In January, Gérald Le Gal left us due to an aggressive cancer. Surrounded by those he loved, perfectly lucid and freed from all suffering, he bade his farewells to his loved ones, clear-eyed, while revisiting a few of his most unbelievable stories.

The life of this “great laugher and luminary”, as his daughter Ariane affectionately describes him, was one of unceasing beginnings. Teacher, development agent, commercial fisher, lecturer and co-host – with Ariane – of Télé-Québec’s televised series Coureurs des bois, Gérald Le Gal practised a thousand and one trades in Quebec, Canada and abroad. While he kept reinventing himself non-stop, his love of nature and its creatures’ harmonious relationship with him remained his greatest passion. For example, it should be mentioned that Gérald organized a flight from Nunavut for a goose which had missed its migration.

In 2013, Gérald Le Gal founded Gourmet Sauvage. This little business, which he left to Ariane, his only daughter, and to his son-in-law Pascal Benaksas-Couture, carry out the gathering and transformation of edible wild plants in Quebec, for culinary uses. In 2019 he published – again with Ariane – the book Forêt : Identifier, cueillir, cuisiner (Forest: identify, gather, cook). This guide to identification permits rediscovery of the forgotten treasures of our wilderness.

“A lover of his territory, an adventurer of the kind no longer made, and an extraordinary storyteller, Gérald was, more than anything, a teacher as well as a headstrong settler. He carried within himself a desire to live his truth and a great liberty. The biggest lesson he left with me was always to live in terms of the experiences and the learnings, never in terms of the results. Throughout his life, he refused the comfort of success. As soon as a project was up and running, he left for other adventures so as to remain in a learning situation. That explains why he accumulated a greater-than-usual quantity of knowledge and skills and managed to touch so many people.”

The lost-knowledge adventurer

Gérald didn’t just travel, he snooped around the territories. A soon as his feet hit the ground of the new place, he was off to meet Indigenous people in order to fill himself with ancestral knowledge. From the Great North to Ontario’s boreal forests by way of Quebec’s ocean shores, Gérald got into contact with the Ojibway, Inuit and Innu people. He spent months in the forest learning the survival methods of the Indigenous peoples.

“He had a natural desire to bring to life the knowledge that was being lost,” Ariane states. “He was an Indiana Jones, a great oak to lean on and an immense library of knowledge. I received a phenomenal number of tributes from people whose life paths had completely changed course after having been put into contact with the legacy he left us,” she notes.

Wild gathering

Gérald is also behind a small economy which did not exist in Quebec 30 years ago. Even today, we find nothing comparable around the world.

“Wild gathering is well organized in Quebec and we owe it largely to him. The best thing is that he never gave himself the credit. He was always surprised to receive statements of gratitude. He wished above all to transmit the love of the living and invite us to permit ourselves a greater connection with our territory. In my father’s case, that happened through the lens of wild gathering. The underlying goal was, however, to learn to know our territory better so as to learn to love it and, ultimately, to make ourselves its guardians.”

On Saturday, February 3, family members from all over the country and from Europe, as well as many friends, gathered in the former church of La Conception, now the Private Room, to celebrate Gérald’s extraordinary life. At the same time, dozens of people throughout Quebec, and also in Ontario, New Brunswick and France, were in the forest to pay homage to Gérald. During her touching eulogy, Ariane confided to those present that Gérald had taken advantage of his last few moments to teach them a final lesson: that of approaching death like a new adventure.

“His look spoke of a real acceptance, not resignation, and even a curiosity for what would be next for him,” Ariane confided.

We have had the pleasure and the great honour of publishing some of his writings. You can find them at tremblantexpress.com/en/author/glegal

More from this author by clicking on his photo below.