NATURE + ELLES, Franc Ouest Season 2

Review By Christina Keppie

November 5, 2024

Push play and get ready to be captured from the very first moments: a woman, with clear frustration in her voice, ponders the environmental impacts of resource consumption. In today’s world, where issues of climate change permeate all levels of society and steep it in anxiety, it is not surprising that producer Patrick Lac chose, for Season 2 of his podcast and video series Franc Ouest, to pursue stories of hope and inspiration through the experiences of what I am choosing to call sheros, a portmanteau of she and hero.

Funded by the Government of Canada and in partnership with the Réseau-Femmes Colombie Britannique, Franc Ouest is a co-production of the Association des francophones des Kootenays ouest (AFKO), a regional non-profit organization whose mission is to represent francophone cultures and languages in the West Kootenays region of British Columbia through diverse sociocultural, educational, and communal activities and experiences.[1] Aptly titled NATURE + ELLES (NATURE + HER, but combined in French to create ‘natural’), this season was launched in early March 2024 in recognition of International Women’s Day and the Mois de la Francophonie. With over a dozen episodes and a twenty-minute documentary short that speaks to the resiliency of women, this French-language podcast and video series has a wide appeal for public education or simply for pure enjoyment.

More precisely, NATURE + ELLES follows roughly a dozen outdoor enthusiasts from Rossland’s snow-covered peaks, to the Slocan Valley, to all altitudes in between that make up BC’s West Kootenays. It’s easy to perhaps feel lazy or that you haven’t accomplished much in life while listening. Often accompanied with ambient music or natural soundscapes that make you feel transplanted to this idyllic region, the featured women share intimate stories with Lac of the trials and tribulations they, as women, face in becoming leading, world-class athletes and experts in the long list of sports that the West Kootenays offer. But physical prowess is only part of the inspiring picture that Lac paints, for the women of each episode are also successful entrepreneurs, business owners, and activists. Through expertly interwoven storytelling, NATURE + ELLES uses a shared passion for (extreme) sports as a medium to illustrate how women’s committed life choices advance environmental sustainability and equal opportunity. For example, Episode 4 follows anthropologist, activist, and splitboard expert Alexandra Pronovost into deep powder, where she passionately discusses her work with Autonomous Sinixt in their efforts to preserve the fragile cultural ecosystem of Retallack, home of the Sinixt People. In Episode 9, Lac finds himself in Castlegar with heliskiing guide Sarah Meunier who, as Executive Director of Castlegar Parks and Trails, looks to provide her community with agency in protecting a fragile ecosystem while building biking trails. And then there’s engineer and Norco ambassador Stéphanie Dupont who, through her company Mountain Ravens Riding Club – Rossland, aims to empower women and folx across the gender spectrum through the high adrenaline rush of mountain biking.

The sheros of NATURE + ELLES are nothing short of inspirational, but where Franc Ouest misleads the listener is in the diversity of cultural representation. Each shero hails originally from Quebec, and their stories of exodus to the West Coast share the common thread of the pursuit of opportunities that would allow them to engage in their chosen sport/profession at a higher, more competitive level. However, given that NATURE + ELLES features women only from Quebec “who decided to leave the francophonie to come settle in the ouest”[2], the real diversity of francophone cultures of Canada is greatly misrepresented. While there are likely reasons for this gaping cultural oversight, it must be said that Season 2 of Franc Ouest does not advance AFKO’s stated mission as well as it might have, had NATURE + ELLES featured francophone transplants from the Maritime Provinces, Ontario, or elsewhere in Canada. As both a linguistic anthropologist and a francophile, I found myself jumping ahead to the following episode once I found out that each featured shero had once again transplanted from Quebec. I craved more cultural and linguistic diversity and representation of Francophone Canada, considering its timed release to coincide with the Mois de la Francophonie. Surely there are sheros from elsewhere in Francophone Canada.

In fact, linguistic and cultural identity among the sheros seemed to take a backseat in NATURE + ELLES, despite this very strong common denominator. While conversations with Lac about linguistic insecurity, first language attrition, and concerns about transmitting their native French language on to children were certainly present at times, Season 2 of Franc Ouest dedicates most of its efforts, in both the individual episode and its twenty-minute documentary short, to connecting the listener to the empowering stories of women and the BC wilderness.  The true exception to this criticism, if you will, is Episodes 12 and 13, where Lac puts the spotlight on both the youth of BC’s small francophone community (Episode 12) and the Franc Ouest participants and other members of the Réseau-Femmes Colombie-Britannique (Episode 13). Both episodes address issues of French language insecurity outside Quebec with sincerity, demonstrating the challenges children and families face when living as a cultural or linguistic minority in Canada. The richness of this cultural discussion, while so intrinsically linked to the life experiences shared by all Season 2 participants, yet somewhat absent from the individual shero episodes, is an undoubtable result of the increased self-disclosure that happens between women and among women, as suggested by Bedrov and Gable (2022). [3] I wonder what the sheros would have further disclosed had they been interviewed by a woman with whom they had already established a rapport.

Nevertheless, go push play. You’ll most certainly be enriched with a greater empathy for women and enticed to the West Kootenays.

[1] https://www.afko.ca/a-propos/

[2] Author’s translation, https://www.afko.ca/francouest-2/

[3] https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0441