During the year 2011 the media kept informing us of the ‘Plan Nord’ which concerns the immense territory of northern Quebec and which some familiarly call ‘The NordiKebec’. This territory covers 72% of the surface of the Province of Quebec, that is, 1,2 million square kilometres. It covers the whole of the territory of Quebec North of the 49th parallel and then north of the river and the gulf of the Saint Lawrence.
‘The NordiKebec’ encompasses, therefore, the regions of the North Shore, the northern section of Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, and the Nord-du-Quebec that includes the regions of James Bay and Nunavik.
This ‘Plan Nord’, was made known May 9, 2011, with the motto ‘To develop the North is also to protect it.’ It was presented as one of ‘the greatest economic, social, and environmental projects of our time.’ The environmental part of this Plan announced, in particular, ‘the reservation of 50% of the area of its territory to other than industrial purposes, for the protection of the environment and the protection of the biodiversity, that is, about 600,000 square kilometres.’ What a great plan! But, will it be fully realized?
We know this famous phrase of Michael Gorbatchev concerning the environment: « If we still want to save the world for future generations, we must all be converted. But we are converted only if we have a spirituality. » For us, disciples of Francis of Assisi, our conversion consists precisely in living the Franciscan spirituality of creation.
Instead of seeing creation simply as inanimate objects, to be used and exploited by us, humans, Saint Francis of Assisi considered the entire creation as a universal fraternity with its source in God.
Thus Francis called our planet ‘Sister Mother Earth.’ The earth provides for all our needs and is able to sustain with abundance all humans and other creatures of the earth. As a ‘Sister’ we have the responsibility to take care of the earth as we must take care of our natural sister. « Praised be You, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs. »
To this stanza of praise of ‘The Canticle of Brother Sun’ we can, it seems to me, add a new word: Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’.
Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of the Côte Nord, a region characterized by the immensity of its territory and of the Saint Lawrence estuary, by the beauty of its flora and its gigantic marine mammals which can be observed from more than 400 kilometres of shoreline, by the monoliths of the Archipel-de-Mingan, with its strange, almost supernatural forms, and by the Island of Anticosti, ‘an island of beauty,’ the largest in Quebec, with a territory of 8,000 square kilometres of hunting and fishing.
« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, whales and beings of the sea, bless the Lord! »
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, a country of blueberries, in other words, of these little very tasty blue fruits and which grow in abundance; a country of imaginative and colourful people who express their admiration for their land with expressions such as: « a lake as large as a sea, forest as far as one can see, mountains that touch the sky »; a country with an immense expanse of green divided by two unique water ways: the Saguenay River which flows in the bed of the only navigable fjord in North America, remarkable for its wild beauty and cliffs, and Lac Saint-Jean, a veritable interior sea of more than 35 kilometres in diameter, the largest inhabited lake in the whole of the Province.
« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, lakes and rivers, bless the Lord. »
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of James Bay, this territory situated between the 49th and 55th parallels where there is the boreal forest with its conifers and its broad-leafed trees becoming more rare and which gradually begins to blend with the taiga, the Siberian forest; wild territory where caribous abound by hundreds of thousands, while we lose count of all the migratory birds that adorn the sky and earth in season; a territory that witnessed an important gold rush and where we still find minerals such as silver, copper and zinc; a territory where numerous water ways can produce electricity in abundance by immense dams such as La Grande-2, the largest underground power station in the world.
« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, depths of the earth, bless the Lord. »
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth ‘NordiKebec’ of Nunavik, arctic region known for its magnificent landscapes where the wild tundra, the taiga and some boreal forests mostly made up of pines, spruce, poplars and larch; arctic region where roam hundred of thousands of caribous, polar bears and wolves; arctic region where even in summer the temperature is between 9 and 11 degrees centigrade, and still, the sun hardly sets, and where in winter, there are but a few hours of daylight that brings their share of cold and darkness; arctic region whose beauty we could sing to the tune of the song: ‘Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver’ (My country is not a country, it is winter) of Gilles Vigneault, the singer of vast spaces and snow.
« May the earth bless the Lord… And you, ice and snow, bless the Lord! »
Fr. Georges Morin ofm
