Shooting b-roll in Parc national du Bic near Rimouski ©Carolyne Weldon

After a month of job (and soul) searching in Montreal, it was with a definite skip in my step I grabbed my still unpacked suitcase and hit the road for a short but sweet tango with the Olympic Flame across the beautiful province of Quebec.

I was off to Rimouski, in North Eastern Quebec, to meet up with videographer extraordinaire/CTC Olympic torch reporter Chris Wheeler. Chris has been following the Olympic torch relay since day 1, and producing short, fast-paced videos in all major destinations along the way.

One of the many great things about Chris is that he happens to speak right about the same amount of French as a tree that falls in a B.C. forest (when no one is around to hear it). The reason why that’s so great, in my books, is that if this dapper Vancouverite was any savvier in French than he currently is, I’d never have ended up tagging along as his travelling French consultant for La Belle Province. (Note to all Anglo travel writers: drop the French lessons! Drop them cold!)

Between Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec City, Wendake and Montreal, Chris and I chased and courted her Hotness the Olympic Flame, spying on her every move: from torch to torch; from cauldron to cauldron.

My job (aside from an inordinate amount of waving for the camera with red Olympic mittens on), was mainly to help Chris with French interviews, supplying translations and subtitles here and there, and generally doing my best to convey to him the myriad subtleties of Rimouski bar talk and poutine commentary and description. Fun times.

Well, believe it or not, the Quebec videos are already up. I don’t know whether Chris, who’s a mean machine and a crew of one, edits in his sleep, or carries a very small and very quiet Final Cut Pro expert in his suitcase, but his turnaround times are ridiculous and for that alone, he deserves major props. So here they are: big ups, Wheeler!

For the time being, you can see the videos on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics official website‘s main page under “latest videos.” I can’t promise they’ll be live there forever, but they are definitely worth checking out, there or someplace else, if for the only reason that my red-mitten wave is now flirting with perfection, and that I get to say stuff whilst driving a car in one of the episodes. I mean, come on. Anybody who knows anything about my driving history should be at little curious as to how that went down.

Also, because Weldon fingers can never stay idle long, I’ve collected some photographs you might be curious to see. I especially enjoyed taking the ones of Wendake’s celebration, near Quebec City, with Grand-Chief Max Gros-Louis and hundreds of school kids who probably had the lunchbreak of their lives.

As far as I’m concerned, a traditional flame-blessing ceremony involving a long feather, a stunning Mohawk waterpolo princess (Kahnawake’s Waneek Horn Miller) and opaque curls of burning sage all add up to a great morning. Even under the mean December rain. So stay posted. There’s lots more good stuff to come.

Flames crossing under the rain ©Carolyne Weldon