Matador Network's Blog, page 2283

Your Argentinean friend is different

Photo: Nicholas Alejandro

1. A normal friend never asks you for food. An Argentinean friend is the reason you’re putting dinner together.

2. A normal friend asks, “How are you doing?” when he sees you. An Argentinean friend hugs and kisses you, saying “Look at you, you son of a bitch, you look so amazing!”

3. A normal friend may not have seen you cry. An Argentinean friend has cried with you a dozen times.

4. A normal friend sends you flowers and a card when you’re at the hospital. An Argentinean friend goes to see you and falls asleep on a chair next to your bed.

5. A normal friend will borrow something and give it back to you in a couple of days. An Argentinean friend borrows something and forgets in a week that it doesn’t belong to him. He will never return it and you will never ask for it.

6. A normal friend offers you her couch to sleep on. An Argentinean friend gives you her bed while she sleeps on the floor next to you, keeping you up all night talking.

7. A normal friend knows some stuff about you. An Argentinean friend could write a book with all the things you have told her.

8. A normal friend brings you store-bought medicine when you’re sick. An Argentinean friend makes chicken soup and brings all the homemade remedies her grandmother taught her.

9. A normal friend knocks at your door. An Argentinean friend opens the door and happily yells, “I’m here!”

10. A normal friend asks if you could please make her coffee. An Argentinean friend goes straight to the kitchen, helping herself to the coffeemaker and asking your neighbor for sugar if you don’t have any.

11. A normal friend plans a visit a week ahead of time and asks for a confirmation. An Argentinean friend calls anytime and says, “I’ll start cooking in five minutes, bring the vino.”

12. When you visit a normal friend at his office, he introduces you using your first and last name. An Argentinean friend says, “Man, this dude is my bro.”

13. If you’re going through hard times, a normal friend tells you, “I didn’t call you before because I wanted to give you your space.” An Argentinean friend calls every hour saying, “Boludo, let me know what you need.”

14. A normal friend could be a friend for some time. An Argentinean friend will be your friend for life.

15. A normal friend will ignore this post. An Argentinean friend will pass it along to all of his friends, because he is super proud of being AN ARGENTINEAN FRIEND.

Note: This piece, originally written in Spanish, has been a recent meme on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet. We’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to find its author. If anyone knows her, please let us know.

The post 15 differences between a normal friend and an Argentinean friend appeared first on Matador Network.

12 portraits of Black identity

“What are you?” they’d ask, head tilted and eyes squinted.

“Black,” I’d reply.

“No…but like, what else are you? I know it’s not all black.”

So went a typical interrogation by my peers as a kid. With skin lighter than even some who identify as White and hair that streaks blond in the sun, I’ve never been offended by the question, although I have since changed my response. To the more politically correct question that I’m asked in adulthood — “Where are you from?” — I would recite my ethnic makeup, followed by a definitive, “But I identify as Black.” (If I feel like being a wiseass, I’ll simply reply with “New Jersey.”)

How do you define a racial identity? Can ‘Blackness’ be defined simply by a person’s skin tone, hair texture, or facial features? Can we define it by the way someone walks or talks? Can it be a product of someone’s cultural affinities, regardless of what she looks like?

These are the questions that Dr. Yaba Blay and photographer Noelle Théard encourage us to wrestle with in (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race. Featuring the perspectives of 58 people who identify as part of the larger “racial, cultural, and social group generally referred to and known as Black,” the book combines candid memoirs and striking portraits to explore the complexities of Black identity and celebrate an individual’s right to self-identify.

The title (1)ne Drop derives from the “one-drop rule” — a (successful) attempt to define Blackness in America as one drop, or at least 1/32, of Black ancestry for the economic, social, and political purposes of distinguishing a Black person from a White person. I say ‘successful,’ because the one-drop rule still holds cultural weight today, especially with regard to how we value light and dark skin. For this reason, Dr. Blay aims to “challenge narrow yet popular perceptions of what Blackness is and what Blackness looks like.”

“I think the context that we live in shapes the way you identify yourself, and the way others identify you,” says Dr. Blay. And therein lies the power of (1)ne Drop. From Zun Lee, a man who has always identified as Black despite being phenotypically Asian, to Sembene McFarland, a woman whose vitiligo bizarrely blurs other people’s perception of her race, to James Bartlett, a man who is mistaken for Italian, Arab, or Hispanic depending on what US city he’s in, (1)ne Drop narrates a story of Blackness that is not bound by looks, but that is fluid and empowered by the act of self-identification.

Below are 12 portraits of participants, including their self-identification and a piece of their personal story from (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race.

1. La Block – “Biracial/Mixed”

“I always wanted to be darker because I didn’t want to have to tell people that I’m Black. I just wanted them to be able to tell…Now I say that I’m Biracial just because I think it’s important to embrace cultures and I think the language of ‘Biracial’ reflects everything that I am.”

2. Andrew Holmes — “Black”

“I’ve never been put in a situation to have to think about how I identify. I don’t exclude my Biracialness. I fully embrace my Caucasian roots, just as I do my Jamaican roots. When I’m at home and I’m looking at my mom and my dad and my siblings, I don’t necessarily see a Black family or a White family — I just see my family. But if there’s a need for me to bubble in what I am, there’s no hesitation — I bubble in ‘Black.’ That’s just how I feel. I’m definitely not a White guy. People don’t look at me and say, ‘Hey, look at that White man!’”

3. Zun Lee – “Black”

“When I applied to grad school or for jobs, all of a sudden the boxes come up. I had to make a choice, so for the first time, I checked ‘Black.’ And I didn’t think long about it because for me, it was based on personal circumstance. I just chose the box that I felt most at home with because I didn’t relate to any of the other options. From then on, if I was asked, I would answer, ‘I’m Black.’ Of course, people told me I couldn’t do that — that I couldn’t choose that box. But I had spent all of my life being pushed away by people. In Germany, I wasn’t even given the option to check anything because I wasn’t welcomed there. I had no box. For the first time, I was being given the option to identify myself. Now I had a box, and I was happy in that little box.”

4. Deborah Thomas – “Mixed/Jamaican”

“I was telling my students the other day that the most frequent question I get is, ‘What are you?’ People just randomly on the street, ‘What are you?’ I used to get really annoyed and militant about it. I’ve never been sure why people are so bold, because I would never. So I used to respond, ‘Human!’ But now I just try to figure out what it is somebody’s trying to know.”

5. James Bartlett – “Black”

“Most of the time, I can tell — somebody’s either just looking at me or they just flat out ask me, ‘What are you?’ I can’t tell you how many times I get that question. It’s funny, because now most people either say, ‘I thought you were XYZ when I first met you,’ or ‘I didn’t know what you were until you started talking and then I knew you were Black!’”

6. Nuala Cabral – “Black/Mixed/Cape Verdean”

“I may identify as a Biracial person — I’m Black and White — but if people see me as a Black woman, that’s how I’m treated. So I identify as a Black woman because I move through the world as a Black woman.”

7. Melanie Staton – “African American”

“I don’t think ever in my life someone has looked at me like, ‘I think she’s a White girl.’ But I’m not sure people always look at me as African American either. I guess it doesn’t dawn on people that the African American race can come in so many different shades.”

8. Brandon Stanford – “African American”

“My consciousness never really allowed me to think of myself as anything else but Black or a person of African descent. Anyone who has had the opportunity to get to know me never questions my race. They never question me being Black. Never. Regardless of my complexion. But for those who don’t necessarily know me, based on my phenotype and their perception, I’ve had some interesting experiences.”

9. Sumaya Ellard – “Black American Muslim”

“I started covering my hair when I was about 14. It was an adjustment for me because in our society, especially within the Black community, we define ourselves very deeply by our hair. Your hair somehow identifies who you are, how Black you are, how beautiful you are, how polished you are, or your political inclinations. It was an adjustment because it felt like I was taking away part of my identity from people. The hijab itself can be a barrier in people’s perception of you and how well they think they can identify who you are. And yet, I think that’s the beauty of covering. You are forced to deal with yourself and your own self-identification.”

10. Sembene McFarland – “Black/African American”

“A lot of people just look and see skin color. Your skin is White, therefore you’re White. Or are you? One girl said to me, ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you this question but I didn’t feel comfortable asking you because I thought that you might be offended, but are you Black or are you White?’ And I told her, ‘Well, I’m always Black.’”

11. Kaneesha Parsard — “Black/Multiracial”

“I tend to believe that being Black — like choosing to identify as Multiracial — is not about phenotype as much as it’s about feelings of belonging and identification. I’m Black because I feel the memory of the Middle Passage and slavery most strongly. I’m Black because when I look in the mirror I see my mother, her mother, and my aunts. Maybe my reasoning wouldn’t be strong enough for somebody who might have an immediately negative or dismissive response to my phenotype, but our cultural memories have the same roots.”

12. Brett Russel — “Yu’i Korsou (a child of Curaçao)”

“Even though I was born and raised in Curaçao and I spoke the language, at first sight people always thought that I was Dutch. Then, when I came to Holland in 2001, the people saw me as ‘the immigrant.’ All of a sudden, I was ‘the Black guy.’ It was frustrating. There was no explanation for it, and I realized how little I had actually thought about myself in the context of race.”

This post was originally published at PolicyMic and is reprinted here with permission.

The post 12 beautiful portraits of Black identity appeared first on Matador Network.

24 hours of flight in 2 minutes

NATS, a UK-based air traffic management company, put together this absolutely crazy visualization of what all the planes taking off and landing in Europe look like over the course of a day. The busiest areas are obviously the London airports, which basically just look like a blur of neon-blue plasma, followed by Paris, Amsterdam, and Milan. It’s even more mind-blowing if you consider that every single one of those dots contains anywhere from 50-250 people.

Another thing to consider (and I’m sorry for being a Debbie Downer, but hey, NASA’s saying if we don’t fix this shit it’s the end of civilization) is that airplanes account for a huge chunk of our total carbon footprint. The New York Times estimated that if you take 5 long flights (say, New York to Europe) a year, they may account for up to three-quarters of your footprint. Sounds absolutely insane in the abstract, but this video illustrates its truth in a somewhat ominous way.

The post This super trippy visualization shows the crazy amount of people traveling in Europe every day appeared first on Matador Network.

Creative people don't work 9-5

ONE OF THE advantages that comes with working from home, is a flexible work/social routine. I find that I am most productive between the hours of 3pm, and 9pm, which is probably why I’ve had trouble working in offices with traditional a 9am-5pm schedule.

I think there is something to be said about creative use of time, and how it correlates to our productivity. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model for anything in life, why would work hours be any different? My only complaint about this infographic is that there aren’t enough women involved; props to Maya Angelou, but I’d love to see how Margaret Cho breaks up her day, or how Michelle Obama makes it all work, and still has time for her daughters.

If your job didn’t dictate the hours you had to work, what would your personal schedule look like?

Infographic via Info We Trust. H/T Huffington Post.

The post Most of these creative people didn’t work 9-5 [infographic] appeared first on Matador Network.

Losing a loved one while on the road

Photo: Kelsey Hannah

Two weeks ago Mom messaged me on Facebook to say my grandfather had fallen ill. I didn’t think much of it; my grandfather’s been ill several times over the past few years, but he’s tough as nails and hard to beat down.

Within a few hours she replied again: “Candice, he’s gone.”

I was a few weeks into my three-month Greece trip, living on Santorini Island, and I received the message while eating dinner in the Caveland hostel. Milly, one of the hostel volunteers, was talking to me but my heart had fallen down to my stomach, where it lay beating like a jackhammer. “My grandfather died,” I blurted out. It rang out all silly-sounding. What words of comfort can anyone offer to someone who they’ve only known a little over a week? I left my food and went to my room to be alone. Really, that’s all I could do.

My Pop was 94 years old, but I truly thought he’d live forever. He moved into the senior care home shortly after my grandmother passed nearly 20 years ago, and he had stayed there ever since. He was the king of the place; he was a ladies’ man. Even when his legs started failing, he remained sharp-witted and quick-tongued. We were never close, exactly. But it’s been hard to imagine I won’t sit on the edge of his bed with him anymore. He with his suspenders taut, staring down at his clasped thumbs. His falling-apart-at-the-spine Bible tucked into his bed’s headboard. His shelves decorated in his grandchildren’s photos.

“You’re getting to be a big girl!” he’d say, and both Mom and I would pretend it didn’t mean I’d grown plump with beer and pastries on my travels.

I didn’t know whether I should leave Greece and go home. Mom told me not to. If I did, my trip would come to an end and I wouldn’t be back. I decided to stay, but not without guilt. Dad had been away on the road as well, so it left only Mom and my brother Adam at home (and of course, our entire and massive extended family).

So I didn’t. And I didn’t get to say goodbye to the last of my grandparents. And when you have an entire family of 12 aunts and uncles and their spouses and their offspring and their cousins and in-laws, it makes you feel terribly lonely to be on the other side of the world, left to mourn your grandfather’s death inside a cave on Santorini Island.

I am not a girl of prayer; instead, I offered Pop my thanks.

The problem is that I’m not so sure I “mourned.” Writing this post is about as close as it gets, because finally I sit here crying and missing home, missing my parents and brother, missing my family. And the next time I go home, I won’t be going to see my grandfather at the senior care home, and I won’t be lamenting the awkward stares from the other seniors, and life won’t feel entirely different until I realize he’s not there. No more little grannies or grandpas to love me. We’ve lost another part of Newfoundland. A thread to the past that keeps unraveling until the spool eventually spins out.

The day before Pop’s funeral, I hiked a mountain to Ancient Thera. It was hard to forget about my family paying their final respects to a great patriarch inside the teeny Morrisville church — a place of baptisms and burials and marriages for most of the Kendell clan. And it was easy to ignore that he’d be coming to rest next to my grandmother, Sadie, one of the most important role models in my life, even in the short seven years I knew her.

I climbed over loose gravel and ancient stairs and a makeshift route carved out by generations and generations of Greeks. Halfway up the mountain I came across a typical white-walled Santorini church, its cross painted white against the rock face. While my friends Ami and Inbal took photos from the lookout, I pushed a tentative nudge against the blue door. It opened.

Inside: a two-room place of worship with a burning candle and images of the Mother Mary. A collection plate for donations. A dozen half-burned candles. A church even tinier than Morrisville’s Ascension Anglican Church where my family all were.

So I picked up a candle, and fumbled around for a lighter. Lit the candle’s crooked fuse, and placed it burning in the golden offering. I am not a girl of prayer; instead, I offered Pop my thanks. Thank you, Pop, for loving my grandmother and creating my wonderful, sensitive, comical family. Thank you, Pop, for giving me my loving mother. Thank you, Pop, for being an integral part of the domino effect that led me to pursuing my dreams in Greece.

Efxaristo.

This post was originally published at Candice Does the World and is reprinted here with permission.

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16 facts about Amish people

Photo: Jack Mallon

My mom grew up Amish in Pennsylvania before her dad decided to leave his community (more on that later), getting shunned in the process. Given the depictions of my kinfolk in pop culture (Amish Mafia?!), I realize most people probably don’t know much of substance about them in reality.

Amish customs differ in different places, so not all of what I know is even true irrefutably, but here’s to fighting off at least some cultural ignorance with a few facts from a guy who grows a beard and builds shitty wooden spice racks for fun.

Amish is not a race.

When people find out my mom was Amish, they often say, “So you’re Amish?” No. It’s not a blood thing. It’s a cultural / religious lifestyle. Just like you can get back into Korn and JNCOs and thus get shunned by the indie crowd you adopted after middle school.

One size overall does not fit all.

People practice ‘Amishism’ differently in different parts of the country. Where some extreme groups ban colors and belts from their wardrobe, others are down with cell-phone hip clips and baseball caps.

They love volleyball.

Okay, maybe not all of them. But the Amish guys used to roll up their overall cuffs and play lake-beach volleyball on Fridays, and all the English chicks would come scope them out (i.e., my cousins and sisters).

They love playing horseshoes.

At a family reunion I saw the most competitive horseshoe game of my life, during which I bore witness to a ~60-year-old Amish guy freaking out like Macho Man Randy Savage after getting a ringer on his first-ever toss. It was equal parts frightening and comforting, yet almost intrusive on my part, like stumbling upon a majestic primate giving birth in a forest.

Don’t call them Mennonite.

Though they’re fundamentally similar, Mennonites and Amish aren’t the same thing. Mennonites are usually less strict: They typically have cars and use electricity. The men can even be hard to identify, but the women wear un-pleated caps — like yarmulkes, but cuter (several of my cousins married wo-Mennonites).

They have mandatory secular experimentation.

At the age of 16, all the angsty Amish teens pack up their straw hats and bonnets and do Rumspringa, the wild time when they leave their community and go crazy in ‘our’ world, testing the proverbial waters of secularism. What’s really beautiful is that they almost always come back, preferring their simple, tight-knit Amish communities, no more wondering what could be. (According to my grandma, sometimes this happens at 15 “if they can get away with it.”)

They grow religious beards.

After Rumspringa they get baptized and join the Amish Church officially, and the men start growing their beards. When they get married, they stop shaving altogether — excepting the forbidden mustache, resulting in the Lincoln-esque ‘Amish neck-beard.’

They’re all dropouts.

The Amish stop schooling after the eighth grade so they can go into their vocations, including knitting, housework, farming, masonry, and carpentry. Kind of makes you wonder why we bother with another four years.

They linguistically profile us.

You know how people call anyone who speaks Spanish a “Spanish person?” If you’ve ever been referred to as “English” by an Amish person, you know how that feels. Unless they called you a Yankee, their other slang term for the non-Amish.

Yes, they speak Amish.

Low German, Pennsylvania Dutch, or just plain Amish — the Amish language is a dialect of German that’s still not quite German, perhaps similar to Portuguese and Spanish.

They love discount damaged food.

One thing my mom carried on from the Amish is a love of ‘bent-n-dent’ stores — those places where you can buy a dented can of beans or expired Lucky Charms for a quarter. A friend told me he saw the same thing in Missouri, so apparently this extends throughout all our country’s Amish.

Their clotheslines defy physics.

I’ve seen Amish clotheslines run from a barn door all the way to the top of an oak tree a whole damn cornfield away. If you had 8 kids and no electricity, I guess yours would, too.

Electricity? More like selec-tricity.

My grandpa once described his ex-community as not disallowing modernity but staying perpetually 100 years behind it. They could borrow phones, cars, or power tools, just not own them, which he thought was dumb. He eventually got yelled at too many times for rigging up gas-powered appliances and finally just said “Eff ya’ll, I’m out,” and left. Now he lives down the road from them.

They pimp their rides.

Who said a horse-and-buggy can’t be dope? I’ve seen some tricked out with turn signals, headlights, and even boom boxes. Nelly never sounded so right.

They’ve got sweet-ass names.

My grandpa’s name is Cornelius, his neighbor’s name is Enoch, Jedidiah is basically the Amish’s ‘John’ (although John is also their ‘John’), and a family tree shows I’m distantly related to people named Pharabee, Dicey, Lemon, and Spicy.

Weird Al did his research.

If you’re still hungry for more Amish insight, listen to Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise.” That pretty much sums it up.

The post 16 things you didn’t know about Amish people appeared first on Matador Network.

Why give the World Cup to Qatar?

Photo: The Korean Olympic Committee

It’s hard not to love the Olympics and the World Cup. These massive international sporting events are among our best moments as a species: people from all over the world coming together, competing against each other, and then winning or losing generally graciously. We get to hear about countries we’ve never heard of, engage in cultural exchange, and maybe, if you’re an Olympian, have an absolutely insane amount of intercultural sex.

All this is ruined when you bring the politics in. The last few Olympics (London excepted) have been marred by political scandals and human rights abuses. Shortly before the 2008 Summer Olympics, China was brutally cracking down on protests in Tibet and censoring the bejesus out of political dissidents. Then we had the 2014 Sochi Olympics — before the games we saw videos of police and plainclothes thugs beating up homosexuals, and after the event, Russia invaded Crimea.

And we can probably bet that the next three World Cups are going to be rocky. This year’s tournament in Brazil is already marked by massive protests against the absurdity of spending this much money on a sporting event when so many Brazilians live in grinding poverty. The 2018 World Cup is going to be in Russia, so…yeah.

And then the 2022 World Cup is set for Qatar. It’s eight years away, yes, but reports are saying that 900 workers have already died building Qatar’s World Cup infrastructure. Let me repeat that: 900 people have already died, eight years from the start of the event. The International Trade Union Confederation estimates that by the time the event starts, 4,000 migrant workers will have lost their lives.

To give you a sense of comparison, six workers have died in Brazil during the World Cup preparations. There are probably several reasons for the appalling numbers in Qatar, but among them are that migrants have been working in 122-degree heat, their passports and wages are often withheld for months by their employers, and they have overcrowded, unhygienic, and underfed living situations.

The problem, as Marcos Carvalho puts it, is that “governments bid for hosting the World Cup, not countries.” On its face, you’d think that Brazil, the soccer-lovingest nation in a soccer-loving world, would be elated to be hosting the World Cup. But you’d also have to imagine that some futebol-loving fans would nonetheless prefer to have acceptable living conditions instead.

Are we even pretending these events are about the world coming together in peace to play games?

Carvalho’s point stands for the Olympics as well: Both Putin and the Communist Party of China considered their Olympics to be a public relations coup, as a way of saying to the world, “We’re back!” We should hardly be surprised Russia added “…in Crimea!” to that sentence after we all left.

So the question that arises is: Why are we giving world sporting events to Russia, Qatar, and China anyway? Are there any standards to which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA will hold their host countries?

It’s of course insanely simplistic to assume that the Olympics are responsible for Russia’s invasion of Crimea, or China’s authoritarianism, but we could, at the very least, just shame them a little bit. The second “Fundamental Principle of Olympism” in the Olympic Charter states that “the goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

Uh, yeah, where’s that fundamental principle coming in during the selection process, guys? And I understand that FIFA isn’t held to the same standards as the IOC, but you’d hope they’d at least agree that “human dignity” was a thing they should take into account when organizing the World Cup. Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, said, “We have some responsibility, but we can’t interfere in the rights of workers.” Forget ‘human dignity’ — we can’t even get FIFA to engage in basic human decency.

Of course, both the IOC and FIFA have been accused of corruption in their choices of event sites, so you start to wonder how much world peace and harmony really figure into the exercise. The Olympics and the World Cup are immensely expensive events, and given their logistical nature, it would be hard to make them cheap affairs. But as most of the bill is footed by the host country, what if the IOC and FIFA showed that they were committed to at least basic human rights by pulling out of a rights-abusing country once. Just once!

To be fair, we should point out that this tactic could be used against any country, not just Qatar, Russia, or China: If, for example, the Olympics in Salt Lake City had occurred in 2004 instead of 2002, the United States would’ve been right in the thick of the invasion of Iraq, which was, according to the UN Charter, illegal. If the games had been in 2006, it wouldn’t have been too long after Abu Ghraib. The IOC, in totally good conscience, could’ve pulled the Olympic Games from Salt Lake City.

And the thing is, they wouldn’t need to do it again. If that whole “peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” clause turned out to not be bullshit, then countries that bid for the Olympics in the future will want to make sure they meet the standards set by the IOC. If they don’t think they’ll meet those standards, why make the investment, only to have it pulled, possibly causing widespread destabilization in their country?

Countries that didn’t meet those standards, of course, would still be invited to the Olympics. They just wouldn’t have a chance in hell of hosting. That should be an honor reserved for countries that treat their people, all people, with respect.

Ultimately, we need to ask ourselves this question: Are we even pretending these events are about being the only time the entire world can come together in peace and play games with each other? Or should we just cut the charade and acknowledge that their sole purpose is to earn money and prestige for corrupt rulers and elites?

The post Why are we giving world sporting events to Russia, China, and Qatar anyway? appeared first on Matador Network.

8 winter adventures in Quebec

1. Dogsledding

Photo: Scott Sporleder

Take a tour through Quebec’s many wide-open wintry spaces with the friendliest tour guides around. One of Quebec’s original forms of transportation, dogsledding is now one of the funnest ways to explore the Canadian wilderness during the wintertime.

You can learn how to drive a team of huskies as they pull your sled between trees and through the snow. They might look all cuddly and adorable, but these dogs can definitely pull more than your weight. Trying to use your own body weight to get them to stop or slow down is more of a vague suggestion than a command, but these huskies know what they’re doing with or without your help. And it’s clear the dogs are completely in their element, having a blast, and totally at ease in the environment.

2. The best backcountry skiing in the East

Photo: Scott Sporleder

The Chic-Choc Mountains on the Gaspé Peninsula have some of the best backcountry slopes in eastern North America, hands down. Summits within the Chic-Chocs are steep, dropping straight down toward the St. Lawrence River, and get dumped on pretty frequently with lake-effect snow, thanks to the nearby gulf.

Your Chic-Chocs experience can be as rugged or as luxurious as you want. The Auberge Gîte du Mont-Albert makes a great starting point for your backcountry adventure, or you can head to the Chic-Chocs Mountain Lodge, Quebec’s first backcountry mountain lodge — and it’s a fancy one — though there are also some backcountry huts scattered around the wilderness. Snowshoe, hike, or skin up to find your lines, or you can arrange a pick-up with Ski Chic-Chocs, the only cat ski operation within Gaspésie National Park.

3. Perfect snowmobile trails

Photo courtesy of Quebec Original

Quebec was the birthplace of the very first snowmobile club in the world, so they definitely know what they’re doing when it comes to maintaining well-groomed trails just for sledders. There are over 20,000 miles of interconnected trails in the province for snowmobiling.

The Lanaudiere and Mauricie regions in Quebec are frequently referred to as where you’ll find the most “perfect” snowmobile trails on the planet. The town of Saint-Michel-des-Saints in Lanaudiere is a huge motoneige hotspot — you can rent all kinds of snowmobiles here, including a variety of super high-performance sleds, before heading off on the surrounding trail systems that interconnect several small-town stops throughout the region. There are about 3,000 miles of trails here, including the renowned Trail 355 — the Pipeline. Here, you’ll find a roller coaster of well-groomed trails for miles and miles, all of which come with awesome wilderness views.

4. Ice climbing

Photo: Scott Sporleder

During the winter in Quebec, there’s literally no way to avoid the cold, so you might as well embrace it. Montmorency Falls, the highest in the province, is a hugely popular ice climbing spot outside of Quebec City. There are routes up the falls of varying intensity, and it’s not a bad spot for beginners to work on their swings or hop in on a guided lesson/tour up the falls.

Or, head to Northern Quebec for monster ice pillars in brutal locations, like the Mulot (90-100 degree pitches) and Capteur de Reve, one of the most elusive climbing destinations in the area, as it rarely forms climbable lines.

5. Seeing the Northern Lights from an igloo

Photo: peupleloup

When Quebec’s nights get longer and temperatures drop, you can make the trek north to try to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis. One of the best spots to witness the phenomenon is Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, where the open tundra and the absence of city lights make the Northern Lights more pronounced. There are several adventure outfitters in the area to help keep you alive in the -25 C winter and to show you how to navigate using natural markers like the sun, stars, and wind. They’ll also help get you settled into your igloos (some operators will even teach you how to build them) and transport you around the tundra via snowmobile or dog sled.

The Northern Lights might be unpredictable, but even if you miss them, sleeping out in a traditional Inuit igloo with herds of caribou ambling by is a pretty uniquely Arctic experience.

6. Saguenay Fjord National Park

Photo: erwan.lher

Fjords aren’t just for Scandinavia — Quebec’s Saguenay Fjord is the southernmost fjord on the continent and one of the ten longest in the world. There’s tons of wildlife in the surrounding national park, including the endangered peregrine falcon and about a thousand beluga whales that live in the area year-round.

And during the colder winter months, once the water is frozen over, there’s tons of ice fishing for Atlantic cod, rainbow smelt, Greenland halibut, and Atlantic redfish. You can also snowshoe up to higher viewpoints for aerial views of the fjord, or even skin up to some backcountry ski trails for runs with an epic backdrop.

7. Snowshoeing, in the land of snowshoeing

Photo courtesy of Quebec Original

When it comes to traversing the subarctic winter landscape of northern Quebec, there’s no more fitting means than by snowshoe. This form of conveyance has been used in the region for thousands of years, and it was the Inuit and First Nations peoples of Quebec who developed the most advanced shoe designs, prior to the advent of modern manufacturing.

During the spring, you can travel up to one of North America’s great wildernesses: Kuururjuaq National Park, near the tip of the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula, where the Koroc River flows through a forested valley between the 5,000ft peaks of the Torngat Mountains. Here, you can arrange multi-day snowshoe treks that include nights in heated tents and wilderness camps, knowledgeable local guides, and some of the best winter scenery you could hope to find.

8. Because it looks like a fairy tale

St. John Gate, Quebec City. Photo: Rélie

There’s not many cities in North America quite like Quebec City. Walking down Rue du Petit-Champlain or one of the many winding streets in Old Town Quebec during the winter feels a lot like stepping into an animated Disney cartoon, complete with talking wildlife and some kind of sparkly magic dust.

Quebec City is one of the very few walled cities in North America. During the winter, when the St. Louis Gate is illuminated and horse-drawn carriages clop through the snow, it’s easy to forget where you are.

This post was sponsored by Québec Original. To learn more about exploring Quebec’s natural wonders, click here.

The post 8 reasons you need to see Quebec in the winter appeared first on Matador Network.

Paralyzation didn't stop this surfer

Barney Miller is different from most other Australian surfers: He’s quadriplegic. Miller’s got a severe spinal cord injury that paralyzes him from the waist down. Spinal cord injuries affect 3 million people around the world, so Miller is raising awareness for an upcoming race called the Wings for Life World Run, taking place all over the world to raise money and awareness for spinal cord injury research. You can see if there’s a race near you.

For those noticing that he has some use of his arms (which would make him a paraplegic and not a quadriplegic), he was initially diagnosed as a quadriplegic and has since gained some of the use of his arms back. Which makes this even more incredible.

The post Just because you’re paralyzed doesn’t mean you can’t surf appeared first on Matador Network.

Nun sings on The Voice

THE ONLY NUNS I ever knew were the stodgy ones who taught me at the Catholic high school I attended. And none of them even came close to rocking my uniform-compliant penny loafers off like this member of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family did.

I’ve always preferred The Voice to American Idol, for the simple reason that the talent is initially based on the quality of singing, rather than appearance, and marketability. It might not remain as such as the show progresses, but it gives people like Sister Cristina Scuccia, a 25-year old nun from Sicily, the chance to show the world that she is capable of serving God in the coolest of ways.

Unless you speak Italian, you won’t be able to recognize the commentary that follows after the 2:00 mark, but the heat of the performance is felt at the beginning anyway.

The post What comes out of this Italian nun’s mouth will completely blow you away appeared first on Matador Network.