The wild North Shore of Quebec, my first mother.

Last weekend, I returned to my hometown of Baie-Comeau, Quebec, for the first time in 31 years. We moved away when I was 10, and except for one brief visit at 16, I never went back.

My childhood there was a mix of wonder and shadow. I remembered the forest behind our house, magical and alive, where I felt connected to my soul. I also remembered places of pain, marked by trauma. Beyond those fragments, most of my memories were blurry.

I wasn’t sure the land of your birth really calls you home. I had never felt that pull—until now. Now that I long for roots, a place to anchor more deeply than ever before.

Crossing on the ferry from Matane, the salty wind on my face, I couldn’t look away as the shoreline came into view. My eyes didn’t recognize the landmarks, but my body did. Tears streamed down my face as my chest tightened with recognition. It felt like an ancient part of me was awakening.

That first night, we ate at the Manoir Hotel overlooking the wide Saint Lawrence. The horizon glowed pink and indigo, the river so vast it looked like the ocean. I slept so well that night, as though the land itself held me.

The next morning, Paul and I walked to the hidden beach behind my childhood home. The resin-scented air, the clear glassy water, the mossy rocks streaked with red and green—it was all breathtaking. My body softened into a calm I hadn’t known in adulthood.

Later, I felt called to the Manic-2 dam, where my father once worked. Standing underneath the river, inside the dam, the roar of water thundered through turbines, mist cooling my skin. I felt the truth in it: water, like energy, becomes powerful when directed with intention.

The next day, I explored the town alone. At the cathedral where I was baptized, the scent of incense, the light through stained glass—all of it brought peace instead of heaviness. At my grandmother’s house and old elementary school, my body remembered what my mind did not: my throat tightened, my chest ached, grief moving through me without words.

Finally, I returned to the house where I grew up, at the edge of the forest. The air was rich with the smell of pine and damp earth. Memories rushed in—my mother’s voice carrying through the trees, calling us in for dinner, the tree where I used to talk to fairies. I lay down on the mossy floor, cool and springy beneath me, while sunlight flickered through the canopy. The forest embraced me, excitedly welcoming me back home. My nervous system stilled; my mind was quiet. There was only presence.

That evening, we gathered for a family reunion. Cousins, aunts, uncles—faces I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. We sang, we danced, we hugged, warmth flooding through my body. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed this love. When I left Quebec at 20, I thought I had to leave everything behind in order to find myself. And I did—I left the pain, but I also left the joy. That night, the joy returned, and with it, a piece of myself I had forgotten.

Returning to Baie-Comeau allowed me to make peace with my roots—the beauty and the pain, the light and the shadow. I now see why my soul chose that place to be born: on the edge of wilderness, tethered both to the earth and to divine light. The wild, rugged North Shore is not just where I come from—it is who I am.

I am her, and she is me.