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Editor’s note: Trevor Williams is traveling in Quebec for research on a special report looking at the province’s economic and trade ties with Georgia in advance of the SEUS/Canadian Provinces Alliance Conference and its return to Savannah 15 years after its founding. The reporting trip is sponsored by the Consulate General of Canada in Atlanta.
I became a time traveler this week in Quebec.
Remember the days, those few long months ago, when everyone felt obligated to inform you if they had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19, then gave you option to bow out of an upcoming meeting?
That’s what happened after one of my Tuesday meetings, and it colored the entire rest of my trip. Multiple engagements were canceled or moved to virtual, even after my obligatory rapid test — inexplicably still required for foreign visitors or America citizens returning to the U.S. — came back negative. In other cases, I was lucky enough to complete factory visits behind an N-95 mask at a distance from my interlocutors.
I have no problem with the precautions; I think it’s smart to be safe. But coming from Georgia, regaining that muscle memory — of mask-wearing, of checking with everyone about their exposure tolerance — was kind of like being in a COVID twilight zone. And this was heightened all the more by the unseasonably cold weather and the gray landscape’s stubborn refusal to produce any buds or blossoms. Quebec is blessed with beautiful natural wonders, but between the clouds, the drizzle and the cold, I had to work a bit to see them, until Thursday, when the sun finally made an appearance.
In other words, this was another taste of COVID winter; I won’t be sad to be transported back to Georgia spring.