The French Woman and The View

The place we've been camping for ten years is Sandbanks Provincial Park. It's in Ontario, but a lot of people from Quebec camp there, because it has the best beach for miles (kilometers) around. Any time we're there, probably eighty percent of the other campers are Francophone. 

And my goodness, I am not down with cultural stereotyping, but by all accounts (not all, my account and my friends', so, like, a couple dozen accounts at best) they are a surly bunch. I smile at everyone I walk by at most times, but even more when we're at camp, out in a beautiful natural setting, and united by our messy beach hair and loads of lawn chairs and coolers -- should we not perhaps exchange a fraternal glance? Apparently not. I would be left feeling kind of dumb, slightly hurt, but mostly just confused.

No one is obligated to smile back, of course. At a certain point, though, it just became compulsive to see if the pattern would be maintained. The few people who smiled and said good morning or hello or stopped to admire our friends' dog? All English-speaking. 

What were the rules, I wondered? Could they tell I was an Anglophone? Did they not smile at each other, either? Were they just too reserved and sophisticated? Was it me specifically? I experimented with not smiling at anyone, but it felt wrong, so I just got used to the routine. I did think of my friend Janis telling me about her father-in-law who would go out on New Year's Day and say "Happy New Year!" to everyone he met, and if they didn't reply he'd say "Well go to hell then!" cheerfully, but I didn't do it. 

The first full day we were there, everyone got a bit of a later beach start than usual - some people went for a walk on the dunes, Eve and I were awake until past three a.m. so we slept in, and the result was that we weren't down as early as usual to set up our shelters. Our friend Michelle was there first, so she set up with lots of room for the rest of us. Then she texted just before we got there that a large group had set up right behind her. Okay, that's allowed. When we got there, it did seem a little weird, since they had one of those huge four-post beach canopy things, and there wasn't a huge space behind Michelle, and there were other areas open on the beach. But whatever, we set up a couple more shelters and got on with our day.

Then when the last family in our party showed up and started setting up, a woman from the group behind came up and asked them if they could not set up their tent there because it would interfere with her group's view. We all stood there a little flummoxed by the borderline audacity - they could have set up closer to the water! Their shelter wasn't even pegged down, they could just move it! We would never in a million years ask other people to move, that's not how any of this works! - but my husband, who is polite and conciliatory, found a spot so we would be more of a crescent than a half circle, and we went on with our day. It was only really worth mention because we rarely run into disputes with anyone on the beach.

In their defense, it's a heck of a view

But for the rest of the week, obviously, any time someone put something down in front of you you would have to say "But my view!", and if you were standing in front of someone you would say "oh pardon me, am I blocking your view?" And Eve coined the best phrase, which she said Michelle should have used since she was there first and they set up directly behind her - "Bitch, I AM the view." If I'd seen them again I would have thanked them for the days of amusement. 

This dude blocked my view AND didn't smile back at me when I went past him to get to the water. Hmph.

Because this might be coming off more mean-spirited than I mean it to, if you need a chaser please enjoy this post where I almost asked a Montreal waitress to marry me, and this picture of our dear friend Dan who lives in Quebec and can tell me to fuck off out of his view any time.