milkshake when I get up there." I said.

"Of course, and you’ll get one." said my dad, who was lagging at the back of our posse much as I was.

Ten minutes on I was in a state of almost total fatigue. If I could have stopped and rolled down the hill without dashing myself to death on the rocks below I would probably have taken my chances. Only one thing stopped me from throwing in the towel, and it was the prospect of opening that blue polystyrene treasure chest and taking out a Filet-o-Fish, all soggy steamed bun, crispy crumbed fish and lashings of that thick tartare sauce that looked suspiciously like whale semen.

Then something hit me. I stopped for a second, my brow clouded with a momentary suspicion. They wouldn’t lie to me just to get me to climb this godforsaken rock, would they?

"Uncle Mike, how do they get the supplies to the McDonalds?"

"They airlift it in by helicopter every day." he said. "They’re the only McDonalds in the whole of Canada where they do this."

That was okay then.

My family has never let me forget my credulous disappointment when we got to the summit. There was indeed a beautiful view of the Ottawa River. There was a placid hilltop lake, and a little picnic table next to it.


And beyond that, there was nothing at all. My voice, suddenly much smaller than usual, caught in my throat as I asked.

"Where’s the McDonalds, Uncle Mike?"

"Kid, it’s at the other side of the lake just behind those trees."

I went and checked. I couldn’t quite believe that all my relatives had colluded in this gigantic falsehood. But there was nothing there.

The walk back to the picnic table was longer, sadder and more painful than any climb to any summit could ever be.