the heart of North American civilization. He wonders what archaeologists will think when they unearth this mailbox in three thousand years. Will they grasp the function of this object, or will they believe they have found an altar of some obscure, minor sect?
There are pedestrians hurrying by, brushing past him. A bad spot for daydreaming. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and pulls three envelopes out of his shirt pocket. He has written more than five hundred letters to his mother over the last four years, and he knows by heart the postal code of even the smallest post office between Lake of the Woods and Whitehorse. According to his calculations, Sarah must right now be prowling the vicinity of Lesser Slave Lake, so the three letters are addressed to GeneralDelivery in Little Smoky ( T0H 2Z0 ), Triangle ( T0G 1E0 ) and Jean Côté ( T0H 2E0 ).
He throws the letters into the mailbox and crosses the street, wondering what the weather may be like in the southern Yukon. Behind the heavy glass doors of the library the temperature is decidedly Greenlandian. The door closes slowly and the heat wave is soon reduced to a faint simmer on the other side of the glass.
Noah crosses the deserted hall and passes the book-loan counter, where the clerk is reading
La Route d’Altamont.
Near the photocopiers he chances upon a big bearded man occupied with some strange business. He has emptied the recycling bin onto the floor and is in the process of arranging hundreds of spoiled photocopies into different piles.
“Tom Saint-Laurent!” Noah cries out happily. “What are you doing?”
“Well, as you can see, I’m analyzing the recycling bins.”
“I thought you were in the Laurentians on a fishing trip.”
“I was,” he confirms, with a troubled look. “But wouldn’t you know it, yesterday afternoon, while I was waiting for the trout to bite, I began to think about paper. Have you ever asked yourself what ratio of information these recycling bins contain? What it is that people photocopy? What they throw away andwhy? What proportion of virgin paper goes directly into recycling?”
He waves a thick stack of paper that has gone through the viscera of the photocopy machines without receiving a speck of polymer-carbon.
“What fascinating refuse—virgin paper! ‘Anti-refuse’ would be a more accurate term, seeing how it ends up in the trash without having been used. And not just anti-refuse but ‘anti-artifact’ too—an object that in itself conveys no information.”
“So what you’re saying is, you jumped into your four-by-four and drove back to Montreal to do some anti-archaeology in the recycling bins.”
“Actually, I was just about bored to tears. Fishing isn’t really my thing … What about you? What are you doing here in the middle of July?”
“This is the best air conditioning in town,” Noah says, leaving Thomas Saint-Laurent to his research and heading up to the fifth floor.
As an apprentice archaeologist, Noah would ordinarily be expected to work in Section EF (American History) or Section G (Geography and Anthropology), but he prefers the tranquility of Section V (Naval Sciences, Travel Narratives and Sea Serpents). Even during the worst end-of-term rush, this forgotten corner on the last floor remains the most underused part of the library. Once the term is over, hardly anyone ever goes there—not even a librarian or a janitor—and youcan spend weeks there without meeting another soul. No busybodies or snoops or spies. You’re free to gaze at the ceiling and daydream, scribble a few poems, doze off on the table, read anything you like any way you like, including shirtless.
Noah has made a personal haven out of a large mahogany table located in the very centre of the floor. For months now he’s been leaving his books, papers, pencils and glasses there, as if this piece of furniture were reserved exclusively for his use. But today, quite unexpectedly, Noah finds that a girl has dropped anchor
There are pedestrians hurrying by, brushing past him. A bad spot for daydreaming. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and pulls three envelopes out of his shirt pocket. He has written more than five hundred letters to his mother over the last four years, and he knows by heart the postal code of even the smallest post office between Lake of the Woods and Whitehorse. According to his calculations, Sarah must right now be prowling the vicinity of Lesser Slave Lake, so the three letters are addressed to GeneralDelivery in Little Smoky ( T0H 2Z0 ), Triangle ( T0G 1E0 ) and Jean Côté ( T0H 2E0 ).
He throws the letters into the mailbox and crosses the street, wondering what the weather may be like in the southern Yukon. Behind the heavy glass doors of the library the temperature is decidedly Greenlandian. The door closes slowly and the heat wave is soon reduced to a faint simmer on the other side of the glass.
Noah crosses the deserted hall and passes the book-loan counter, where the clerk is reading
La Route d’Altamont.
Near the photocopiers he chances upon a big bearded man occupied with some strange business. He has emptied the recycling bin onto the floor and is in the process of arranging hundreds of spoiled photocopies into different piles.
“Tom Saint-Laurent!” Noah cries out happily. “What are you doing?”
“Well, as you can see, I’m analyzing the recycling bins.”
“I thought you were in the Laurentians on a fishing trip.”
“I was,” he confirms, with a troubled look. “But wouldn’t you know it, yesterday afternoon, while I was waiting for the trout to bite, I began to think about paper. Have you ever asked yourself what ratio of information these recycling bins contain? What it is that people photocopy? What they throw away andwhy? What proportion of virgin paper goes directly into recycling?”
He waves a thick stack of paper that has gone through the viscera of the photocopy machines without receiving a speck of polymer-carbon.
“What fascinating refuse—virgin paper! ‘Anti-refuse’ would be a more accurate term, seeing how it ends up in the trash without having been used. And not just anti-refuse but ‘anti-artifact’ too—an object that in itself conveys no information.”
“So what you’re saying is, you jumped into your four-by-four and drove back to Montreal to do some anti-archaeology in the recycling bins.”
“Actually, I was just about bored to tears. Fishing isn’t really my thing … What about you? What are you doing here in the middle of July?”
“This is the best air conditioning in town,” Noah says, leaving Thomas Saint-Laurent to his research and heading up to the fifth floor.
As an apprentice archaeologist, Noah would ordinarily be expected to work in Section EF (American History) or Section G (Geography and Anthropology), but he prefers the tranquility of Section V (Naval Sciences, Travel Narratives and Sea Serpents). Even during the worst end-of-term rush, this forgotten corner on the last floor remains the most underused part of the library. Once the term is over, hardly anyone ever goes there—not even a librarian or a janitor—and youcan spend weeks there without meeting another soul. No busybodies or snoops or spies. You’re free to gaze at the ceiling and daydream, scribble a few poems, doze off on the table, read anything you like any way you like, including shirtless.
Noah has made a personal haven out of a large mahogany table located in the very centre of the floor. For months now he’s been leaving his books, papers, pencils and glasses there, as if this piece of furniture were reserved exclusively for his use. But today, quite unexpectedly, Noah finds that a girl has dropped anchor
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