I noticed Christiane for the first time when she gazed at me over her shoulder as we crossed on a bike path. A few days later, we crossed again briefly at the water fountain in the Maurice-Richard Park, still best known as Stanley Park despite the Rocket’s eight cups! I found her tall. Her inline skates were for something in this impression. We hardly exchanged a few words, but I gave her a card with the contact details of my project, hoping she would later volunteer.

We met for this article on Perry Island. Christiane has been living nearby in Bordeaux for two years. Being a very active person, she enjoyed the cold weather last winter and the surroundings of the island to practice off-trail cross-country skiing on the frozen river.

While talking, we found some similarities in our life trajectories — born in Abitibi, arrival with the family in the West Island at an early age and roughly twelve years each as a resident of Plateau Mont Royal —, despite fairly different routes.

After studying communications studies, she turned to fashion and confection work. She has worked as a freelancer for many costume workshops, theater groups, etc. She has contributed to the creation of masks for Alegria, one of the productions that launched the Cirque du Soleil. It was during this mandate that she discovered a taste for work in three dimensions, such as the development of puppet accessories. She currently contributes to Toruk, the next Cirque du Soleil show based on the film Avatar by James Cameron. This is a big project that will start touring in the fall of 2015.

Mother of two teenagers who were raised in the Laurentians, she managed not to work summers while maintaining regular commitments the rest of the year. It was after her separation from their father that she arrived in Bordeaux. Since the youth are at a local high school, but the parents share custody, a home base in Montreal not far from Highway 15 seemed appropriate as the father still lives in the north.

I thought that the couple lived quite far from the city to come to work in the cultural sector. She then explained that her former companion was working in a totally different sector. When she told me his profession, I realized that he was a friend of one of my brothers! In fact, Christiane had studied with him in high school and also knows my youngest brother.

Small world ... As I have three brothers, she still has one left to meet!